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Majority of Smithsonian’s Human Brain Specimens Was ‘Gathered Without Consent’
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- modzu 3y agoi mean, they're dead. who cares. now if the Smithsonian killed them for their brains...
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWhen you're dead, your body is the property of your estate - your heirs. They may care.
- Retric 3y agoFalse, though that’s a common belief. “There is a well-established general rule that when a human being dies, property in their body does not vest in anyone. Therefore, the simple answer to the headline question is that no one owns your body when you die (Williams v Williams (1882)). However, certain people are able to exercise rights over a body. In Dobson v North Tyneside Health Authority [1996], the Court of Appeal concluded that personal representatives have a right to the custody and possession of the deceased’s body until its proper disposal.” https://www.hcrlaw.com/blog/who-owns-your-body-after-you-die/ https://www.hcrlaw.com/blog/who-owns-your-body-after-you-die...
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWell, OK, right to custody and possession. That still includes the right to control whether someone takes the brain out.
- vharuck 3y agoRight. (Probably in most states) nobody owns plain old dead bodies. However, Australian and English courts have held that people can own objects made with remains as long as skill was applied. Not sure if there's similar case law in the US. So there might be value in deciding who rightfully owns these specimens. This discussion is a little tangential. The article is discussing the ethics, not legality, of how the samples were collected.
- bayindirh 3y agoTheir family and descendants, to begin with. And, when the tech advances and we can start to understand the brain better and start to get information from it regardless of its state, Its owner will care. Ask the same question about AI training. "We're just scraping what's available on the internet, who cares?" This is an extremely dangerous stance.
- nly 3y agoLegally in some jurisdictions all corpses belong to the state.
- D13Fd 3y ago> And, when the tech advances and we can start to understand the brain better and start to get information from it regardless of its state, Its owner will care. That’s never happening. But if it did—-mind reading of hundred year old dead brains—-what an incredible source of historical information they would have.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agomy initial reaction too, but I guess what they actually meant is that learning from the dead brains will be one of the factors that allow us to develop the functionality of reading the minds of the living.
- bayindirh 3y agoYes, it's a future looking comment. We should take lessons from today and prevent future problems around it.
- bonoboTP 3y agoList concrete dangers.
- thfuran 3y agoWhat?
- LatteLazy 3y agoPeople who want to make a fuss, because they're incapable of making anything worthwhile like science or art...
- ashwagary 3y agoCorrect. This is why I recommend gathering body parts from Arlington cemetery.
- LatteLazy 3y agoYou should go there to see all the people who's lives were cut short trying to actually do something. Not making pointless fusses about things for 100 years ago that affect no one alive today.
- lapcat 3y ago"Abby someone. Abby Normal." https://youtu.be/C9Pw0xX4DXI https://youtu.be/C9Pw0xX4DXI
- BaculumMeumEst 3y agowe seem really intent as a species on manufacturing outrage at every possible opportunity. what’s the endgame?
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoSolve the issue? But that's the thing, it's outrage, but it's also unactionable; people generally are powerless to change things.
- sixQuarks 3y agoOutrage accept when it comes to actual things that kill people, like wars. We are all about getting lied to into wars, accepting hundreds of thousands of deaths, not punishing those who got us into wars, then promoting them and letting them start more wars. Where is the outrage for that?
- kevinventullo 3y agoThe “outrage” in this article came from the Washington Post. We are told what is outraging others and what should be outraging us by unreliable sources with a specific agenda to push some narratives and not others.
- sixQuarks 3y agoGood point. Get the masses rowled up over culture wars while ignoring the important stuff.
- thfuran 3y agoWatching the world burn down around you while you contemplate how, for one brief, glorious moment, you garnered a lot of clicks. That's the life.
- runnerup 3y agoClicks = money. It’s not always a grand scheme, only sometimes.
- 3y ago
- matjus 3y ago"Consent" is a loaded word. I'm not sure the family/estate of a person can consent on behalf of the deceased.
- kitanata 3y ago[flagged]
- djcannabiz 3y agoI have heard nothing about the ai training, would you kindly link a source? That’s shocking if true.
- kitanata 3y ago[flagged]
- walthamstow 3y agoThat would also explain why the HN BigQuery hasn't been updated for a while (as I read in another thread)
- mattw2121 3y agoThe rules haven't changed. They are: "With respect to the content or other materials you upload through the Site or share with other users or recipients (collectively, “User Content”), you represent and warrant that you own all right, title and interest in and to such User Content, including, without limitation, all copyrights and rights of publicity contained therein. By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute, store, modify and otherwise use your User Content for any Y Combinator-related purpose in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed."
- kitanata 3y ago
- kitanata 3y ago[flagged]
- datadrivenangel 3y agoTo be fair, any person who donates their brain to science must be out of their mind, and as such would not make a good specimen.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoCertainly their mind would be out of them by the end of the process. If my brain is useful for science (can't see how, but that's hardly my problem!), then have at it. Save the crematorium some gas, even.
- coldtea 3y agoAt the moment your brain is available to be collected, there can usually be no consent.
- bayindirh 3y agoActually, unless I donate my organs before I die explicitly, you can't do that. At most, my descendants can donate me, if they choose to. You can't take an organ just because you feel like it, even for science.
- coldtea 3y ago>Actually, unless I donate my organs before I die explicitly, you can't do that Historically though, they very much could and did. In fact, until quite recently they bought cadavers for medical schools (for anatomy and such) quite freely. And on some jurisdictions, probably even today.
- Balgair 3y agoI'm in biotech. My graduate education involved a fair bit of volunteer work with , believe it or not, human brains. We'd take these brains out to schools and museums for public education. There were a lot of brains in the educational brain bank at the school. There were many different sections and cuttings of the brains, the dura mater, the spinal cords, eyes, etc. A great educational experience for anyone that wanted to learn more about the human body and their nervous system in general. All the brains were fixed, and were the classic tired bubblegum color. It's that firm density you're thinking of and the texture is a bit cheese-like. They abrade easier than you think. The weight is always more than you think it's going to be. Putting a real human brain into the hands of a child is a very magical experience. Again, it's heavier than you think, so they always seem to just not drop them, but know it's a very special thing so they all try their best to hold it up. And after that initial shock, the child's eyes just explode. You can really see their fascination, amazement, and reverence all at once. The 'adults' do the exact same thing, by and by. It's a strange thing to transport the brains too. You have to go and get them out of storage (which is also a bit weird; you store them all over the place in the labs in very obvious locations and in very dull plastic buckets. This is so weirdos can't find them. There are no glass jars all up on a wall). It's typically a brain to a bucket, maybe some other parts. Then you just take them to your car, put them all in the trunk/back, and drive off to the location. You bring a bunch of gloves and coats, of course. I was always so worried that I'd be pulled over and the cop would want to look in all the buckets in the back, open them and see a ton of brains, and I'd be in a lot of shit. You don't need a permit on you to do this, you just move them like any old end table. Eventually, the brains would get old and worn out. We'd dutifully collect every bit and ablated speck for disposal. I wasn't part of that part of the process, but I was told that all the bits were buried/cremated/disposed-of in the way that the previous owner or their family desired. The donation process and the previous 'owner' of the brains is kept very secure. We never had any idea of the name/sex/race/ethnicity/gender/nationality/etc of the brains. From what I knew, all these were donated specifically for public education. Happy to answer any questions yall might have on this!
- adolph 3y agoI can imagine the museum doing a sort of road show in every city, maybe like antiques roadshow but where the "descendants and cultural heirs" of various brains are brought together to receive the brains. Like a ribbon cutting ceremony but with a large jar. While the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed in 1990, the law means the Smithsonian only has to inform Native American, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian communities about the remains in its collection. . . . Out of “at least 268 brains,” the reporters also found that officials at the Museum of Natural History museum had repatriated only four of them to descendants or cultural heirs. In April, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III issued a statement announcing the creation of a task force to address the disposition of the human remains held by the institution as well as apologizing for past unethical practices.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- seisatsu0 3y agoWow just like everything else in museums.