Since when is an animal's physiology similar to a humans?
Since they differentiated from our common genetic ancestor.
They aren't
They are.
and all the testing does is torture animals to give scientists a best guess at how things will affect humans
Germ theory is a "best guess". Gravity is a "best guess". Evolution by natural selection is a "best guess". Animal models are a "best guess", but they are
statistically significant nonetheless.
I doubt most scientists spend the better part of a decade becoming top minds in their field to have some scientific illiterate denigrate their findings as "guesswork".
Also, though there are computer models that can now be employed, some universities continue to use and torture animals because of the funding they receive to do so. It's more about money than research. You don't have to believe PETA to know this stuff. You don't even have to use PETA as a source.
Computer models are insufficient insofar as they are unable to account for interactions between variables on the micro scale. Scientists don't hurt animals to get their jollies off. Moreover, they don't like spending money they don't have to. If computer models worked, scientists would use them. End of story.
I'm happy your wife has a "no whiskers" policy in her lab but that doesn't negate the fact that even if scientists follow guidelines, animals are still tortured. Why not offer humans the opportunity to participate in these tests for money? At least they'd have a choice in the matter. But it isn't allowed because it isn't safe.
A rather myopic view of ethics. Human testing exists, but only after the methods are shown to be relatively safe through animal trials. The reason we don't have human testing in initial-stage research is not because it is deadly or dangerous, but because the only people who volunteer themselves would be poor. Last I checked, exploiting desperation was unethical as well.
I'm sorry, but your argument is bunk.
Scientists are everyday people, just like you and me. They don't take pleasure in using animal models. They do it because they believe the ends justifies the means, and they do so within the confines of a convoluted system of ethics designed to make the process as comfortable as possible for the test subjects.
These guidelines are prohibitively convoluted in a great many cases. My wife uses bacteria models because no such guidelines exist to protect the lowly salmonella bacterium. The lab across from her deliberately mutates houseflies because no such ethics guidelines protect insects. If a laboratory is found to be in breach of NIH ethics standards, not only do they lose their funding, the entire university suffers penalties.
Taking this into account, computer models would, by any objective measure, be preferable to animal models. From the perspective of the NIH, it would cost them less to fund individual research grants. From the perspective of the scientists, this would mean a more grant applications getting funded. It would also mean no red tape. No fines. Lower cost. Less time and effort. Less lab space. Less research techs. No dispensing of biological waste. Scientists would be all over a computer model...
if it worked.
But it
doesn't work.
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of Gods and Men and Renegade 
