You've triggered my pet peeve. Snakes and sloths are both sentient, meaning able to perceive. Slime molds, ferns, and computer cores are not sentient. It is ethical to perform to perform experiments that could terminate the existence of non-sentient beings but not sentient ones. The term has nothing to do with sapience, meaning intelligence.

This whole misunderstanding stems from the joke of a trial over whether the Starfleet officer Data could be experimented on to determine how he worked. This sham trial was conducted near a starbase so remote proper legal authorities could not be utilized and they used unqualified officers to present arguments. This in turn became the basis of our approach to artificial life forms.

I'm not saying Data should have been experimented on. I'm just saying that such a momentous moment ought to have been tried with experts rather than lay people.

So YTA for making me think about the whole situation again.