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Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#151

Post by xwolfi »

brbsix wrote: post #93
PostOnce wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, on day 19 three of them are clusters of cells, how about day 280? How about year 5? I think the argument is that a majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos, and even more unethical to conduct research on them were they to mature.

Research is already performed using human fetal tissue obtained from aborted fetuses. How is this significantly different? "A majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos" seems contradictory to the current legal status of abortion in the US. Perhaps it is unethical but worth doing regardless?

Abortions are not a desired action, by society, doctors, women, families, anyone really.

They are a compromise to help women who made a mistake, were victims of assault, are too young to take care of a child. It's a bit less about "taking ownership of your body", than it is about "being tolerant and understanding about facts of life we can't change".

That's where it's less unethical: it's not like people support terminating a potential human life, they support instead lifting one up that took a wrong step.

Now these chimera experiments are fine to me, but I'd be okay to wait, go slow, debate in society about them rather than point at 16 yo rape victims and say "see she killed her baby and we used it to test a vaccine, why can't I mix a monkey with a human and see what grows before terminating it when I dont need it anymore"? Again, I m anti religious but I wouldnt want street riots and Trump 2.0 because scientists felt it was boring to explain to the idiots.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#152

Post by kentrado »

PostOnce wrote: post #88
mullingitover wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you finish reading the article? > After 10 days, there were 103 of these chimeric embryos remaining, but by day 19 only three still survived. After that, the embryos were terminated before they developed any further. Clusters of cells can't be 'tortured in a lab,' there are plenty of legitimate problems in the world to be outraged about but this really isn't one of them.

Okay, on day 19 three of them are clusters of cells, how about day 280? How about year 5? I think the argument is that a majority of people would find it unethical to continue to develop viable embryos, and even more unethical to conduct research on them were they to mature.

And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#153

Post by elif »

themgt wrote: post #60

These chimeras pave the way for more accurate models of human biology and disease The goal, the team says, is to make better models for studying biological development, evolution, disease progression and treatments. "As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease," Interestingly, the revie…

The review paper[0] you are referring to is not the chimera lab paper.

Is it the embryonic researchers or the ethicists who should "fuck off"?

I am personally grateful for the work of both, and believe you would be too if you understood who is doing what and why.

[0] https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/6/1/37/5489867

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#154

Post by inimino »

mssundaram wrote: post #141
mullingitover wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you finish reading the article? > After 10 days, there were 103 of these chimeric embryos remaining, but by day 19 only three still survived. After that, the embryos were terminated before they developed any further. Clusters of cells can't be 'tortured in a lab,' there are plenty of legitimate problems in the world to be outraged about but this really isn't one of them.

> Clusters of cells can't be 'tortured in a lab,' From a Hindu perspective, consciousness begins associating with the body at the moment of conception. Though it does not fully inhabit it yet.

Quite odd to see this downvoted, as it just seems to be an interesting fact.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#155

Post by diveanon »

cercatrova wrote: post #136
diveanon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok Dr. Mengele. This is an extremely naive take that ignores some dark history.

Mengele's experiments didn't really advance science, most of the experimental data was useless after the Allies examined them. So it's not necessarily the same thing.

Kind a pedantic point, his name is just more recognized than the anonymous doctors of Unit 731 who were forgiven for their crimes in the name of progress.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#156

Post by DistressedDrone »

cercatrova wrote: post #149
DistressedDrone wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining anyone commenting about the moral implications of the article would be unaware of the difference between deontological and utilitarian ethics. Personally, I find your defense of the idea betrays a naive view of utilitarianism. We must take into account not just the immediate consequences of our actions but also the long-term ones. Any society where people may be experimented upon is one w…

> We must take into account not just the immediate consequences of our actions but also the long-term ones. Indeed. But we may not necessarily know the long term results of such actions. For example, we might experiment on people for some time in order to advance science to the point that we can cure all people, say for example, 100 years of experimentation for 1000 years thereafter of saving people. Is that enough?…

I'm unsure if you're saying I'm coming from a deontological viewpoint (I'm not), I'm assuming you are a utilitarian, as you said.

Remaining in a utilitarian paradigm, I hardly think societies with slavery maximized utility, this was more or less my point.

More to the actual point, science must have deontological ethics for science to, well, exist. Any world where science has no moral rules is a fantasy, and a rather dystopian one. There must be some sort of social contract between scientists and the general population for it to actually be useful. We are already witnessing a rise in anti-scientific sentiment even with the rigorous reviews we currently have. And it has led to many deaths, directly or indirectly.

Now imagine that scientists are allowed to conduct experiments purely for the sake of progress without consideration of absolute morality. People would actively be burning down science labs, and science itself would be seen akin to witchcraft. This would no doubt slow progress to a halt.

To summarize, the idea of a world where we can have science without deontology is fictional, you seemed to argue it should be this way, I'm arguing that it can't, in practice, be this way.

There just has to be rules, man.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#157

Post by notsureaboutpg »

nvrspyx wrote: post #59
deertick1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh like I said I was not as concise as I would like to have been in my comment : IVF is not creating a completely new, engineered organism. Not really what I am talking about. And man, the idea that religion has no place in the modern world would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Religion serves a veokry important role in society and we abandon it at our peril. I am sorry to hear about your friend, but this is re…

As someone that doesn't abhor religion, the following isn't meant as argumentative, but rather curiosity: > Religion serves a very important role in society and we abandon it at our peril. What "important role" might that be? I don't see the necessity of religion and don't think there's anything inherent of religions that can't be supplemented by the surrounding culture.

In a world where most people are extremely poor and outlooks are very bleak, religion gives hope to people that their life is meaningful and purposeful (designed for a higher purpose).

In addition, religious people are more charitable than atheists (Muslims are the most charitable as charity is obligatory for them).

Sure any culture could do these things for people. But they don't because culture is not a way of life and belief that imbues human beings with purpose, satisfaction, and clarity about their place in the world. If any culture did do this, it would be a religion.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#158

Post by warent »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #122
warent wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-…

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?

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"

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#160

Post by Ericson2314 »

themgt wrote: post #60

These chimeras pave the way for more accurate models of human biology and disease The goal, the team says, is to make better models for studying biological development, evolution, disease progression and treatments. "As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease," Interestingly, the revie…

I'm with the paper. I've e.g. hoped we start cloning neanderthals and whatnot to erase these artificial boundaries too.
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