That’s what happens when you toss that live lobster into a pot of boiling water. It’s now a scientific fact. You can scratch one more urban legend off the list and put it on your list of casual hate crimes committed by human beings against nature.
Two researches at Queens School of Biological Sciences in Belfast did a controlled experiment to test this hypothesis using crabs as research subjects, Science Daily reports.
Crabs naturally like dark, secluded hiding places. Professor Bob Elmwood and Barry McGee decided to see if crabs could be dissuaded out of their dark homes under big rocks by a mild electrical shock.
Sure enough, it only took a couple of shocks before the crabs stayed far, far away from home. Two shocks to be more precise. TWO!
Thus, crabs and lobsters and all crustaceans feel pain. They have plenty of nerves. OF COURSE THEY DO. How could anybody have possibly thought otherwise?
Just you wait. This will be just like the global warming deniers. They’ll roll out a dozen contrary experiments proving otherwise.
The crab-lobster-shrimp lobby in Washington will spend a fortune on advertising, desensitizing us to these mere cretins, petty and inconsequential creatures not deserving of any empathy. Ego wins every time, doesn’t it? How can a billion people be so wrong, every time they boil live crustaceans?
Try it yourself, why don’t you. Put one big floppy arm in that boiling water and see how the lobster reacts. Hell, turn him upside down and dunk his distended eyes into the boiling water.
Let your kids do it for a science experiment at school. Do it for their birthday party. Make videos of all the children laughing and playing with the live lobsters.
It will be a YouTube sensation.
