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Neanderthal ‘minibrains’ grown in dish
- TimMurnaghan 8y ago... wiring the organoids to robots ... = daleks
- King-Aaron 8y agoObviously this is a long, long way from a functional brain being grown. But I have to wonder where the moral line is drawn when you're talking about growing an organ that (may-or-may-not) hold the ability to form a level of consciousness.
- alfredallan1 8y agoIf I may be so bold, I think that line will get pushed farther out every generation - who will simply accept past work as the then status quo ante. Just a hundred years back, cloning would have been considered morally reprehensible. Today, many people accept it as fact. Each generation only pushes the boundary just a bit (in the grand scheme of things) further; and only things far beyond the immediate realm of practical possibility seem thoroughly abominable. There’s also the possiblity that the distaste that a culture/era has for such things is based on the extent to which it has been raised with religious values - which typically tend to deem the work of creation to be in the domain of the divine, not the mortal. As either distance from organized religion grows, or religions adapt their values, future generations exposed to such teachings may find such things to be acceptable as long as they’re not used for “bad” purposes.
- XorNot 8y agoWhen was cloning considered morally reprehensible? By who's standard are you taking as an authority here?
- alfredallan1 8y agoHere’s an article from as late as 1997. “Why Human Cloning Is Immoral” https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=180 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?rec... 2001 - "Catholic Church Condemns Human Cloning" https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2001-11-26-22-catholic-66407622/549352.html https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2001-11-26-22-catholic-6640... 1998 - Churches Condemn Plan to Clone Humans https://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0113/011398.feat.feat.2.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1998/0113/011398.feat.feat.2.html I never spoke as an authority, just made some remarks.
- lostlogin 8y agoSurveys of populations have been shown opposition to the idea too. The idea that the Catholic Church might be considered a moral authority to any significant number of people is troubling. https://news.gallup.com/poll/5098/americans-oppose-idea-human-cloning.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/5098/americans-oppose-idea-huma... https://news.gallup.com/poll/5098/americans-oppose-idea-human-cloning.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/5098/americans-oppose-idea-huma...
- conception 8y ago"The idea that the Catholic Church might be considered a moral authority to any significant number of people is troubling." You mean outside of the 1.2 billion Catholics?
- lostlogin 8y agoNo, them specifically. The recent developments in Ireland seem to me to be a result of people questions the word of that institution, and that’s a good thing.
- FrozenVoid 8y agoThere no explicit need for a "Complete brain". Here is example of functional network with 25k neurons: Rat brain cells organize, learn to control electrodes and fly a fighter jet in a simulation. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.h...
- everdev 8y agoThe quick answer is to say it's not ethical. But what if the brain is given full autonomy and ability to communicate with others and then let the brain decide if it wants an organic or machine body?
- opportune 8y agoIn several decades it may be possible to transplant such a brain into the body of a brain-dead human (preferably an infant Neanderthal brain into a brain dead human infant), which could alleviate a lot of ethical concerns from the start
- dqpb 8y agoI disagree. The quick answer is to say it is ethical.
- everdev 8y agoWhy? If you create a conscious brain and leave it in a container, keeping it perpetually alive just to study it, that sounds pretty cruel. I'd imagine it would be like being in a conscious coma. Lack of social interaction is known to be damaging to people, so who knows what kind of distress an isolated brain might be in.
- candiodari 8y agoI don't think you should be so quick to call something moral or not. Let's take your statement and apply it to a few real life situations ... So what you're saying is we should take anything with a brain, figure out what it's answer would be to "do you want to be alive ?" and then support that decision ? Boy, you must hate abortion ... (just saying that those things obviously have a brain, and every last kid on the planet will say they want to be alive, so those embryos being aborted can be easily assumed to either be conscious or at least said to be rapidly becoming conscious, and we can be likewise sure they want to be alive as well. Human embryos have functional brains 20 days after conception, which is just barely after a woman would become aware of a pregnancy, and we support abortion up to 6 months or even later, at which point a human embryo has a brain with more functional neurons than almost any animal on the planet, and more than every dog, cat, primate, dolphin) (and just to defend this research, any research that gets us closer to being able to grow specific tissues - especially neural tissue - has the potential to alleviate the suffering of a great many people that have damaged nerves and/or brains) But we all know how we judge morals in practice. Things that can complain get preference. Brains in jars won't complain. Nobody will ever make a picture of them showing big eyes behind bars. There will never be a scream or panic reaction available in full-color video of them. So they'll be abused, even tortured, even for very little gain. Because that's how humans judge morality ... in practice. If you believe otherwise, good luck explaining the morality of abortion.
- dqpb 8y agoWhere is the moral line drawn when it comes to using vague morality arguments to discourage research?
- filoeleven 8y agoThe same question should be asked about research animals today then, as detailed in a sibling thread. “Brain grown on a dish” sounds preferable to “rat with a drilled skull.”
- dnadler 8y agoThis question is asked and discussed rigorously any time a study that involves animal testing is proposed. At least it is in a scientific research setting in the US. There are boards dedicated to ensuring that the potential scientific benefit is sufficient to warrant whatever suffering the animals will endure. Obviously this is subjective, but the point is that these issues are considered in detail.
- sametmax 8y agoIf you submitted a human to the same level of suffering, it would be considered torture, so this is kinda moot. Our systems are currently considering animals as not remotly as sensible or worth as us. This is true for food production, science, pets, etc. Actually our entire society exists because we delegate part of our suffering to other organisms, including other humans. Be it with pollution, war, drug testing, cattling, slavery... It would be foolish to pretend to have the moral ground unless one lives a very primitive life, but I think it's important to know the implied cost of our ways. It's saner, and more honest. As an annecdote, I recently worked on a software dedicated to study epilespy episods on mouses. The experiment induced epilespsy on the subjects. When discussing about this, the scientist handling the mouses told me not to worry because the ethics commity was making sure it was done properly. At this moment I though we, as a specy, add a dark humour touch to every thing we do.
- vinchuco 8y agohttps://youtu.be/vjuQRCG_sUw https://youtu.be/vjuQRCG_sUw
- jlebrech 8y agonow all we need is to connect them to a virtual grid of sorts. some kind of brain over silicon tech.
- mikaelgyth 8y agoBAAS (Brains As A Service). Good idea, know plenty who could use it.
- himom 8y agoFuture home of The Island of Doctor Moreau or a Four-Assed Monkey (s01e05). Srsly: At some point, a sizable-enough brain develops a degree of consciousness. Are we really going to test the mad scientist hypothesis that your brain might be in a Petri dish somewhere and that your senses are artificial? NM: https://nypost.com/2015/08/19/scientist-creates-99-complete-human-brain-in-lab-dish/ https://nypost.com/2015/08/19/scientist-creates-99-complete-...
- pickpuck 8y ago> Several of these differences mirror what Muotri has found studying neuronal development in the brains of children with autism. "I don't want families to conclude that I'm comparing autistic kids to Neanderthals, but it's an important observation," says Muotri, who has a stepson with autism. "In modern humans, these types of changes are linked to defects in brain development that are needed for socialization. If we believe that's one of our advantages over Neanderthals, it's relevant."
- wintorez 8y agoIs this ethical?
- itchyjunk 8y agoCould you elaborate? What part do you find to be unethical and for what reasons? What alternate ethical studies do you recommend to gain the same information being gained here?
- wintorez 8y agoThat wasn't a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious if this is ethical or not.
- vinchuco 8y agoNot if it makes enough people uncomfortable.
- dqpb 8y agoLike minority groups having equal rights? That's been making a lot of people uncomfortable for a long time.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't introduce generic flamebait into threads. That's in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- dqpb 8y agoI honestly don't know why my comment is downvoted and flagged. The OP comment that it's not ethical "if it makes enough people uncomfortable" is absurd. You can tell that it's absurd because defining ethics by majority rule has many obvious problems. The most obvious problem is shown when a majority declares that minorities shouldn't have equal rights. This happens all the time, and outsiders would never point and say: "well giving minorities equal rights must not be ethical because it makes so many people uncomfortable" So please, @dang, since you're in the mood to lecture me, can you explain why a short and uncomplicated counterexample to an absurd statement is flamebait? Also, your link gives a 404.
- sandworm101 8y ago>>> "We're trying to recreate Neanderthal minds," Muotri says." Get the pitchforks. This scientist has gone too far. Really. I'm a totally against growing "minds" in jars. I'd be against doing this with any animal brain, let alone something functionally equivalent to human. There are ethical lines that shouldn't be crossed. The concept of a non-corporeal mind living a non-sensory existence in a jar of goo is too horrible to be allowed. This nightmare should live only in the pages of science fiction.
- aarongough 8y agoHow is a 'mind' ever supposed to develop in a neural system with no sensory input?
- candiodari 8y agoIt's not. They'll provide this input.
- candiodari 8y agoHow exactly do you think scientists investigate which areas of animal (and human) brains are responsible for which functional area ? With humans it comes from papers describing the treatment of "brain trauma". Within animals, where the majority of research is done, depending on the animal, they just nail them to a board, or nail a board or a wire into their skull, cut out half the brain, insert some sensors, and record data in the few hours that the pain does not totally immobilise the animals, usually while making the animal perform some trick, like navigating a maze, or looking at prey, or ...
- sandworm101 8y agoThe same ways they have done in the past. Persuit of knowledge isnt a free pass to do horrific things. We have rules and they follow them. In the real world, most knowledge of human brain function has come from people with brain injuries or disorders. For anything above basic motor skills you want a subject you can talk to.