http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9269062/

*ring ringgggg*

Hello?

Hello God?

Yes Warren?

Yeah hi. Um... God... I don't, you know, want to be a taddle-tale or nothin' but...

I know, Warren.

Oh, you saw the article berrykat posted?

No, Warren, I'm God. I just know.

Oh okay. Cool. You mad?

*sigh* I have to go, Warren.

Cool. Say high to Buddha for me!

*click*

:lol:

Finally, a way to make more babies and end this planet's underpopulation crisis.

I like nature. I like natural things. Maybe that's part of the reason I'm vegetarian. This does not seem natural...

I agree AngieDawn. It's just not right. I'm not a scientist or anything, but it seems like it would create more problems than solutions. I don't even like to eat genetically-engenered fruit....

I like nature. I like natural things. Maybe that's part of the reason I'm vegetarian. This does not seem natural... Well, at least penicillin is safe.

Sure hope you never need gene therapy though! :worried:

Not that I agree with this however.

Any creation of human life simply for research should be stopped.

Finally, a way to make more babies and end this planet's underpopulation crisis. I'm convinced that much of modern bio and industrial science is simply an extension of the same phenomena of wanting you put your boot in fresh snow, "break-in" a virgin, make the newest ridiculously tall building: Completely pointless male urges. Nothing more than being able to say "we did it first!"

Some of the stuff they are trying to do is nonsensical, and completely unethical, IMNHO.

The scientists just keep pushing it as far as they can, all the while shoving money in the faces of bio-apologists, *cough* I mean 'ethicists' to justify it. The position of many in bio-ethics mirrors those who make a living doing studies paid for by Exxon to disprove global-warming.

Complete bull****. They're just warming us up, and doing a damn fine job of it as well, if the opinion polls are any indication. They've done a fantastic job of convincing the sheeple of the morality of embryonic stem cell research, and they're making great strides in doing the same for therapeutic cloning.

And they try to push off that they won't try reproductive cloning? That they don't want it?

I've got a beautiful orange bridge for sale.

I like orange bridges :lol:

On the bright side, it would allow homosexual women (and possibly men in the future) to have biological children if they live in areas that would not allow them to adopt.

The whole "natural" thing is overrated. It's been debated here before and I've personally come to the conclusion that the concept is meaningless when applied to issues like this. Either everything we do is natural or nothing we do is natural. You can't say embryonic research is any less natural than sitting at your computer and eating your processed non-dairy cheese. The tools to do it are simply more sophisticated.

A few decades ago people balked at the idea of heart transplants. Cries of "unnatural" were heard all around. "[The heart's]transfer from one person to another was regarded as an unnatural act, meddling with 'personhood' and trespassing into territory that had a spiritual quality. Apart from these special qualities, the heart was closely associated with concepts of life and death." (taken from http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1478)

I don't think many people have a problem with it today. A heart is not a person in the same way an embryo is not a person. An embryo at the stage that they're experimenting on it is nothing but a ball of cells. There are approximately 30 cells in it and at that point they haven’t differentiated into the various types of other cells. Thus, it has no nervous system. It has no respiratory, digestive, circulatory, lymphatic, etc. systems either. It has no brain. It cannot think. It cannot feel. It is not a person and unless it is implanted into a healthy human female’s uterus, does not have the capacity to become one.

Yes, the embryo is technically "alive" but so are plants and fungi, which we all happily kill and consume, usually on the premise that they have no nervous system and can’t feel pain. Should the fact that it happens to be human tissue matter? I slough off more cells when I scratch an itch, and many of those cells are just as alive and aware as the ones in that embryo.

aintnomeaning: I resent your implication that because my personal beliefs and morals don't position me against stem cell research, I am somehow blindly following the scientific community. I know what stem cell research is. I know how it works. I know what is created and what is "destroyed." Knowing all this, I still have no moral qualms against it. Why? Because I don’t believe there’s any inherent worth in small amounts of human tissue, no matter that tissue’s “potential.” There is worth in individuals, and if this research can help humans, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be given every opportunity to do so.

Though arguing about it is pretty useless. Those who are against it aren't likely to be swayed because logical and scientific arguments can't address "life begins at conception" or an inherent sacredness about humanity. I don't believe they need to since I don't subscribe to either of those ideas, but I don't think I'm in the majority.

Move to the heap maybe?

[QUOTE=Astarte]On the bright side, it would allow homosexual women (and possibly men in the future) to have biological children if they live in areas that would not allow them to adopt.

They still need sperm.

The whole "natural" thing is overrated. It's been debated here before and I've personally come to the conclusion that the concept is meaningless when applied to issues like this. Either everything we do is natural or nothing we do is natural. You can't say embryonic research is any less natural than sitting at your computer and eating your processed non-dairy cheese. The tools to do it are simply more sophisticated.

Cheese manipulation and embryo manipulation are very different things.



A heart is not a person in the same way an embryo is not a person.

This is very debateable. Don't put your opinions into fact-form.





aintnomeaning: I resent your implication that because my personal beliefs and morals don't position me against stem cell research, I am somehow blindly following the scientific community. I know what stem cell research is. I know how it works. I know what is created and what is "destroyed." Knowing all this, I still have no moral qualms against it. Why? Because I don’t believe there’s any inherent worth in small amounts of human tissue, no matter that tissue’s “potential.” There is worth in individuals, and if this research can help humans, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be given every opportunity to do so.

Do you agree in human cloning? Just wondering.

Though arguing about it is pretty useless. Those who are against it aren't likely to be swayed because logical and scientific arguments can't address "life begins at conception" or an inherent sacredness about humanity.

Science can't argue otherwise though, can it? It is argued that fish don't have a nervous system either, but do you eat them? Why not if they can't feel pain? It didn't really turn into an arguement until you posted BTW.

I'm moving this to the Heap.

Astarte, nicely put. I agree with you completely.

And the whole point of this procedure is that women won't need sperm. Hence "embryo created from 2 women".

Astarte, nicely put. I agree with you completely.

And the whole point of this procedure is that women won't need sperm. Hence "embryo created from 2 women".

Uh..... No it's not. The whole point is to get rid of certain diseases passed down through genes, therefore, 'genetically enhancing' the children. If you read the article, it says that they take a fertilized egg--- you go ahead and let me know if there's another way to fertilize an egg without a man... besides the fact that the article mentions a man was involved--- and manipulate it with an unfertilized egg from another woman to eliminate the 'bad' qualities from the original fertilized egg. 3 people are involved... not 2 women. I don't think there will ever be a time where a fully grown baby will result from 2 eggs and no sperm, or vice versa. Either way--- read the article before you post.


Edited to add an important part of the article that you obviously missed: (I 'bolded' some words.)

Scientists from Britain's Newcastle University plan to transfer the pro-nuclei —the components of a nucleus of a human embryo — by a man and woman into an unfertilized egg from another woman to prevent mothers passing certain genetic diseases to their unborn babies.

i think this sounds interesting.

i support stem cell research, research into cloning, and potentially human cloning--even though there are a lot of interesting bio-ethical considerations to put forth.

but, like 'natural clones' (ie, identical twins), no two people are alike even if they are genetically the same. So, i have no problem with cloning, really, since clones would be strikingly different from their donors. so, from the one philo/theo/ethical perspective of what type of person or rights or protections would a clone have--i think that they would be fully human and divine, just like the rest of us, with all of the rights and responsibilities therein.

but, like i said, there are other bioethical issues to figure out. But this research sounds or seems fascinating and exciting.

and if this is okay cloning isn't why?

and if this is okay cloning isn't why?

I was thinking the same thing..... :-/

it is interesting I know certain dieases hemophlia for one are passed on by the mother...if this would help keep kids from getting certain genetic dieases that would cool.

My main problem with this kind of technology is that they never make just *one* embryo. Like other artificial conception methods, many embryos are created and only one is implanted. The others are put in storage or "destroyed" ("killed" if you believe embryos are people). So there are all these embryos in storage all over the place, what will become of them? I guess some people adopt them, but that's quite rare I believe.

I think it sounds fine as well and makes total sense. We already mess with the gene pool as it is meaning that we are medically advanced to the point that people who would have died naturally don't, which is good as far as I’m concerned. My brother has a disease that we believe to be genetic in origin and would have died a long time ago if not for modern medicine. I bet a few of us on the board could say the same. Considering that I think it’s smart not to pass on genetic defects.

As far as cloning goes, are we capable of cloning mitochondrial DNA? I didn’t think we were there yet, so “clones” wouldn’t be true clones would they?

many embryos that are made actually disintegrate on their own. check out the way in vitro fertilization works. they make 5 or ten viable embryos (as many as they can from a single harvest), and then they implant 5 of them. usually only one will implant, sometimes two or three. Many of those will disintegrate within the first trimester. THis is why many women go through mulitple in vitro processes.

I like nature. I like natural things. Maybe that's part of the reason I'm vegetarian. This does not seem natural...

What the frick is "natural"?

Sounds like a lot of them just sit around waiting for a future that never comes...

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9902/22/too.many.embryos/

Do you agree in human cloning? Just wondering.

Well, I agree with human cloning primarily because "cloning" as it's come to mean has become rather meaningless. You can take my epithelial cells, culture them indefinitely in a nutritional broth, and that's "cloning." I really wish the word would be stricken from our discussions on this.


Science can't argue otherwise though, can it? It is argued that fish don't have a nervous system either, but do you eat them? Why not if they can't feel pain? It didn't really turn into an arguement until you posted BTW.

I don't know of anyone who argues that fish don't have a nervous system. Whether their nervous system is developed enough to experience pain is another question. I think they do. I don't think that a 3-day old blastocyst of less than a thousand cells feels pain.

BTW, I disagree with this research, but not because I accept claims to the sanctity of life at the moment of conception. So far, nuclear manipulation of this sort has been implicated in reduced lifespan in many of the species studied.

They still need sperm.
This is true, though I don't think it negates my point. A few sperm are not the most difficult thing to come by. Sperm banks? The cultural logistics of a child that had three parents would be interesting to think about, but I think that's a "lets cross that bridge when we come to it" type situation.


Cheese manipulation and embryo manipulation are very different things.
This is also true, but neither can really be called "natural."

This is very debateable. Don't put your opinions into fact-form.
It's only debatable if we get into what makes a person a person, and that's shakey territory. If a single stem cell on its own constitutes a person, then I suppose an embryo could be construed as one. But the only inherent difference between a stem-cell and a heart, liver, pancreas, skin, brain, cell (which I think we would all agree are not people) is that a stem-cell has the capacity to differentiate into any other type of cell. It only has the capacity to become a complete human if it is implanted in a human uterus, otherwise it is no more aware as a human than that heart, liver or flake of skin. The stem cells that are being experimented on are a stage where they are not even remotely developed as humans.

Do you agree in human cloning? Just wondering.

What does it matter what I think about human cloning? If I thought it was ok, would it make my comments about embyonic research invalid? If I thought it was the most awful thing in the world, would it give me more credence with you? There's an enormous leap between stem cell research and reproductive cloning.

Science can't argue otherwise though, can it? It is argued that fish don't have a nervous system either, but do you eat them? Why not if they can't feel pain? It didn't really turn into an arguement until you posted BTW.

Science doesn't bother to argue otherwise because the scientific method does not concern itself with disproving anything. If I say there's an invisible orange cat sitting next to you, how are you supposed to disprove it? You can't see it, can you? If you tried to grab it, I could just say it's incorporeal too. If that cat spontaneously became visible and jumped in your lap, then it'd be proven I was right, wouldn't it?

That's a simplistic example, but the point is that it's not possible to disprove, only to prove through observation. If it could be proven that the soul existed and it was sucked into an egg as soon as a sperm wiggled into it, then I guess we'd have to rethink the way we're doing things, but until such a day comes, I don't think it's something we should be basing medical science on.

It's argued by morons that fish don't have nervous systems, because they clearly do. And no, I don't eat fish. The usual argument for eating plants and fungi(which do not have nervous systems) that I've seen given by vegetarians and vegans (a very good one, I think) is that they are not aware of external stimuli and cannot feel pain. Stem cells are also not aware and they cannot feel pain for the same reason. They are not implanted in a human female, and so cannot become fully developed humans.

many embryos that are made actually disintegrate on their own. check out the way in vitro fertilization works. they make 5 or ten viable embryos (as many as they can from a single harvest), and then they implant 5 of them. usually only one will implant, sometimes two or three. Many of those will disintegrate within the first trimester. THis is why many women go through mulitple in vitro processes.

Yep, very true. Also all the embryos that I'm aware of that go into embryonic research are "leftovers" from in-vitro procedures, or derived from them. There are a great many of these embryos in existance and few to none have the hope of ever making it into a uterus, let alone actually developing into a human.

I think it turned into an argument with aintnomeaning's "sheeple" comment, thus implying that anybody who isn't against embryonic research doesn't have the capability to think for themselves. I didn't appreciate it, as I'm quite certain I do have that ability in spades. However, this is an issue I'm interested in, so debating is fun :D

This is also true, but neither can really be called "natural."


Yes it can. "Natural" is a term of nostalgia or sentiment, not any statement of some objective physical or moral reality.

Science doesn't bother to argue otherwise because the scientific method does not concern itself with disproving anything. If I say there's an invisible orange cat sitting next to you, how are you supposed to disprove it? You can't see it, can you? If you tried to grab it, I could just say it's incorporeal too. If that cat spontaneously became visible and jumped in your lap, then it'd be proven I was right, wouldn't it?

Certainly because the scientific method formally has nothing to do with proof or disproof. However, the scientific method does work through falsifying claims.

That's a simplistic example, but the point is that it's not possible to disprove, only to prove through observation. If it could be proven that the soul existed and it was sucked into an egg as soon as a sperm wiggled into it, then I guess we'd have to rethink the way we're doing things, but until such a day comes, I don't think it's something we should be basing medical science on.

The reason this is not a question has nothing to do with your misconceptions about the inability of science to "disprove" hypotheses. It's because claims that can't be falsified can't be tested by science.