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Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

interestingengineering.com

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Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#321

Post by imtringued »

ninjanomnom wrote: post #189
ericffr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it might be a little short-sighted. Since we are intelligent, we should be careful. With great powers come great responsibility. If someone doesn't like hurricanes, they can move where there is none. When Earth will be 99% inhabitable (because of air pollution, soil degradation, lack of water), is the solution just to say "oh well", let's go to Mars?

(I assume you meant un inhabitable) For the individual the answer is almost certainly yes. If we have the ability to survive elsewhere than earth and we have brought earth to the point that it is 99% uninhabitable then going someone else is probably the best choice. One could easily argue that our ability to consider our environment and make changes to our behavior accordingly is unnatural. Avoiding the above scenari…

>For the individual the answer is almost certainly yes

That type of thinking will ruin the second planet just as much.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#322

Post by imtringued »

Veedrac wrote: post #294
yeetman21 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the scientist create a GMO chicken and they get killed by the billions to feed us, no body bats an eye. Please, "new kind of soul" is a vast over statement. When horse breeders thousands of years ago artificially bred into existence new horses, no body cared, why is this any different?

Certainly some people care a lot about factory farming. Even so, the key difference here is that brain function and intelligence are tied so tightly to the idea of human exceptionalism; that it is OK to enslave a horse but not a human, because humans have more capacity for autonomy, suffering, and so forth. How precisely to draw the line is very much a matter of disagreement.

>that it is OK to enslave a horse but not a human, because humans have more capacity for autonomy, suffering, and so forth.

That's illogical. No, we enslave animals because we can. If animals were to coordinate and start a rebellion we would stop enslaving them and try to appease them through diplomatic means. Humans are known for their coordination and so monkeys with human intelligence and communication like humans would coordinate very well.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#323

Post by renewiltord »

ajuc wrote: post #312
renewiltord wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did. And I find that acceptable. After all, child killing isn't an unalloyed evil. There are children I am morally all right with killing. I make this choice actively every day. I sleep soundly after.

> We owe the monkeys their sapience. > I did [killed all the kids I haven't had] and I find it acceptable. Don't you think it's a self-contradiction? There's 0 evidence to support valuing hypothetical descendants of these monkeys over hypothetical descendants of your children.

A fair complaint. These kids are present intelligence. The monkeys are possible intelligence. I think the truth is that I would spend no money of my own on either of these things. And since the activation energy to turn a smart-monkey grant into a save-the-Somali-kids-from-guineaworm-grant is very high, I am acting in the margin to ensure that a smart-monkey grant doesn't get turned into a should-we-make-smart-monkey grant or a how-smart-is-monkey grant, both of which are far more likely.

Secondarily, I value some sort of backup intelligence system as a protection against human intelligence monoculture. Though one could reasonably argue that adding a human brain-fold gene to a monkey does make it more human-like than truly independent.

I suppose I'm hoping that we get better at this and eventually are capable of uplift that yields not necessarily human-style intelligence.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#324

Post by arcticbull »

fiblye wrote: post #248
alisonkisk wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you latch on to me and suck my blood, is it murder for me to remove you from my body just because you can't live without parasitically feeding off of me?

Should the biological process through which most mammals carry on their future existence be considered an act of parasitism? I think being a parasite usually requires two conditions be met: 1 is that they're separate species, and 2 is that it's bad for the creature. Children eventually grow up and generally take care of the "host" that they sucked blood from, and their existence is generally beneficial for the specie…

Re: separate species, I don't believe that's actually a requirement to meet the conditions of parasitism per Oxford Dictionary. A parasite is defined as "an organism which lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense." -- Without getting into the emotional connotations of calling a child a parasite, it certainly does meet the Oxford Dictionary definition.

Re: bad for the creature, hyenas give birth through their clitoris. I'd suggest that's not great. Children cost an average of $233,000 to raise. That's certainly not great. That doesn't take into account career cost and opportunity cost of lost income. Sub-optimal too.

I'd describe children as mandatory lol.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#325

Post by imtringued »

renewiltord wrote: post #55
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

Our track record for messing with the fundamental fabric of reality is creating antibiotics, and over the period of a century saving so many lives that wars of earlier periods are negligible in comparison. A natural reaction from people with high sanctity/degradation (in the MFT sense) is to avoid touching the trolley lever at all points. Decision making is considered association with the decision. The naturalistic f…

I have killed renewiltord because I failed to invent immortality.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#326

Post by danieltillett »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #320
danieltillett wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thalidomide wasn’t a failure of chemistry, but of medicine. CFCs were an amazing breakthrough as they stopped people getting gassed by their refrigerator and killed (ammonia was used before). Once a problem was identified then changes were made. Similar with asbestos (not actually chemistry), leaded fuel and DDT. As for the others you have concentrated on the tiny percentage of bad outcomes rather then the millions o…

Unnecessary ad hominem with the 'special mind' but I will try to bring it back to the actual discussion point. All the points I mentioned were massive breakthroughs and improvements in their primary application. The point is they had massively wide scale secondary effects which Humans at the time were unable to predict. You say a small percentage of outcomes but many of those small percentage of occurences have had a…

I find it rather ironic that someone with the handle “DoingIsLearning” is arguing against doing new things.

Everything we do that is new has risks. History has shown us that the benefits of innovation far outweighs the costs. This does not mean progress comes with no downsides, but that the good is vastly better than the bad.

Many people seem so scared now of the possible risks that they are afraid to do anything really new. Living is risky, progress is risky, and not doing is even more risky.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#327

Post by yread »

fjfaase wrote: post #311

The interesting thing about gene ARHGAP11B is that it is a truncated version of ARHGAP11A, meaning that it was caused by a degenerative mutation, which goes totally against creationist arguments that degenerative mutations can never lead to improvements, let alone the development of new species. This should be mentioned in every textbook about evolution to counter the arguments of creationists.

I don't get your argument about degenerative mutations. All nonsilent mutations change a perfectly fine working protain so they are all 'degenerative'? Conversely, insertion of random garbage in the middle of a an exon does not delete anything so it's not 'degenerative'?

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#328

Post by renewiltord »

imtringued wrote: post #325
renewiltord wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our track record for messing with the fundamental fabric of reality is creating antibiotics, and over the period of a century saving so many lives that wars of earlier periods are negligible in comparison. A natural reaction from people with high sanctity/degradation (in the MFT sense) is to avoid touching the trolley lever at all points. Decision making is considered association with the decision. The naturalistic f…

I have killed renewiltord because I failed to invent immortality.

There is still time. Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#329

Post by imtringued »

renewiltord wrote: post #74
grawprog wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also such things as nuclear weapons, genetically engineered virii, patents on life, tampering with ecosystems, plants designed to be sterile to ensure a seed market, lakes full of sterile fish stocked for sport. >No, if you can save billions and you choose not to, you have killed them. If you can uplift species and you choose not to, you have killed their cognition. We are gods over the Earth. We have dominion o…

No, no, not humans. The we that have dominion are certain genes, for which the humans are mere vehicles. These genes are just as old as the mushroom genes. And this gene cluster is aiming to master the rock that is the Earth through modifying other gene clusters. And you can't stop it. Because through modification it grows stronger and more able. And it has rallied the memome and the hologenome to its cause. This cau…

That's a pretty stupid take because the combination of genes is unique for each life form so those genes are just as trapped in our bodies as the bodies are trapped in themselves.

If you want to talk about genes as an immortalizing life form then those genes are just as prone to natural selection as the carrier. Some genes are old, some are new. New genes have an incredibly high attrition rate. Not much different from nature. Genes are suckers and losers just like their carriers.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#330

Post by mrmonkeyman »

klunger wrote: post #143
grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

I don't. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am speaking as someone who is pro-choice, pro-GMO's and pro-stem cell research, etc. This research has crossed a line that none of the above do. It is creating a new kind of sentience, a new kind of soul. And, what's the point? To confirm a theory about a gene? So fricking what. That really doesn't matter, not in relation to the possible consequences: someone taking this res…

It is inevitable, sorry. Once you are done accepting that, it has already taken over the world. We would appreciate it if you could hurry the process so you can participate in the actual (attempted) control of this inevitable process instead of denying it.
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