[partycoder]

If theory of mind is the issue, some pigs display some attributes that could be interpeted as theory of mind.

In any case, your argument fell apart because there is no metric you can pick to justify what we do to animals other than: it is wrong but it is the least of evils right now (from a legal standpoint), which is different to "humans are more important than pigs".

Your argument is a slippery slope that leads to very dark places: can the rich experiment on the poor?, can we experiment on the disabled or mentally ill?... if being "important" justifies abuse, we would live in a world of abuse.

That is important because when simulations can solve the problem, we could outlaw experimentation in-vivo.