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Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

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Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#201

Post by bserge »

deertick1 wrote: post #55
mb_72 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...create something which is horribly mutated, fucked up genetically, and experiences only pain for its entire life." 'God' does this all the time already. Friends of mine recently had a baby girl; she is missing part of one of her chromosomes. The family is very religious, and is being torn apart trying to understand how their 'loving God' could have done such a thing. So this 'morality' you speak of is making a tr…

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…

Religion needs a major update, tbh. People are following something written thousands of years ago, which is asinine. Either make a modern version or abandon the whole thing in favour of just being a normal human. It doesn't take much - be kind, understanding, don't hurt others, that's like 90% of it.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#202

Post by bserge »

pulse7 wrote: post #159

Ethical question: If one kills a human-monkey hybrid - will he go to prison?

That's more of a legal question, isn't it? At least in the US and EU, there will be prison time. The length of the sentence depends on whether they're convicted of murdering a human, animal or both.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#203

Post by bserge »

drukenemo wrote: post #119

I know I’ll be downvoted, but here it goes: there’s an implicit and unavoidable act of rebellion (to a potential God), in this and other similar scientific research. Even if you’re atheist, you cannot escape the underlying reference to a Biblical story: I want the freedom to be like a God.

Consider that our electromechanical technology is already at the level of various animals. Are we not gods already? Why not biological technology, then?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#204

Post by jpeter »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #73
sebmellen wrote: post #63

I am by no means whatsoever an Alex Jones listener or fan. But he's been laughed at for proclaiming that human/animal hybrids are being "developed" for some time now (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa9jXkVpnw0 , for example). It's scary to see this article because it's essentially "proving" Alex Jones right. This is a very bad precedent. The issue at hand is serious, but it's obscured because of the comedic/craz…

Alex Jones claimed 1) that the US Air Force attacked Texas with weather control weapons 2) that the majority of frogs in the US are now gay because the government is intentionally turning people homosexual for population control 3) that the most monstrous shooting in my lifetime, Sandy Hook, was a false flag and the bereaved families of the murdered first graders were crisis actors. Alex Jones is an awful person. He…

The frog one isn't far from the truth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5uSbp0YDhc

If you spout out every random conspiracy theory you know, some of the things you say will be true.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#205

Post by ganafagol »

warent wrote: post #158
scoopertrooper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

> We need a better understanding of consciousness and awareness before trying such things,

We do have quite a good understanding of those things in animals. Yet, nobody cares and people make fun of the "animal welfare" concept. Even in this thread. But suddenly a few human cells are involved for a few days and people start screaming.

There are vegetarians who eat fish "because they don't have feelings". As long as society accepts this nonsensical hypocrisy, your line of reasoning goes nowhere.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#206

Post by dunefox »

ratsforhorses wrote: post #198
PostOnce wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too late to edit to add: when I say "continue to develop" I don't mean to continue creating new viable embryos, I mean allowing the existing embryos to mature. I think both cases are probably unethical (creating to begin with, and secondly, more unethically, to bring them to further maturity, or even to the point of being self-supporting, i.e. fully alive) If we start going down this road, eventually someone will all…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 interestingly the perpetrators received immunity from the US...in exchange for information...I wouldn't be surprised if history repeats itself and a lot of people are counting on it...

And there's the inevitable Nazi-adjacent comparison. Didn't take long.

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#208

Post by dunefox »

arthur_sav wrote: post #170
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.

It's unethical.

Why?

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#209

Post by fighterpilot »

7373737373 wrote: post #199
fighterpilot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need a better understanding of consciousness" I disagree. A small lump of cells is not more conscious or capable of suffering than a cow which most of us accept being killed for a steak.

[citation needed] No one has any idea what consciousness is, how it arises, what its physical correlates and boundaries are, what perceived valence corresponds to, whether small systems can experience pleasure or suffering beyond what humans are used to...

> No one has any idea what ... its physical correlates ... are

We do know a fair bit about the neural (physical) correlates of consciousness in humans, and the evolutionary purpose of those facets of consciousness, such as fear or pain.

This understanding can help us to make a reasoned guess that cows are more capable of suffering than a small lump of cells in a blastocyst:

(1) We can see that cows have similar brain structures to humans[1], where those brain structures (amygdala, etc) are known to be a necessary condition for pain or fear perception in humans, and those same brain structures are absent in a blastocyst.

(2) We know that pain and fear is an adaptation that all/most mammals likely have, because (i) it confers significant fitness, and because (ii) it manifests below our cortex (e.g. in the amygdala) which suggests it evolved fairly early.

My claim isn't that a blastocyst doesn't have consciousness. My claim is that its consciousness and capability to suffer is likely to be less than that of a cow (based on the above reasoning), and so society should make sure it is being ethically consistent in the way it treats both.

My first question to you would be - if your position is correct, i.e. that we should be extremely ethically cautious with blastocysts because they may suffer and have conscious states - how can society then ethically justify abortion?

My second question would be - how can a meat eater (which you might not be) express such ethical caution pertaining to blastocysts but willingly eat meat? [I am a meat eater].

[1] This is pertaining to sheeps' (not cows') amygdala, but the point is the same - https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.2...

Re: Human-monkey chimera embryos created in lab

#210

Post by ganafagol »

7373737373 wrote: post #199
fighterpilot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need a better understanding of consciousness" I disagree. A small lump of cells is not more conscious or capable of suffering than a cow which most of us accept being killed for a steak.

[citation needed] No one has any idea what consciousness is, how it arises, what its physical correlates and boundaries are, what perceived valence corresponds to, whether small systems can experience pleasure or suffering beyond what humans are used to...

Things can't be further detached from reality. Once you ever spend a few days with a herd of cows, you get a feeling for their personalities, their joy, their pain. Comparing to a group of humans, be it kids on a playground or some factory worker, you really start to wonder why in one case we allow ownership, life-long suffering and death under excruciating pain, while in the other case those things are punished by lifelong imprisonment or even the death penalty.

You can't claim "but we don't know what conciousness is" to justify how we treat animals while at the same time have the strongest protections for fellow human beings. Well, usually only those of your own backyard, since we westerners also tend to treat third world country populations like sh*.

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