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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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

#621

Post by deltaonefour »

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?

>purpose is very much constrained to concious design.

Not true. Natural selection can produce the same results as artificial selection. They are both effectively the same process where in one scenario the guiding hand is human and the other scenario nature is the guiding hand.

If both nature and artificial selection evolved a mechanism that is very specifically and efficiently able to do one thing and one thing only does it mean that the thing evolved has no purpose? No it doesn't.

Either way we're getting into a linguistic and philosophical argument on the meaning of the word "purpose." These are traps. Ultimately we begin arguing about the definition of an ambiguous word thinking that the argument is profound. It's like all those arguments about "What is life." Pointless, "life" is the word that is loaded and ambiguous; any debate of that nature is simply an argument about the intricacies of a vocabulary word.

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

#622

Post by deltaonefour »

MattRix wrote: post #570
marliechiller wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this point is very hard to argue against. Natural selection has no intent, mutation is random and its consequences are thus flukes as to whether they work or not to support an organisms survival. Very well explained @_nothing!

Their post missed the fact that evolution is about selection, not just single mutations.

No it doesn't. You're just assuming such.

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

#623

Post by mrguyorama »

mutatio wrote: post #521
shmde wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and time again it has been proved and backed by research that it was indeed purposefully created. I don't understand why people aren't able to swallow that Churchill was responsible for the devastating famine. Its the same everywhere, even in r/history subreddit people just straight away deny Churchill was responsible for the famine. I understand that he is hailed as a hero for WW2 but he definitely has 3 millio…

Let's not hijack the thread with politics. I will say this, there was no motive for it to be "purposefully created" - that is nonsense, try and think about it objectively for a second. It's far more nuanced than that. The issue here is the motivation for your post, do you interject any mention of Gandhi with critiques of his character / behaviour?

Churchill was well known for genuinely hating indian people. Also Great Britain kind of had a habit of either creating, or worsening food shortages for political reasons. For example, the British parliament refused to stop grain exports from Ireland during the potato famine, or provide free grain to hungry people, because they thought that the Irish were lazy and giving them free things would make them lazier (sound familiar?)

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

#624

Post by deltaonefour »

Lio wrote: post #485
watwut wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other animals have also been shown to "befriend"/care for/grieve over animals of different species, so our own capacity to sympathize for animals should be no surprise. This part is actually true. Some animals do befriend, cooperate with or grieve over animals of different species. Not all animals are bugs and spiders. > Empathy evolved to aid in survival of our genome, but when empathy evolves to the point where w…

Yep, I've seen a few people chucking around phrases like "designed by nature" which are both wrong and confusing. "Design" implies intent before the fact, which is not the case. We, as a species, are not "finished" in any way or "more evolved" than other species. There is no destination evolution as such. We have plenty of traits that are not useful but also not a hindrance and so they remain. On the subject of coope…

>Yep, I've seen a few people chucking around phrases like "designed by nature" which are both wrong and confusing.

That's me chucking that phrase and I am telling you there's good reasoning for it. Think about it. How do I differentiate between the human hand and a rock? Do I say:

   The human hand is a low entropy configuration of atoms that is very efficient at grasping things while the rock is a high entropy configuration of atoms that is not efficient at grasping things.
OR do I say...

   The human hand is designed to grasp things the rock is not.
See. One sentence just rolls off the tongue better but I guess I have to get into the technicalities otherwise people are confused.

Either way, People like to get into linguistic debates on the definition of a word without realizing that it's a trap. Nothing profound is actually being discussed when we're just talking about how to properly use the word "design." Think about it... you're just debating about the proper definition of a vocabulary word.

Granted I'll tell you it's an effective trap. People get into these debates without realizing how pointless it all is. The famous debate is "What is life?" Well if you want to argue about that you have to realize that the word "life" is loaded and ambiguously defined. Attempting this argument is simply trying to demarcate the complex boundaries of the word. It's simply an attempt to add more bullet points and rules to an overly complex vocabulary word.

How about we stop arguing about vocabulary.

>We, as a species, are not "finished" in any way or "more evolved" than other species. There is no destination evolution as such.

Where did this come from? I don't see anyone making that argument. Sure we can as a species can start ingesting gasoline and likely with enough time and natural selection we could involve into a gasoline eating species.

This does not change the fact that there is meaning to the sentence: "Humans are not designed to eat gasoline." Guess the intent of my usage of that sentence without getting pedantic and try to express and convey the same intent without the use of the word "design" or "purpose."

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

#625

Post by tantalor »

snek_case wrote: post #594
tantalor wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go read "Oryx and Crake"

TL;DR ?

Pigs that were genetically engineered to produce organs for human transplants (pigoons) take over the world after a global pandemic (deliberately) kills all people, except a tribe (immune) of genetically engineered primitive humanoids (Crakers) who are peaceful, gentle, and herbivorous.

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

#626

Post by mlyle »

wruza wrote: post #445
mlyle wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, there's this well-worn pseudo-parable: A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help. Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.” The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the rowboat went on. Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “…

I've heard this one, but then and now, what did God expect, if He didn't send any event to the man which would make him think that 1,2,3 was the salvation. He knows everything in advance, doesn't He?

I think the message is that one should use one's own agency, and not expect a hand-delivered message from God on what to do in each circumstance, in addition to whatever opportunity at deliverance one receives.

Or, viewed another way... If an obvious opportunity at reasonable safety is there, what gives one the right to demand that God show up to perform a dramatic miracle?

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

#627

Post by deltaonefour »

_nothing wrote: post #407
deltaonefour wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evolutionary biology is overused as justification for human behavior. Let me get one thing straight. I am not justifying anything. My angle is, what's the point? Don't justify anything at all. We're evil for killing, so be it. I am looking at it from a completely dispassionate angle. I do not need to somehow merge and mutate my moral framework to make it work with the existing reality. >We were not "designed" to eat…

I think we're on the same page in believing that there's not an inherent morality to these behaviors. I'm not accusing of you to try to justify some morally evil act. The comment you originally replied to said this: > Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature To which you replied: > It's not weird at all. Biologically speaking, we are designed to eat meat. > T…

I've never talked about "rules" or "intent" the way you put it.

I am simply saying how else do you describe the hand. The hand is for grasping things the rock is not. How to I ascribe this difference without using the word design or purpose because clearly the hand is much much more efficient at grasping things.

Sure you can use the hand for things it was not "designed" for like hand stands and walking while hand standing and if there was selection pressure your hands can evolve to be less hand like. But in doing such things you are departing from a "design."

Let me put it in a way that won't distract you. Your hand is efficient at grasping things by doing hand stands you are using it in ways that are not efficient. You are departing from the efficiency zone. There is merit in ONLY using the hammer on a nail rather than a screw driver even when the hammer was evolved with Zero actual "design" or "intent" and can one day evolve into something different.

Get it? So the same thing applies to not eating meat. By not doing so, someone is departing from the "efficiency zone." See how awkward it is to use "efficiency zone" in place of "design"?

I'd rather operate in my efficiency zone rather than push the boundaries of it just so that my progeny 1 million years later can walk on their hands. But that's just my personal take. My argument itself has no agenda other than to say that by not eating meat you are willfully departing from the efficiency zone. By being compassionate about the pig you are doing the same. And using the word "design" is just an EASIER way to express this departure from the "efficiency zone".

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

#628

Post by c048 »

uhtred wrote: post #607
c048 wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a better life than what most animals have in the wild. The wild isn't some fairytale happy place; it's a place of hunger, fear, brutality, pain and disease. It reminds me of the old saying: "they overexaggerated the aggressiveness of European wolves, they're only dangerous when hungry". Ok, so did European wolves just go to the shop to buy food when hungry?

so by your logic as per statement #1: do you think an iron age peasant, who undoubtably would have had a more brutal life than us, would have swapped their freedom and way of life for being kept in a cage, being experimented on by technology they would find to be terrifying dark magic that could kill them at any moment (see above commenter's mention of the pigs having heart attacks), all for some basic but guaranteed…

Well, yes. You even have people like that right now (for even far smaller of a compensation).

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

#629

Post by deltaonefour »

riversflow wrote: post #413
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…

> Human civilizations' current abundance of resources allows us the luxury to develop moral "philosophies" You've got it backwards; Human's current abundance is the creation of human cooperation, which doesn't really work without some sort of ethical framework. Philosophy enables us to achieve more, it is not the result of our achievement.

In order to achieve the leisure time you need to develop these philosophies you need civilization first. Otherwise you'd be too worried about hunting and gathering to even find the time to think about these things.

A very Complex civilization requires what you talk about, but make no mistake; civilization itself came first.

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

#630

Post by emodendroket »

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.

On the other hand, also a level of terror unimaginable in the past if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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