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Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#21

Post by tasty_freeze »

cylon13 wrote: post #14

> 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. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

The author isn't dismissing the ethical issues. He is saying calling it "unnatural" in and of itself isn't grounds for making such a claim, as the world is filled with unnatural yet ethical things. In fact, he goes on for a few paragraphs touching on these more substantive issues.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#22

Post by ergot_vacation »

cylon13 wrote: post #14

> 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. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

"Unnatural" is a strawman that's trotted out whenever "professionals" get caught doing something with the potential for profoundly negative consequences and reasonable people point this out. "Oh I see, so you don't like SCIENCE. Why don't you go back to the woods and bang rocks together you SCIENCE HATER."

Science is an amoral tool. It's up to humans to figure out how to use that tool properly. Personally, I'd say there's nothing wrong with lab-grown organs, but creating them via a hilariously dystopian method reminiscent of Michael Bay's "The Island" is almost certainly a Very Bad idea.

Every day the people running the world seem to be trying harder and harder to become the cackling comic book supervillians that conspiracy theorists have always made them out to be.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#23

Post by zokier »

Thorentis wrote: post #10
hn8788 wrote: post #3

Not the first time, unlike what the article says [1]. I don't know if there was any follow-up on the previous case, but a big ethical concern was that human DNA was used to increase their brain capacity, and if they had been allowed to be born, then they would have been as intelligent as humans. So it raises the question of what counts as a human, and did the scientists effectively create "humans" in a lab, then term…

Humans are created in the lab and then destroyed when no longer needed all the time during IVF procedures, but nobody seems to care.

How much brain capacity those terminated embryos have though??

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#24

Post by sakex »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #4
hn8788 wrote: post #3

Not the first time, unlike what the article says [1]. I don't know if there was any follow-up on the previous case, but a big ethical concern was that human DNA was used to increase their brain capacity, and if they had been allowed to be born, then they would have been as intelligent as humans. So it raises the question of what counts as a human, and did the scientists effectively create "humans" in a lab, then term…

Anything with human levels of cognition and/or awareness should be considered a person.

Even AI?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#26

Post by Apocryphon »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #21
cylon13 wrote: post #14

> 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. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

The author isn't dismissing the ethical issues. He is saying calling it "unnatural" in and of itself isn't grounds for making such a claim, as the world is filled with unnatural yet ethical things. In fact, he goes on for a few paragraphs touching on these more substantive issues.

The word unnatural has more connotations than simply "artificial", though. That's clearly the meaning here.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#27

Post by 0_gravitas »

Awesome, love this bit mentioned:

```

“It is sometimes argued that … [the creation of part-human chimeras] will undermine an important moral view: that it matters, morally, which species we belong to,” the report reads. ”This argument assumes that we ought to preserve the view that boundaries between species are fixed, natural, and morally relevant, with full moral status reserved exclusively for humans. Yet even if creating part-human chimeras alters public attitudes in this way (and it is not obvious that it would), it is unclear why it is important for us to preserve the view that biological humanness is both necessary and sufficient for full moral status… Accordingly, it might be a good thing if the creation of part-human chimeras prompts us to rethink the significance we currently attach to species membership.”

```

Love things that poke at the arbitrary borders in our heads, its part of the reason that I appreciate what the pandemic has shown us about the education system here in the US: we were forced to confront the reality that the main purpose of grade-school is more so to act as a glorified mass-daycare, rather a 'critical source of development of intelligence/knowledge/maturity'.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#28

Post by [deleted] »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #21
cylon13 wrote: post #14

> 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. This is quite possibly the worst take about anything I've ever heard. Intelligent human-monkey hybrids brought in to the world for the purpose of having their organs harvested, vs lil pocket computer.

The author isn't dismissing the ethical issues. He is saying calling it "unnatural" in and of itself isn't grounds for making such a claim, as the world is filled with unnatural yet ethical things. In fact, he goes on for a few paragraphs touching on these more substantive issues.

[deleted]

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#29

Post by protomyth »

DC1350 wrote: post #25

More proof that we should all be listening to Alex Jones.

I would say the lesson is can we stop trying to prove him correct. I am getting a bit sick of conspiracy theories going from "that's absurd" to "oh, hey, about that, uhmm, we are actually doing that".
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