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Just how many women create a fetus and abort it in the name of science? Human embryos are not manufactured for experimentation. What you're talking about is com

by warent 6y ago

Just how many women create a fetus and abort it in the name of science? Human embryos are not manufactured for experimentation. What you're talking about is completely orthogonal. Now, breeding/manufacturing animals for experiments is awful and morally complex--ethically unclear (at least to me). But the line must be drawn somewhere, and we can very easily draw it at manufacturing human-monkeys, human-pigs, or human-anythings.

scoopertrooper 6y ago
At what point does a thing become a human-thing? Imagine there was a way to copy a few human genes over to a mouse so that its immune system more closely resembled a human, but it was still, in every other respect, a mouse. Would it be a human-mouse?
- halfjoking 6y ago
  Good question. Ear-mouse wants to hear the answer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1945000/images/_1949073_mouse_ear300.jpg http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1945000/images/_1949073_mouse_...
  - scoopertrooper 6y ago
    Ear mouse cant hear the answer because its additional ear is just some cow cartliage that's been molded to resemble an ear.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 7373737373 6y ago
      Very much unlike Michael Levin's tadpole gut-eyes: https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c?t=743 https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c?t=743
- warent 6y ago
  It's a great discussion to have when the matter at hand is that subtle. Frankensteining together human stem cells and monkey blastocysts until something works is pretty far from surgically selecting specific genes. From the article: The announcement of the new chimeras will no doubt be labelled “unnatural” or “playing God” by some people – but the same could be said about many scientific breakthroughs. An iPhone is unnatural. When lifeforms are compared to iPhones, we've reached a pretty clear David Mitchell moment of saying "Are we the baddies?" Something reeks here of amoral science. We need a better understanding of consciousness and awareness before trying such things, or it's only a matter of time before realizing a catastrophic error that joins the many permanent stains of humanity, as we accidentally become the monster "AM" in "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream"
  - kaba0 6y ago
    I agree that we should be maximally wary of ethical considerations here, but a uniform mass of cells is a uniform mass of cells. We do know when important structures develop. For example, one of the most important cell line in research is called HeLa, which was harvested from a woman with the same initials without consent from a cancerous growth. Since then, it was grown to a huge biomass (couldn’t find exact number). Other than the lack of consent which is obviously amoral, would you consider research on this human cell line bad?
  - fighterpilot 6y ago
    "We need a better understanding of consciousness" I disagree. A small lump of cells is not more conscious or capable of suffering than a cow which most of us accept being killed for a steak.
    - 7373737373 6y ago
      [citation needed] No one has any idea what consciousness is, how it arises, what its physical correlates and boundaries are, what perceived valence corresponds to, whether small systems can experience pleasure or suffering beyond what humans are used to...
- samuli 6y ago
  At no single point, the brains, central nervous system, etc develop little by little. When the baby gets out of womb, their eyes start to gain sight. They're practically unable to focus their vision after birth. So, we have a quite good understanding on what happens at what week of pregnancy and when it is just biomass, and when it starts to have "structure".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
alexanderdmitri 6y ago
Here are some numbers from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm#T9_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm#T9_down Stats don't say what the abortions were in the name of though (that I see on first review at least).
iamoverworked 6y ago
Morally complex please, as if God is real or the universe or whatever cares, what a quaint sentiment.

by warent 6y ago

scoopertrooper 6y ago

At what point does a thing become a human-thing? Imagine there was a way to copy a few human genes over to a mouse so that its immune system more closely resembled a human, but it was still, in every other respect, a mouse. Would it be a human-mouse?

halfjoking 6y ago
Good question. Ear-mouse wants to hear the answer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1945000/images/_1949073_mouse_ear300.jpg http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1945000/images/_1949073_mouse_...
- scoopertrooper 6y ago
  Ear mouse cant hear the answer because its additional ear is just some cow cartliage that's been molded to resemble an ear.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 7373737373 6y ago
    Very much unlike Michael Levin's tadpole gut-eyes: https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c?t=743 https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c?t=743
warent 6y ago
It's a great discussion to have when the matter at hand is that subtle. Frankensteining together human stem cells and monkey blastocysts until something works is pretty far from surgically selecting specific genes. From the article: The announcement of the new chimeras will no doubt be labelled “unnatural” or “playing God” by some people – but the same could be said about many scientific breakthroughs. An iPhone is unnatural. When lifeforms are compared to iPhones, we've reached a pretty clear David Mitchell moment of saying "Are we the baddies?" Something reeks here of amoral science. We need a better understanding of consciousness and awareness before trying such things, or it's only a matter of time before realizing a catastrophic error that joins the many permanent stains of humanity, as we accidentally become the monster "AM" in "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream"
- kaba0 6y ago
  I agree that we should be maximally wary of ethical considerations here, but a uniform mass of cells is a uniform mass of cells. We do know when important structures develop. For example, one of the most important cell line in research is called HeLa, which was harvested from a woman with the same initials without consent from a cancerous growth. Since then, it was grown to a huge biomass (couldn’t find exact number). Other than the lack of consent which is obviously amoral, would you consider research on this human cell line bad?
- fighterpilot 6y ago
  "We need a better understanding of consciousness" I disagree. A small lump of cells is not more conscious or capable of suffering than a cow which most of us accept being killed for a steak.
  - 7373737373 6y ago
    [citation needed] No one has any idea what consciousness is, how it arises, what its physical correlates and boundaries are, what perceived valence corresponds to, whether small systems can experience pleasure or suffering beyond what humans are used to...
samuli 6y ago
At no single point, the brains, central nervous system, etc develop little by little. When the baby gets out of womb, their eyes start to gain sight. They're practically unable to focus their vision after birth. So, we have a quite good understanding on what happens at what week of pregnancy and when it is just biomass, and when it starts to have "structure".
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

alexanderdmitri 6y ago

Here are some numbers from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm#T9_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/ss/ss6907a1.htm#T9_down Stats don't say what the abortions were in the name of though (that I see on first review at least).

iamoverworked 6y ago

Morally complex please, as if God is real or the universe or whatever cares, what a quaint sentiment.