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

261–270 of 384 posts

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

#261

Post by pm90 »

ma2rten wrote: post #227
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…

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. I don't think that there is any evidence that other animals don't already have the same sentience as humans do. I agree that this is unethical, but other forms of using lab animals or factory farming in my opinion are equally unethical in my opinion.

Well, we do need to classify sentience... it’s not a Boolean yes or no. I agree with you that modern factory farming is disgustingly inhumane. But creating and slaughtering a species that can learn at the same rate as humans is uncomfortably close to slaughtering human babies, which is a line that perhaps all of society can agree cannot be crossed.

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

#262

Post by lopmotr »

jarek-foksa wrote: post #225
klunger wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am speaking as someone who is pro-choice, pro-GMO's and pro-stem cell research, etc. This research has crossed a line that none of the above do. It is creating a new kind of sentience, a new kind of soul. And, what's the point? To confirm a theory about a gene? So fricking what. That really doesn't matter, not in relation to the possible consequences: someone taking this res…

Maybe what we really need first is a new religion and ethics, one that would eliminate the "playing god" dilemma and enable faster progress in the right direction. It could picture us animals as insignificant and not worthy the attention of the creator of the universe unless we reach ourselves a certain level of intelligence, consciousness and empathy.

We'd have to start by admitting that almost nobody has the faintest clue about ethics beyond simply having been brainwashed into believing whatever arbitrary ethics they believe. Just look at the nonsense and disagreement about abortion. There are so many arbitrary standards people use to advocate for allowing or forbidding abortions at various ages. In my country, they recently adjusted the legal age by a few weeks, from one arbitrary number to anther arbitrary number. Curiously, I've only met one person who advocated for "post-partum" abortion. I think most people simply refuse to allow themselves to consider that because they aren't making any attempt at being ethical and only want to reinforce their own culture or demonstrate to their peers that they're "good" people.

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

#263

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#264

Post by Retric »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #30
CyberRabbi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t realize that was scientific consensus. So that would imply that brains under a certain size are incapable of higher levels of intelligence? I don’t think that’s right... I thought the consensus was that brain size has no strong correlation with intelligence at all. That makes sense considering how neurons work, the connections they form seem like they would be more causal.

Its a complicated question. Within the human species, the correlation is not that strong at all. In cross-species comparisons it tends to be quite strong, especially when considering brain to body weight ratios. Bird brains may be an interesting exception however, which I suspect can be quite intelligent, depending on how intelligence is measured.

Part of what makes that interesting is we are very good at some tasks that might be quite expensive, and really bad at some tasks that could be simple. In other words, our personal views on difficulty could be wildly off. For example assuming computer vision should be easy and chess hard.

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

#265

Post by remote_phone »

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…

How is this any different from the abortion debate? As long as it’s not sentient does it matter? There are far bigger ethical considerations than just this feud. Presumably the monkey pregnant with this fetus wasn’t naturally impregnated, and you didn’t want the monkey to accidentally damage the fetus, so was the monkey caged it even conscious during the gestation period? Lots of horrifying things to consider if you go down there rabbit hole.

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

#266

Post by hairytrog »

The fetus would probably not have3 survived. You can't just make the brain bigger and expect everything else to work out. Example problems: skull too small, eyes and everything around the brain would have to be reconfigured, heart/blood supply would have to be reconfigured, etc etc. Some examples of how this goes wrong in humans (graphic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly

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

#267

Post by tracer4201 »

belval wrote: post #158
klunger wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am speaking as someone who is pro-choice, pro-GMO's and pro-stem cell research, etc. This research has crossed a line that none of the above do. It is creating a new kind of sentience, a new kind of soul. And, what's the point? To confirm a theory about a gene? So fricking what. That really doesn't matter, not in relation to the possible consequences: someone taking this res…

Have you ever stopped and thought about why you feel in such way towards these experiments? Why do you see sentience as the line not to cross and even go as far as to call it a "dark path"? You use a lot of wording that are very religious sounding such as "soul", "excommunicated", "dark path", but have you considered that you cannot really excommunicate a scientist, that the mere concept of a soul might be wrong? To…

To me this is orthogonal to religion. What concerns me is the idea of a sentient, living thing being experimented on — if it has consciousness and intelligence, is it really different from experimenting on a human?

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

#268

Post by spiritplumber »

"My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?"

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

#269

Post by nahuel0x »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #208
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Brin, Uplift Universe. Start with Startide rising. It covers this in a more interestingly ethical way I think.

and Sirius by Olaf Stapledon.

one of the most beautiful books ever written, and now by this news very prescient.
Post reply on HN