Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

interestingengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 384 posts

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#231

Post by TeMPOraL »

berdario wrote: post #209
jjoonathan wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point: naturalism can justify anything, and that makes it a poor guiding principle. As do many other things. There are many natural things that are good. Clean air, unique little ecosystems like GP describes, endless variety -- and we should strive to respect and preserve those, but not because they are natural. Poor animals teeming with parasites, population "balance" maintained through periodic overpopul…

> population "balance" maintained through periodic overpopulation and starvation (How do people think it happens? Forest fairies tell the deer how many babies to have?) Thinking about this, I just realized a simple thing: balance in animal population via starvation might not be as grim as we expect (i.e. it happens completely because the weakest/least fit individuals cannot compete for food and literally starve). The…

It's still very grim if you recognize that animals - particularly advanced animals like deer - feel and suffer. Also makes you wonder if the fragility of reproductive system wrt. malnutrition isn't an evolutionary adaptation that smooths out the population crash a little bit after hitting the carrying capacity of a niche.

(Also: many (most?) living things have things that eat them, which is another population maintenance mechanism, and no less grim.)

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#232

Post by WorkLobster »

echelon wrote: post #108
breakfastduck wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may chip in - I don't think it's really comparable. An abortion is a result of a choice being made by a person after a set of real life and possibly unexpected events have happened. The research is carefully planned in advance. This was genetically engineered to be terminated. So while I do think you've asked a relevant question, I think the ethical questions the two things raise are actually very far apart.

If you ponder whether these things have souls, then they're directly related. There's a spectrum here. At one end, religious folks believe life and soul begins at conception. Some also believe tampering with genes is tampering with god's creation. At the other end, atheists believe in so soul. Some believe personhood doesn't begin until a being is able to think, feel, and reflect upon the world around it. They hold t…

> religious folks believe life and soul begins at conception

By "religious folks", do you mean "modern Christianity"? Even then, I think it may be less of a given than you realize. For example, Thomas Aquinas wrote that an embryo is "ensouled" some months after conception.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#234

Post by pishpash »

grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

It would have probably died due to the skull not fitting the larger brain.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#235

Post by porknubbins »

I’m pretty sure Dean Koontz has written half a dozen sci-fi thrillers that explore the ramifications of creating super intelligent animals like this but I never thought it would be possible. Now I guess I don’t have to feel like I need to suspend disbelief to enjoy the story anymore.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#236

Post by animal_spirits »

linkdd wrote: post #210
jonplackett wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really an argument about the definition of natural isn’t it. We’re from nature but personally I believe humans are something different. We’re the only animal with choice - that we know of at least, and if you believe in free will, which some people don’t of course.

It's not a matter of what we believe, but it's a matter of facts. Humans comes from nature, and the building blocks of a human are the same as everything else in the universe (as far as we know). Recent studies have shown that "choice" is made before we are even conscious of it (so byebye free will?), and no studies have shown that we are the only living creature able to make "choices". "Humans are special", "Humans…

Humans _are_ special, humans _are_ smarter. While yes we do share common ancestors with chimpanzees and other apes, there is something incredibly different between us and the chimpanzee. I just got off of an airplane thinking how insane it is humans can build these tools.

We humans wield great power over other life. With great power comes great responsibility, and just as much as we should humbly recognize our origins and common ancestors with other life, we should also recognize the immense responsibilities over other life that we have.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#238

Post by ROARosen »

grawprog wrote: post #46

I find it hard to describe how I feel about this. These scientists essentially created what may have been a new species, that perhaps would have had similar sentience to us and had them terminated after 100 days. The cat's out of the bag with this research so to speak now. Someone's bound to do this again The part about whether they should have been born or not, which was the ethical thing is what tears at me. Is it…

I honestly don't understand their ethical boundaries. What makes it more unethical to let it live (at least in captivity) and then kill it off at some point, than removing it in fetus form?

You might argue, that keeping a being in captivity is unethical. Well, so is genetically experimenting with and then killing off a fetus. The only reason they feel it's ethical in the first place is obviously some sort of "the good that will come to the world from this knowledge is much more than the damage done to this fetus". But that same rationale an be said of letting it be born?

One might argue that if they would let it live to a certain point would at least give us some real-world knowledge of the ramifications of genetic editing.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#239

Post by ativzzz »

procgen wrote: post #193
ativzzz wrote: post #111

So what exactly is inherently unethical about letting this engineered organism live? Is it a violation of "Christian" ethics of playing God? If so, we've already gone way past that point with modern medicine and things like genetic engineering of mosquitoes. If it's a fear of how society reacts to the organism surviving and causing an upheaval of life philosophy, isn't all science then unethical?

I think it's less about any societal reaction and more about the organism's experience. It would be more useful to perform similar genetic experiments on human beings, in any case. But I imagine that you would be opposed to that?

I mean we've collectively decided that we do not care about the experience of mice and rats as we kill and perform all kinds of experiments on them in the lab, not to mention the meat industry. I'm not anti-meat or anything, just pointing out that we've chosen that certain living beings do not have the right to a good life. Why would this science experiment be treated differently?

And no, I wouldn't be opposed to human testing if there were humans who were willing to sign up for it, but it could be worrisome to take care that vulnerable people are not taken advantage of.

Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution

#240

Post by alisonkisk »

belval wrote: post #201
fiblye wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if a presumably sentient creature is aborted before it attains sentience, has it suffered?

Not the commenter you are responding to, but I would assume if it has not attained sentience then it should not be considered sentient and as such is not a sentient creature. It has to be, otherwise the abortion debate would be very different. Aborting a somewhat conscious fetus would be much closer to murder.

If you latch on to me and suck my blood, is it murder for me to remove you from my body just because you can't live without parasitically feeding off of me?
Post reply on HN