U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#611

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #520

deltaonefour wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more. It means the way you think, your health and your physical features are all naturally designed to help you obtain meat (and veggies).

Not necessarily. We have evolved features that are beneficial to us as well as those that just happened and wasn’t too detrimental nor useful. We are not the “perfect creature”. It is no longer thought to be a rudimentary organ but let me use it as an example: our appendix could very well serve no purpose, but it was not too detrimental (we didn’t get appendicitis in great enough numbers) so it remained. While being…

>Not necessarily. We have evolved features that are beneficial to us as well as those that just happened and wasn’t too detrimental nor useful. We are not the “perfect creature”.

Nobody made an argument for being the perfect creature. I made an argument for the fact we were designed to eat meat and veggies.

>While being able to digest meat is likely beneficial (though actually it is very easy to consume meat, especially cooked one compared to raw vegetables — just look at a cow’s digestive track), it doesn’t mean that we are made for that.

You have enzymes in your body or arrangement of atoms that are targeted towards specifically digesting and breaking down meat. Sure you can put ethanol in a car designed for gasoline but my point remains the same, we were designed to eat meat.

If you want to get pedantic here I can reword it into a stuffy/wordy sentence and avoid utilizing the word "design.":

   We have evolved for millions of years to have bodies that happen to be extremely efficient at digesting and breaking down meat.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#612

Post by MattRix » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

marliechiller wrote: post #610

MattRix wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your scenario with mutated hands ignores that evolution is about selection, not just single mutations. If hands evolved over a period of millions of years to be able to push water better, you could indeed say they evolved for the purpose of swimming. This is similar to saying that an eye’s purpose is to see, or a heart’s purpose is to pump blood, which are hardly controversial statements. A purpose doesn’t have to im…

Thats an interesting point but I think I'd have to disagree - purpose is very much constrained to concious design. Those traits were selected not for the purpose of swimming but merely due to the pressure of selection itself. In your example of flippers, the selection pressure is likely on mobility but the purpose of a limb is not mobility in and of itself. Would that make a flipper purposeless if moving over land?

Those traits would be selected because being able to swim increases survival. The purpose is survival via swimming.

To put it another way, the fact that the inputs (mutations) are random does not mean the outputs have no purpose.

If I said “the purpose of eyes is to see”, would you really disagree with that?

Also, it is entirely possible for body parts to have multiple purposes, that is quite common.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#613

Post by notch656a » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #497

emodendroket wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human beings are also designed for aggression towards each other, yet we generally try to control those parts of our 'savage nature' in modern society. Yes, we've developed quite sophisticated organizations to coordinate the violence, and then developed quite sophisticated weapons to carry it out.

With the end result of vastly fewer deaths from violence per capita compared to primitive societies.

This sounds true at face but do we have any evidence that violence per capita is lower here now than it is in a tighter but less organized clan society of yesteryear where any violence you would perpetrate would either be against your own extended family or outside aggressors (and modern society or at least US is already very brutal to outside nations).

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#614

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

Scarblac wrote: post #479

deltaonefour wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more. It means the way you think, your health and your physical features are all naturally designed to help you obtain meat (and veggies).

I guess. But I spend most of the day sitting in a chair typing things on a keyboard. So there is a lot of flexibility. And I believe that more or less the only thing that sets us apart from animals is that we can reflect on our own actions. We choose . And that also comes with responsibility for our choices. To argue that something is OK just because it "is in our nature" doesn't cut it for creatures with the ability…

>And I believe that more or less the only thing that sets us apart from animals is that we can reflect on our own actions. We choose. And that also comes with responsibility for our choices.

Many Animals can choose too.

>To argue that something is OK just because it "is in our nature" doesn't cut it for creatures with the ability to discuss this on HN. Is my personal belief.

I'm not arguing for anything to be OK. I'm saying the argument in itself is pointless. You should note that your "morality" is not a choice. It is a behavioral trait evolved through millions of years of evolution and is trait shared to varying degrees among all humans across all cultures.

Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not lie... etc. Your moral framework is a biological module hardwired into your mind to make you think in a certain way that aids with survival. But it was made for a more prehistoric time where humans had little understanding of the physical world and lived in limited tribal bands of hunters and gatherers.

The complexity of the world today exposes the archaic aspects of the moral module in our brain. We were not designed to feel sorry for the pig as it poses no evolutionary benefit yet we do as a side effect because pig experimentation simply didn't exist in ancient times so there was no selection pressure to make our moral module evolve in a way that will logically account for the pig.

This discussion does not exist because you are "above" your base evolutionary nature. It exists for two reasons: Your moral brain is designed for a more harsher simpler environment; and resources in our society are plentiful.

Once resources become stretched and limited, your brain will begin overriding your moral module. Almost starving to death? You will kill a pig without hesitation with your bare hands if that was the case. Survival is the name of the game in the end.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#615

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

necovek wrote: post #537

screamingninja wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either way you ARE designed to eat veggies and MEAT, you can choose to eat veggies and deny half your nature, yes.. that is your choice. Is that similar to you only acknowledging being designed to eat meat and denying half of your nature?

It seems you are getting too focused on "to eat meat": in precise terms, GP never said "to eat meat exclusively" or "to eat only meat".

>GP never said "to eat meat exclusively" or "to eat only meat".

I never said that either. It seems you are artificially injecting extra words into my statements. My phrase "to eat meat" effectively addresses all your technicalities. That is my intent and my meaning.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#616

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:20 PM UTC

spiralx wrote: post #609

jacquesm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has absolutely nothing to do with 3D printing.

They're talking about bioprinting which is a rapidly developing field, with a lot of recent successes in "printing" liver tissue: https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/tr-biofab-pulls-off-brea... Being able to have a 3D printed liver is very plausible within the next decade. https://www.3dsourced.com/guides/3d-printed-liver/

Liver is a fairly special case in that it is a sludge in a bag, a bit like kidneys and other filter organs. The subject here is a heart. There is absolutely no way that we're going to be 3d printing a heart in the foreseeable future.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#617

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #492

deltaonefour wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are designed to survive. If that survival involves harming people than that is what will occur. You are also designed to fuck a woman and make her pregnant and many men will fulfill this goal at any cost. Hence why rape exists.

None of that is true. There are stories over stories of Humans refusing to do harm to other Humans even if it means their death. Conditioning Humans to kill other Humans often involves dehumanizing the enemy in order to circumvent that built-in safety measure. Not everybody can just defuse that switch when he needs to. You are ASSuming I am male and heterosexual. You are assuming homosexuality has somehow not evolved…

>None of that is true. There are stories over stories of Humans refusing to do harm to other Humans even if it means their death.

These people won't exist given enough time and selection pressure. It's the only logical outcome. Additionally given the nature of natural selection it can be said many many of these people don't exist at all. The majority of the world will not do this unless it has some evolutionary benefit.

And that benefit only exists among our genetic progeny. Parents will sacrifice themselves for their kids because of the evolutionary benefit.

>You are ASSuming I am male and heterosexual. You are assuming homosexuality has somehow not evolved naturally or does not play a part in the natural repertoire of Human social structure (spoiler alert: it does, even in terms of procreation).

You're the ASS here. You can make an argument without throwing an insult. First off I made no assumption about you personally. I also never stated anything about homosexuality.

You know what I am? I'm black, I'm trans and lesbian. You're assuming that I'm white, male and straight out of nowhere. Oh how the woke world will destroy you for making such baseless assumptions. Man who cares.

>You are assuming homosexuality has somehow not evolved naturally or does not play a part in the natural repertoire of Human social structure

I never said I assumed such a thing. I made no statement about this. You made the statement that it DOES play a natural part. I've heard of these arguments. What evidence do you have to support this? I am not talking about logical arguments that illustrate the possibility that homosexuality is an evolved trait. But empirical statistical evidence that show unmistakably that it is an evolved trait.

The arguments I hear as it stands sounds a bit convoluted and only shows that homosexuality being an evolved trait is only a theoretical possibility.

>You do not understand sexual desire, which is not about reproduction, even though reproduction can be a side effect

Ok this is just BS. When did I say sexual desire is only about reproduction? We're done here.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#618

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

nsonha wrote: post #477

deltaonefour wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not weird at all. Biologically speaking, we are designed to eat meat. Our bodies produce all of the enzymes, such as protease and lipase, necessary for the breakdown and absorption of meat. The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things. Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to develop moral "philosophies" and become "vegetarians" effectively masking o…

> The weird thing is how we developed sympathy and concern for such things stupid comment of the year. We kill and eat animals, we sympathize with animals being killed, like where is the contradiction? How about sympathize with animals being killed unnecessarily ? (I'm no longer talking about experimenting, just killing in general) How about we kill other human beings in wars, in capital punishment, does that elude h…

>stupid comment of the year.

You call me stupid and yet you're stupid enough to think that I care about anything else you have to say after you call me stupid? Why even bother wasting your breath?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#619

Post by runarberg » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

bongoman37 wrote: post #420

dexwiz wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I heard, the pig lived a relativity good life. It was well cared for by the large animal veterinary school on campus. Had more space and better food than any factory raised pig. All experiments passed an ethics review. The pig was anesthetized before any procedure. The number of experiments may sound barbaric on the surface, but it was to reduce the overall number of pigs used in trials. Modern medicine wou…

People forget about how hard it is to get through ethics reviews for animal testing. I remember a PI telling me that it was easier to run psych experiments on undergrads compared to rats or mice.

As it should be. Undergrads can give consent, rats and mice can’t.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#620

Post by deltaonefour » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #568

_nothing wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're a creationist - this is just a very common distinction in thinking about evolution that results in all sorts of illogical fallacies. This is my exact point: Your hands have no purpose. They evolved in a way that aided in survival. If someone is born mutated with their fingers fused together and then suddenly the entire earth floods and they find their solid hands help them swim better - were thei…

Your scenario with mutated hands ignores that evolution is about selection, not just single mutations. If hands evolved over a period of millions of years to be able to push water better, you could indeed say they evolved for the purpose of swimming. This is similar to saying that an eye’s purpose is to see, or a heart’s purpose is to pump blood, which are hardly controversial statements. A purpose doesn’t have to im…

You're making assumptions and taking the conversation in a pedantic direction.

I am aware of the nature of natural selection and how it builds complexity over time through various selection pressures not all of which are constantly aligned with end result. And although wings were initially little nubs not "designed" for flying you could say that wings are they are now are "designed" for flying.

"Design" and "purpose" as I've said many times throughout this thread is a word that flows better. It is a linguistic choice and you are taking the argument in a direction thinking I don't understand some trivial point about natural selection.