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Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

cambridgeindependent.co.uk

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Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#141

Post by colanderman »

Thorrez wrote: post #134
colanderman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an abortion debate -- a human exceptionalism debate. That is -- what makes a human embryo special compared to a mouse embryo? (Beside what it eventually grows into -- since that is not allowed to happen in these experiments.)

Ok, is there a difference between killing an adult human and killing an adult chicken? I argue humans have inherent dignity and rights, and animals don't.

These aren't adults, they're embryos. What differentiates them? Mere anthrocentrism is not a logical argument.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#142

Post by colanderman »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #121
colanderman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence why I'm asking about embryos. What, scientifically, differentiates a human embryo from a mouse embryo, beside what it may eventually become? Why find the experimentation of one appalling, but not the other, when neither is allowed to grow? (I am not arguing one way or the other, merely that it is illogical and unscientific to differentiate.)

Because life begins at conception.

For mice surely too then, no?

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#143

Post by sacrosancty »

ben_w wrote: post #135
sacrosancty wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Farm animals are unnaturally bred and essentially slaves. We somehow have them. Are you opposed to their existence too? Yes, people have disagreed about slavery and farm/working animals and all those grey areas of animal and human rights. But it's arrogant of you to take your personal opinion and try to impose it on an entirely different society with creatures that you know nothing about "just in case" the…

> Farm animals are unnaturally bred and essentially slaves. We somehow have them. Are you opposed to their existence too? Yes, absolutely. As virtually every situation where a human is treated as an animal is seen as abhorrent, so by symmetry I expect most animals in contact with humans to be miserable most of the time. The only reason I am not going to go as far as to claim the meat industry is multiplicatively wors…

If you declare just about everything to be a disaster then, yea, I agree the future will probably be full of disasters. But Blade Runner iirc is about people who seem normal but have some "bad" origin which makes them eligible for abusive treatment. We wouldn't do that today any worse than we already do, of course with foreigners/etc. but I'm assuming the doomsayers are worried about something worse than what we already widely do and accept.

> (As an aside: that's already abuse, so you apparently defending it, even if that wasn't your intent, should demonstrate why we may end up being awful to such life).

I gave the example of an artist who works for personal satisfaction. You call that abuse to have allowed that person to be born? I don't. If someone is intrinsically motivated to be a slave, then being a slave may not only be the best possible life them but could even be better than the life of a normal free person. If it's actually abusive like using human slaves, then people will see than just as we can see that today.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#144

Post by Thorrez »

colanderman wrote: post #141
Thorrez wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, is there a difference between killing an adult human and killing an adult chicken? I argue humans have inherent dignity and rights, and animals don't.

These aren't adults, they're embryos. What differentiates them? Mere anthrocentrism is not a logical argument.

We're back to my original comment: the human embryo is just a young human. The mouse embryo isn't.

Saying we're going to kill it before it grows up ("since that is not allowed to happen in these experiments") doesn't make the human embryo less of a young human.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#145

Post by Tozen »

dang wrote: post #127
Tozen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now the title is arguably confusing and significantly different from that of the original linked article. It seems unnecessary to mangle the title to that extent, to create a wider difference.

It's standard for users to clamor for changes to misleading titles, and standard for moderators to accede to the clamoring. We do that because otherwise the thread fills up with ever more complaints about the title. The OP is a press release and such titles are usually overstated and need to be changed anyhow. This is in the site guidelines: " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait " ( htt…

Understand, as the various situations are complex. Thanks for the explanation.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#146

Post by guggleet »

adrianN wrote: post #115
guggleet wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already can...? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology

Depends on what you mean by "can". From the Wikipedia article: "A living "artificial cell" has been defined as a completely synthetic cell that can capture energy, maintain ion gradients, contain macromolecules as well as store information and have the ability to mutate. Nobody has been able to create such a cell."

Completely synthetic, no, but I think that overlooks a lot.

Re: Mouse embryo with brain and beating heart created from stem cells

#147

Post by shash »

nomel wrote: post #55
shash wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why is the embryo not “fit enough”. One way to increase the chance of success is by making the embryo “more fit”, but that requires an understanding of what that definition of fitness is, and that is what I understand this study is about.

This is making an extreme assumption that miscarriages aren't an expected, or required, phenomenon.

No assumptions. Just a different way to study a phenomenon...
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