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Stanford Jumps Into Cloning Fray
smackthud writes "According to this article in the Minneapolis StarTribune website Stanford University is planning to clone human embryos. Story summary says it all: 'Stanford University announced today its intention to clone human embryos, becoming the first U.S. university to publicly embrace the politically charged procedure. The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.'" Stanford has released a statement distinguishing what Stanford is doing from reproductive cloning.
just asking.
sulli
RTFJ.
...Begun, this clone war has......
"The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research."
The benefits of this is to great to avoid doing it. If the cells are not cloned in the US, they will be bought from abroad, so the result will be the same anyway. Brave of Stanford to dare doing this in the US anyhow!
cloning, nature's way of saying: imagine a beowulf cluster of yourself!
Fleur de Sel
It would seem even the mighty media can mislead us! Maybe the perception of the average person is changing but it seems that most people can't distinguish between cloning human cells and cloning a human. Most people see cloning as the bad sci-fi movies portray it, person goes in onside of the machine, two or more people come out the other side, identical in every way. Blah BLah Blah, it goes on and on. Hopefully one of these days the journalists will do some informed research before posting these things.
SU researchers probably will have to clone stem cells of human embryos, which is something different (in my opinion) than cloning human embryos.
Still an interesting question remains. If they will clone stem cells, will that be a next step to the cloning of human beings? Usually having a technique means it will be used...
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts
The intent of the project is to produce stem cells for medical research.
And why isn't everyone doing this? Oh right, it's against the presidents religious beliefs. Is it really suprising that people would rather pursue research that might aid in a cure for cancer, rather than follow a law set by Bush that stem cell research is against his religious beliefs?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Finally time that someone in the higher echelons of education stand up to the US government.
I feel rather ecstatic about this, someone is finally making a point.
I was rather angry at Bush when he decided to limit stem cell research. I felt that his decision was affected directly by his religious beliefs.
Science and religion don't mix. Looks like someone is finally trying to seperate them.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
... is it real that there's this Microsoft advertising ? Always got his nose in it (our friend Bill), when it's someting weird ! just kidding. This cloning stuff, well, it's a really tricky and complex stuff ! But it's always the same, through all history the human has tried to become god, so now it's hte turn of the scientists, they didn't get their try, yet ! It's a pitty, they sould use their brains and concentrate on more useful things, like finding methods to better preserve the nature and to the other way round, trying to control it. We're not going to manage this cloning stuff, it's only accelerating our path to an even darker future.
n-e
Why are they cloning fray? We've got more than enough fray...
>but unfortunately I don't even know my own dreams!
Pick yourself up, throw yourself onto a plane and spend 3 months in Africa because dreams come to people there. Maybe you will find a calling that will aid the world and make a few extra $$ on the side so that you can golf in your 60's and be able to afford a clone in your 80's to take over your empire.
As this kid shows, IQ Tests obviously have *little* to do with actual intelligence.
I'm not opposed to abortion but this seems pretty weasley (no offense to weasles) way to get out of the abortion issue. Lets just get on with stem cell research and quit playing games. Stanford takes the high road and explain their "clean" procedure (parenthetical quotes are mine):
Creating human stem cell lines is not equivalent to reproductive cloning. The first step in the process of creating a stem cell line involves transferring the nucleus from a cell to an egg and allowing the egg to divide. This is the same first step as in reproductive cloning. However in creating a stem cell line, cells (parts of the fetus) are removed (dismembered) from the developing cluster (fetus). These cells can go on to form many types of tissues, but cannot on their own develop into a human (because they are just pieces of dismembered human tissue).
How is this procedure different from whats going on in the rest of the world? I guess the Christian right wingers can sleep well at night now.
What is the world coming to?
What is the world coming to?
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
They can couch it in newspeak as much as they want, this is still wrong. Every slashdotter here knows that this is wrong within the core of their being, no matter how much they fool themselves.
Sliding down the slope...
Original post:
"If these ppl do this they should be jailed and bared from science. I hope they are stopped but if its to late and they do it before the feds can stop them, they need to be severly punished. This is life we are talking about we can't allow ppl to just play with it."
Repaired post:
"If these people do this, they should be jailed and barred from science. I hope they are stopped, but if it's too late, and they do it before the feds can stop them, they need to be severely punished. This is life we are talking about. We can't allow people to just play with it."
Why does there seem to be a proportional relationship between the extremity of a fundamentalist and poor grammar?
Intelligence level, maybe? Nah, couldn't be that...
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Rimmer: "Can you imagine a society composed entirely of me?"
CAT: I'm trying not to, last time I did that it took me a week to dry the matress!
Now we must beware the Robotech Masters who will surely launch an attack on Stanford in order to learn the secrets of humanity's ultimate power!!
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
What horrifies me is thinking a time will come when the rich will be the only ones who have access to this. "I'm gonnna die of old age and will my wealth to, well, me!" And, imagine, Michael Jackson cloning himself, just when we might be feeling we'll be free of him -- public nose-peelings and baby drops into the 22nd century!!!
I've always been of the opinion that cloning, genetic engineering, etc were Good Things. This is technology that can potentially cure genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis or Huntington's disease in people who already suffer from it as well as prevent it from ever showing up in the first place. Then of course there is cancer. Imagine treatments that would simply repair the sections of our DNA sequence that MUST be damaged in order for any cancer to form. Forget radiation and chemotherapy that are simply attempts to kill the cancer without killing the patient. Fix the anti-cancer genes in the cancer cells and they kill themselves.
I think that genetic engineering can, in the hands of those who are honest, wise, and well intentioned, also be used to enhance human abilities without trying to alter human nature. Human nature might not be perfect, but I don't trust anyone to try and make it better. This is where genetic engineering gets risky in my opinion, when it gives people with an agenda for who and what mankind should be the tools to warp human beings into their twisted model of human behavior. Just imagine if the looney left or the religious right were to become the keepers of the technology. How many bolsheviks and bible thumpers could they create? There are already enough idiots and brainwashed buffoons in the world without a breeding program to manufacture them.
Anyway I'm glad this is being done by Stanford. Of course you'll hear nothing but screaming from the idiots of the world, but such is the burden of scientific progress. At least nowadays you don't have to worry about the inquisition murdering you for daring to contradict the codified superstition that passes for mankind's understanding of the divine.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I imagine there are plenty of people who would limit stem cell research for non-religious reasons. After all, this quickly degenerates into an abortion debate.
Pro-life reasoning is that human life deserves protection all the way back to conception. Pro-abortion reasoning is that human life deserves protection only after some period of development (varying according to who's talking). Pro-life groups advocate protection all the way back to conception because they see no rational reason to draw the line anywhere else.
It is therefore not necessarily a religious motivation under which Bush limited stem cell research. Not that it wasn't a religious motivation. But an experienced politician at the top of the game knows better than to try to legislate his religious ideas without a separate rational argument.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now? What is your argument that your life is intrinsically more valuable than a human embryo to be used in stem cell research, or the Jews experimented on by the Nazis? Where and how do you draw the line at where the value of human life begins?
The question of when to begin protection of human life, embryo, fetus, child or adult must precede any argument for other uses of potentially adult human embryos, no matter how useful or convenient any use or disuse of the embyo may be. If a human life is deserving of the same rights as any adult or child then no one else has any right to determine how that life is to be spent.
Stem cell research is perhaps the MOST promissing medical research ever ... It would be a crime to not allow it. I'm ok with the government restricting funds for it, but don't disallow private institutions (or publically funded ones if those public funds aren't going to the research) to persue it.
Of course that's not to say I wouldn't mind seeing some public funds go to it! But in the US, public funds are supposed to go where the people want it. If the majority of citizens don't want it, then that's what the government should do.
That brings up the question... what does the majority want?
I know 2 people with MS (not microsoft)... if this can help them, then why not?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not sure I follow you. WHAT exactly are they doing that makes them criminals? You say that they are playing with life and the implication is that it is somehow wrong. Isn't playing with life exactly what biologists and medical researchers have been doing all along? I guess you'd rather we do without things like anti-biotics and vaccines, both of which were created/discovered by the process of playing with life that you seem to have a problem with.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
You cannot evaluate research efforts like this one based on their sheer economic or scientific value.
After all, Nazis' experiments on live humans also resulted in some scientific advances (in particular, in neurohpysiology), with results used in medecine today. However, many people (me included) have strong digsust for such flavor of science, and would rather like if such experiments were never done, regardless of their practical value.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Read The Washington Post's article, which notes: "The new institute, which will aim to create stem cell therapies for cancer and other diseases, is to be established with $12 million from an anonymous donor. Under a Bush administration policy announced last year, federally funded researchers wishing to work with human embryonic stem cells must limit their endeavors to a small number of approved cell colonies created before Aug. 9, 2001. But because the Stanford institute will be privately funded, researchers there will be able to create and experiment on new colonies."
http://www.americancatholic.org/News/StemCell/ask_ stemcell.asp
e _to_bush.asp
http://www.americancatholic.org/News/StemCell/pop
That the radical religious factions responsible for saying genetics and evolution are lies not to be taught in schools are suddenly up in arms once the prospect of the best accreditted people proving them wrong arises.
The religion lobby has a long, rich history of dicking over education, research and technical progress. Stem cells and cloning are the obvious progression of medicine: we have near infinite potential to repair human bodies, minds, and lives sitting in the palm of out hand and we're debating whether or not we want to play with it.
There's a natural apprehension, to take a pause to reflect over the new "ethics" and come to terms with the concept, but I think the average American/1st Worlder has been exposed enough to the concept to realize the dangers. Of course, the dangers are far greater if the moral side is the one not to embrace its power.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The reason why the Democrats are having such a hard time getting their shit together is because there is just so much of it. The Republicans have the same problem of course, but since they, comparatively speaking, are less full of shit than the Democrats, they're typically more successful.
Wouldn't it be nice if politics in America didn't involve so much shit from all sides?
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I forget the name, but it technically is not cloning! Though it's moving a nucleus from a real person to an egg, it's not cloning.
Furthermore, there's some 19-ish (bio majors correct me) cell limit before it becomes and embryo. It's not getting something that resembles a human and tearing it apart for cells, as it never gets past a very small ball of [stem] cells!
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Don't you remember the civil war that became known as the Russian revolution? What about China's invasion of Tibet? The Korean war? Vietnam?
Anyplace you see aggression and conflict at the hands of communists you can pretty much define it as a war in the name of 'no God.' The reason is that communism has no deities, only saints and martyrs.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Your use of the word "Pro-abortion" gives your position away immediately. No matter how rational you try to make yourself sound, you kill your argument by using such rhetoric.
To answer your question, you are not a human being until you have a functioning brain. An embryo is not a human but rather human tissue with the potential to become a human. Potential is not actual. I have a penis therefor I am potentially a rapist. I am not a rapist, however.
The difference is not as subtle as you believe.
Heh, if I would have moderator points left I would have modded your comment (-1) flame.
But after reading some AC's replies to you, I realized something that is really wrong here IMNSHO.
Why must I fear karmic retribution if I post religious or anti-religious comment here? Because of such not so farsighted (former, sigh) modders like me! How can I change that, by changing myself.
To collect what those AC:s made me realize on this subject I peresent this following question?
Is it religion and science that do not mix, or the ethics and morals of certain religions and science that do not mix? Ethics are part of our culture which to my knowledge is only thing that is as valuable as science. Because only our knowledge and culture do survive over generations and our short life span. Should we advance science faster, than the other half of what makes us mankind can advance?
I do not honestly know. But what I know, is that I will rather be a man, that has his limitations and short views that machine that has no soul.
And I do have the patience to wait people to wake up to embrace the tomorrow little by little rather than forced to waken.
Disclaimer: I am an agnostic, so my opinion is not from either side of the grand religion vs. atheism war that imho should have ended in 19th century.
In dream society, people could be given the ability to mod replies. In real life, it would be disaster.
Intelligence level, maybe? Nah, couldn't be that...
Well, let's see here. Your last two sentences were really sentence fragments and your first sentence is ambiguous. It sounds to me like you're the one who has trouble with his grammer.
P.S. grammer flames are lame.
(a) Potential is not actual. I have fingers. I could potentially be a great guitar player. Guess what? I'm not.
(b)
I'd say that more development would in fact give more actual value -a trained neurosurgeon is more valuable to society than a toddler. Sure the toddler's cuter, but lambs are cute too and we kill and eat them.
It is therefore not necessarily a religious motivation under which Bush limited stem cell research. Not that it wasn't a religious motivation. But an experienced politician at the top of the game knows better than to try to legislate his religious ideas without a separate rational argument.
Here's what I want you to do: 1) Put on your propaganda-warning hat and pretend your George Orwell. Now, go back and reread the above sentences. Repeat until you realize what complete doublespeak that was. I don't think I've read anything that ironic in a long time.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now?
I don't. That's why I'm for the war in Iraq, for Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, pro-death penalty, don't have a problem with the CIA being legally able to kill US citizens, disapprove of educational or other measures which help stop the spread of AIDS, and, oh yes, perform ritualistic cannibalism. No profit is bad profit and God save the Republican Party.
You people would have a lot more credibility if you gave a fuck about life AFTER it comes tearing out of some bitches pussy. But fuuuuuck that. "We're conservative! We're pro-life! Unless, that is, you can breathe on yer own. Then, well, I don't want *my* tax dollars going to keeping you off the streets! And you can't put 'em in jail long enough to keep me happy!"
What the fuck ever man. A fetus is not a child. It's a salamander. It's got gills and a fucking tail. Do not care. Never will care. Gimme a cigarette, a pair of tongs, and a knocked up 14 year old. Let's go. "Let's take care of this baby so we can make another one. Mooohahahahaha."
I'm glad that Stanford has stepped up and decided to defy Bush's stance on stem-cell research. This is one of the most promising areas of Biology, and it's absolutely ridiculous to cut it off.
:)
I don't quite remember at what point biologists declare a zygote to be an actual embryo; the last time I touched Developmental Biology was 2 years ago. However, if I remember techniques correctly, we can stop division when the zygote is at the 8-cell stage, possibly sooner. I believe the blastula stage (hollow ball of cells) is generally considered to be the real "start" of an embryo, but again, my recollection is a tad hazy.
I think a lot of the misconceptions being tossed around related to cloning are quite interesting. I only hope that people will realize one day that the concept of the "mad scientist" is more than a little ludicrous, and that cloning human beings is quite a ways off, as is the concept of producing genetic "supermen". Of course, the media, being sensationalist to begin with, will continue to misrepresent the facts, and the general populace will continue to be misinformed.
That's not to say that when I'm done with my Biology degree (and probably my Ph.D. too) that I'm not going to attempt to take over the world with an army of cloned gorilla-men, but that's a different story altogether.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
It's a very interesting society we live in. It's a widely held belief that it's worse to put one innocent man to death than not to have a death penalty, but when it comes to cloning. It's fine to do "embryonic" = some human DIED to promote the research, stem cell cloning as long as it isn't "reproductive".
In other words, the difference is not that human life didn't have to DIE needlessly to promote the research, but that that specific stem cell could not create a human being.
I'm not opposed to stem cell research. I think it's great. Yet, I'm not willing to promote the death of the human race in a vain effort to improve my own life. There are other places to get stem cells that are not "embryonic".
If you think this is crap, how about we improve human life a different way? Here's my modest proposal. If you have a genetic defect, we line you up against a wall and shoot you. Isn't that great? We can eliminate the human race of genetic defects in one generation. No more sickle-cell anemia. No more Down's syndrome. No more hemophilia. This is exactly what's happening. We say "sacrifice those embryos so that I can cure Parkinsons," or Christopher Reeves - "Sacrifice those embryos so I can walk again." Would you rip your own legs off to give them to Christopher Reeves? If not, then why are you effectively ripping off someone else's legs for the same purpose. Justifying yourself by saying, "well, at least they weren't my legs!"
On the same day that Stanford announced their intention to clone human embryos for stem cell research, researchers in France announced that they can essentially cure sickle cell disease via stem cells. A great story was written about this here yesterday. Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that affects people of African, Mediterranean, Indian, and Middle Eastern heritage. In the United States, these disorders are most commonly observed in African Americans and Hispanics from the Caribbean, Central America, and parts of South America. To my knowledge, this is the first case in which researchers actually believe that a disease can be "cured" via stem cells. This should definitely put the pressure on governments to open the doors to stem cell research.
Looking for political forums? Check out "The World Forum".
The therapeutic cloning approach of the Stanford researchers also has great potential, but the process of creating and destroying embryos to harvest stem cells seems to be more complicated than using adult stem cells. Further, some experiments in which embryonic stem cells were reimplanted ominously gave rise to carcinomas. Many research scientists think both approaches should be pursued.
Its all a secret plot to make copies of President Bush's hawkish advisor Condi Rice, formerly #2 in charge at Stanford.
I'm a big fan of cloning and all it can do for us, but I'd be interested to hear why they don't test and perfect their techniques on rats and pigs and sheep first. Why do they always go for the controversial human experiments before perfecting the much safer rhesus monkey tests?
I mean, Dolly the Sheep and the cloned cow both showed cellular problems that may well be due to the cloning process... so clearly, there's work to be done on mammalian cloning before it's ready for human tests. Why not give cloning the same respect as other techniques, and get it mostly right before using humans?
Hey! What if that was your embryo in the Stanford lab? Now you don't exist, and you can't argue your viewpoint.
What are the benefits of stem cell research? Fixing old people, that's what. Why do we want to fix old people? Seems like normally we'd be interested in making new people. So stem cell research is the first step in having a NEVER-ENDING population of PEOPLE WHO EXIST NOW, and simply RAID THEIR CHILDREN to LIVE FOREVER.
This is pretty close to a troll, but no one else is suggesting this side. Look at social security. Most people don't seem to care how my generation is going to have to break their backs working for our old man. Do we want the old guard: Bush, Clinton, Blair, and Jiang Xemin squabbling forever on OUR STEM CELLS? HECK NO!!
THAT'S THE TRUE DANGER!!!!
Prove to me that Stem Cell research is better than having a whole lot more kids, one of whom might make stem cell research irrelevant.
You are still either an atheist or a theist. I have known agnostic christians and agnostic atheists. If your answer to the question "do you believe in a god?" is not yes then you are an atheist. It is a true binary pairing, the switch is either on or off.
The December issue of Wired (online Dec 13) talks about China's aggressive push into the stem cell industry while the West grapples with ethical roadblocks. An major approach is to create human embryoes using rabbit egg cells as the host. Its rather slow and costly to get human egg cells in sufficent quantities. Would these clones be called "habbits" then and have the urge to hop and mate mate every five minutes? :-)
Outside of China, human embryo stem cells are grown intermixed with mouse cells. That is because the nourishment techniques were developed with mouse biotechnology and haven't fully migrated to pure human yet. These clones would have a taste for cheeses and squeak while talking.
good for stanford, I think cloning could really help out a lot of people in the long term. From what I know researchers in the US get alot of stem cells from outside the US. Now we can have an internal supplier. And good for standford for standing in what they believe in. How long till they get the protestors at their doors?
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
A human embryo was first cloned in 1998, according to the Human Cloning Foundation, though development was halted after 12 days.
In November of this year, Dr. Severino Antinori claims a woman will bear a child "conceived" by cloning in January 2003, though no proof has been forthcoming from earlier, similar announcements by him.
However, it seems that Stanford will indeed be focusing more on stem cell cloning and research, rather than embryos entire. That doesn't mean other universities or organizations won't use this announcement as a stepping stone to researching embryonic cloning (for the purpose of "growing" cloned humans), though.
How about letting people understand?
Instead of banning them from understandment?
It seems to me that all these law and orders we make on a daily basis is trying to "Prohibit" those of us who are curious of the next thing laying infront of our path.
All may not cross the path at once, but sooner or laytor [time will tell] all may walk the path. So wouldn't it be handy-dandy if someone did this "homework" for us? Instead of stumbling around with something that might just be extremly lethal for you?
Hmm; now that I said it, I seems to me that we live in a stubborn society were we want to make our own "homework[s]" [our own way[s]!]
Very well, *\\//_* may it bring you prosperity.
-- Guns aren't lethal, we are; they are mere toys we play with.
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
I'm a biochemist here at Stanford and Irv Weissman (the dude in charge of the project) is not talking about cloning at all. He's talking about taking existing stem cell lines, and swapping in new genetic material. It's a modification of existing cell lines that involves no new egg cells (or sperm cells), no fertilization, and no organismic development. Even the US Catholic League is okay with this. Besides, if it fell under the definition of human cloning, Stanford would lose federal funding, which it is certainly not willing to risk. I am very much against actual human cloning for a variety of ethical reasons, but this honestly isn't even close. Swapping interesting genes in and out of an existing cell line in order to study them is really not a big deal.
You're never alone with a clone.
Usually attributed to Castor and Pollux.
Or was that Chang and Eng?
--
AC ducks and expects a kicking.
...but let me know when they going to start making saber darts and rocket suits.
Yesterday news also hit of bioethicist Dan Brock advocating mandatory abortion for disabled people such as blind and mentally ill.
This is not a new concept, but is one that is growing in feasability and global support.
What does this have to do with cloning and stem cell research? Well they all have the same amoral drive: creating a "better" human race through science without any moral guidelines. As we see on this board, many people ridicule those of us with moral presuppositions as "non-scientific", "ignorant", etc. Above, though, we see an extreme example of this.
Fast-forward now 10 or 20 years. Science has guaranteed a "perfect" child to anybody who can afford one. A minority of rich people get smarter, stronger, better-looking, and richer, in contrast to those who still suffer with gross things like blindness and the worst- mental inferiority. It wasn't enough to genetically engineer perfect children. The question now is "Why hold on to that last moral presupposition that we shouldn't kill scientifically inferior people?" You may think me an extremist, but it's happened before.
That is the question that should be answered today. If you truely believe in removing morals from science, be logically consistent with it: advocate a super-human race and the death of all inferior people. If you believe in moral presuppositions, though, realize what unchecked research in cloning, embryionic stem cells, and science in general will lead to. Either way, the question is: what criteria do you use to value human life? You may have about a year to decide.
There are alternatives, such as adult stem cells, which have potential as well and sidestep ethical concerns.
It's obviously not acceptable for you to have a baseline ethical standard above yours. The intended source of a lot of these stem cells is embryonic in many cases. Whether or not this is the case here, it cannot be discounted that the ongoing source of them - abortions - is an ethically questionable practice. If you question that, give yourself a long hard look in the mirror, and tell me if you would rather exist or not, especially given the work you do to spread your message.
I have no problem with experimenting with non-embryonic stem cells, provided that they are not eventually used to create new human beings. But I do have a problem with folks purposely attempting to push people's buttons, though, because it focuses on the people, not the issues and the beliefs they represent. That, unfortunately, detracts from any argument you make.
P.S. Religion isn't the evil thing that people make it out to be relative to a few official atheists like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Mao who caused well over 100 Million deaths between various purges and WWII in this century. Better to have some common moral compass, even if a bit misguided at times, than have no common moral compass and be subject to the whim of one man. That's what society is about and has sustained us for so long.
(This is sarcastic, for those with sarcasm sensory imparement)
I was rather angry at Bush when he decided to limit stem cell research. I felt that his decision was affected directly by his religious beliefs.
GWB's religious beliefs do not seem to be slowing him down from a pointless war against Iraq in which a number of non-combatants will become "colateral damage"...
I guess he is able to choose when his beliefs come into play and when they can be cast aside...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
What's the difference between bombing abortion clinics and bombing tall buildings?? I can imagine radical pro-lifers trying to take out University labs that are attempting to clone even if they aren't cloning entire humans... In this case and the case of cloning, you cannot convince radically religious people that this can save lives. Oranges and apples.
Good. I'm not good on actually cloning humans, but stem cell research is legit/useful. I sorta think our government has its thumbs up its ass on this issue and is perhaps attacking the wrong aspect of cloning.
In one word: Yes!
Why the hell would you classify a human body (a corpse really) as a human if it is brain dead?
It's just a piece of meat.
If your brain is shut down, and there is no hope of rebooting it, you are dead. period.
What good is it to you, or anyone else if your body is still breathing?
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Well, if you ask me, "pro-choise" is right on the money.
"Pro-life" on the other hand could more accurately be called "no-choise".
Talk about avoiding the issue at hand...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Why is Reproductive cloning bad? I have yet to hear a coherent argument against it. What will the existence of a clone do? Cause the breakdown of time and space. The fact is a clone would be no different than a twin, which by the way are certainly considered separate legal entities, no issue there.
If it responds to touch is it a baby or a lump of flesh?
Do you extend those rights to all "lumps of flesh that respond to touch"?
Do you eat meat?
I'm pretty sure your last Big Mac had a much more complex response to touch than a 5.5 week featus before someone killed it.
Hell, even some plants respond visibly to touch!
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
If I was cloning anything other than stem cells would I make it public? Hell no, I would make it a secret project. I would most likely try to start an ubermench project right under peoples noses. The best and ultimate use of cloning is for genetic research. You finally have a biological subject that is the same everytime you go to make a change, this is the only real way to test genetic changings. Next you need to accelerate growth so that you can see your changes (or do it in large batches with different changes). You preform vast changes in the human genome and no one would be able to tell what was going besides the scientists who were doing them.
This should definitely put the pressure on governments to open the doors to stem cell research.
Interesting. Now, tell me, what governments (except the US) has closed those doors, to begin with?
You know, there are several lines of stem cells being researched upon within a 10km radius of me even as I write this.
The only effect of US religious rights conniption over stem cells is that the US get harder to keep up in this area of science (and, to be fair, this might slow the progression of the science somewhat).
But still, in the long run, it doesn't change a thing.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
As we move closer to the end of the age, look for more decisions to be made based on the "common good", "world order", and "tolerance" rather than individual rights and dignity.
Precisely what do "individual rights" and "dignity" have to do with a cluster of cells that, I quote (from the official Stanford press release), "cannot on their own develop into a human"? Please. This is not reproductive cloning. This is actually about the same, in terms of "dignity" or "individual rights" as a pacemaker.
Just because it comes from human tissue doesn't make it human, or do you give your toenail clippings funerals? Ever done that experiment in science class using epithelial cells? Did you feel like a murderer after you scraped the inside of your cheek?
Anyway, I don't know where your perspective is coming from, but you ought to at least RTFA before you rant.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Embryonic Stem cell research and therapeutic cloning are not part of the abortion debate.
So why is the Religious Right hijacking this issue to use as a weapon in their war on abortion?
Similarly, I'm against smoking, but also favor people having the choice whether to smoke or not.
In other words, it's best not to allow the Govt. to make everything that someone doesn't like illegal, from our past experience making doctors who perform abortions and women who receive them into criminals isn't a good idea.
But many folks who feeel that the woman should ultimately decide about something that will take over her body for 9 months and may well kill her in the process, will still advise against abortion unless the woman feels she has no other option...
Scientific cloning- the publication in incremental results- allows progress on the subject. Rember is was something like fifty years bewteen the first successful clones of amphibians & reptiles in the 1930s and of mammals in the 1990s. Would be even slower without publication.
I feel the need to present the other argument.
You seem to feel that killing something or experimenting with something that is a "non-sentient mass of cells" is ok. All humans (including you) are just a mass of cells so presumably your argument can be refined to be that we can experiment on anything that is not sentient.
It would be hard to argue that a newborn is sentient. Think about all of the great AIDS research that could be done by infecting infants with the disease and testing treatments. I hope this idea is appalling to you. What about experimenting on mentally retarded people. Someone with the intelegence of a three year old (or an octopus) is certainly not any more sentient than many of our animal research models.
Since the above types of research are unaceptable, there must be some criterion other than sentience that makes reseach on infants bad. The most common answer is that it is the potential of sentience that makes infanticide worse than killing a cow. That said, when you do what they are doing at Stanford you create life that has the potential for sentience and then destroy it before it reaches sentience.
presence or absense of brainwave activity is generally used. When there is no brainwave activity, the family is given the choice whether to turn off life support and donate the organs or not.
The IVF embryo debate seems to have a similar ethic to me: the embryos are frozen and will either be stored indefinitly or discarded when the money for storing them runs out. So it should be fine for folks to donate embryos they don't use in the process: the realistic options are similar to a person without brainwave activity: donate the organs (stem cells) or keep them on life support (frozen in liquid nitrogen) untill they completely die, at which point the organs (stem cells) are useless.
This is proof enough for me: One day I will be old, and one day my kids will be old. One day we are going to be the old guard. I think this will benefit us all.
Well, let's see here. Your last two sentences were really sentence fragments and your first sentence is ambiguous. It sounds to me like you're the one who has trouble with his grammer.
P.S. grammer flames are lame.
By the way, it's "grammar".
And yes, grammer flames are lame, but spelling flames are in!
Prove to me that Stem Cell research is better than having a whole lot more kids, one of whom might make stem cell research irrelevant.
Spend some time around children, then spend some time around the elderly. While not true in 100% of the cases, you will generally find the elderly bloke to be vastly more pleasant than the little monsters everyone spends so many wasted hours cooing over. Children are loud, annoying, and mostly useless. The elderly are generally less loud, less annoying, and quite often veritable reservoirs of wisdom and insight. I'll take the latter over the former any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Indeed, given the choice between immortality and being knee-deep in diapers, I'll take immortality, thank you very much. Perhaps a species with lifespans measured in centuries or millennia would have time to develope the wisdom of finding peaceful solutions to differences, and sustainable solutions to ecological, economic, and social issues. No more "I'll let my grand kids deal with the fallout" mentality that the so-called "Greatest Generation"(tm) foisted upon us.
Meanwhile, 12 million is the size of a single grant of hundreds that NIH and NSF fund for promising research in other areas, and this years version of the Brownback bill, barely stopped by the Democrats last year, will make the doctors working at this Stanford Center federal criminals in a few months.
Heck, the US Congress is set to make patients who travel to other countries for therapeutic cloning related therapies into federal criminals.
I think the term is: "Woo Hoo".
I suppose you've opened the proverbial can of worms already, so I'll clarify the stance of those opposed to fetal cell research for you: When does a human life become worth protecting?
What makes childbirth a defining moment between being a human being and not a human being? If that's not the moment at which to protect a human against death, then when does it happen? Is it in the 3rd trimester? Is it at two years old? Is it when they pass some formal IQ test?
What I don't like about both abortion and fetal stem cell research is that someone is arbitrarily deciding that a human lifeform doesn't have a right to live based on their own or someone else's selfish needs. It's ethically no different from killing someone for food because you're poor and you need it to live. Sure, you can argue about the sentience of an embryo, but then do you advocate allowing people to kill and harvest life-saving organs from severely retarded people or people in comas? What about people in cryogenic suspension? Should we treat them as "corpsicles" and take their organs for living people too? At what point does a human's right to live end (or never begin) without connection to any actions that they have done? These arguments over the worth of a human life and human dignity aren't any different from those who advocated slavery and forced sterilization on the basis of the inferiority of the victims in comparison to enfranchised society. If you place any value on human life beyond that of your immediate friends and family, then you should object to an arbitrarily drawn line on human worth.
That is why many of us object to fetal stem cell research. There are so many possibilities for bone marrow research that could save lives without creating and killing them. We explore them fully before less ethically sound path just because it's easier.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
That is...
We should explore that fully before the less ethically sound path just because it's easier.
(Lesson learned -- always Preview, kids.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So, instead of doing the ethical thing and developing a nonlethal technique for harvesting embryonic stem cells -a move which would quell all current opposition to research- they decide to create entirely new human beings, simply for the purposes of killing them in order to get their stem cells.
Whatever happened to "First, do no harm"?
To make "this decision for someone else (i.e. the fetus).".
Since the mother risks her life carrying the fetus, this seems only fair.
Regardless, the point is that one can be in favor of letting the mother choose whether to risk her life while also being in favor of her choosing to risk it.
Stem cells and cloning are the obvious progression of medicine: we have near infinite potential to repair human bodies, minds, and lives sitting in the palm of out hand and we're debating whether or not we want to play with it.
You sound like Edward Teller, mooning over an advance of science without one whit of concern for the fallout (excuse the pun) it has on society. If never ceases to amaze me how some people think that if it's possible to do something, then it's the inevitable march of progress and that we must do it at all costs. This is the sort of thinking that led Teller to advocate using nukes to alter the weather and to dig mines and canals.
Of course, the dangers are far greater if the moral side is the one not to embrace its power.
Have you ever considered that like chemical weapons there may be no way to embrace its power and still retain the moral high-ground? "Lives sitting in the palm of our hand" are not generally the kind of thing that most reasonable people think are something that should be "played with." Fetal stem cell research results in the exploitation and death of a human lifeform. It's senseless when there are alternatives that do not. Sure, it can save lives, but we can save lives now by cutting up retarded and insane people for organs. Should we deny our prerogative as "the moral side" to "embrace the power" there?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The person that strays from "life" and "choice" and into something more reasonable like "abortion", "abortion rights", "the right to abort", etc. is the only one worth listening to, because they're the most likely to view the discussion in a reasonable manner.
I would disagree that use of the terms "abortion rights" and "the right to abort" implies an open-minded person. Any time you describe something as a "right" you are already presuming that the "pro" side is the correct one. The opposition in such cases always vehemently denies that the debated topic is a right and does not use that term.
The right to bear arms vs. gun-control
Civil rights vs. integration
Gay rights vs. "special privileges for gays"
Along those lines, I think that "legalized abortion" is a much more neutral term, much like "legalized drugs" or "legalized gambling." It's a much more balanced term that talks simply about the matter at hand -- whether or not the activity in question should be legal.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The reporter makes the distinction between cloning cells and reproductive cloning, and even includes a quote from a Catholic spokesperson saying "there is no new pro-life issue here,".
So the current plans are for cell cloning, HOWEVER "... if that method fails, Weissman [Dr. Irving Weissman, the director of the new institute] said, he would not rule out trying a controversial technique that many people consider to be a form of human cloning." Which the article goes on to explain is reproductive cloning.
Therefore, the lead in is accurate. The reporter highlighted an area of concern for many people. It isn't their fault if some people jump to conclusions without reading the article carefully.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Stem cells are available from far more sources than aborted fetuses. Like umbilical cords for instance. Nothing wrong with taking a few samples that way.
Everyone seems pretty positive about this. But a problem that people fail to think about is that with all technologies they can either be used for what we see as "good" uses (curing cancer, sickle-cell, etc. etc.) or what we would probably agree is "evil".
Research such as this will someday allow us how to selectively modify the human genetic code. It only stands to reason that it can be put to much more scary uses such as GIVING cancer (or just plain old fashioned killing) to certain races, geographic areas, or taylor made for a certain troublesome individual.
Nuclear science can be put to uses like creating clean and efficient energy. Or it can be used to snuff the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in an instant. Nuclear material takes massive appropriation of financial, energy, and technical resources to obtain and process into a working weapon. It is also relatively easy to detect. Now imagine a small handful of scientist with easily obtainable information, and easily obtainable materials (one human egg and biological lab equipment) able to construct a weapon of mass destruction for the furtherment of their cause (or just because they are really pissed off).
Can we do this now? No. Are we blindly and actively working on the ability to do this? You decide... Do we really want to start down this path?
Someone else will do it if we don't is not a valid reason to start down this road.
I think that's about all the time I have to research this.
Looking for political forums? Check out "The World Forum".
For the NewlyWed Margos
With cloning, I can make the argument that if I create an embryo that uses entirely my dna, that embryo is an extension of me. Those cells are not only mine, they are in fact me. I think what needs to be done is a determination of when that embryo (if allowed to grow) stops being me, and starts being himself.
I would argue that until the point of sentience, the embryo is me. If stem cells from me #2 are used to heal a disease in me #1, it is all good. I may not always like myself, but I do love myself, and want myself to live.
Bush claims he is a christian man, then why does he allow human cloning? to most christians, it is "wrong" to clone, so either Bush is a total hypocryte, or is he really christian as he says? seems like a good way to get republican votes
Your assessment of our eruditeness or rather, the apparent lack thereof leaves much to be desired. It appears to consist entirely of ad hominem, which should be an anathema to those who are intelligent, or at least those who are logical. Perchance you are neither?
You sir (madam?) deserve a "+6 Informative". Thank you for spending the time clarifying this.
(As a staunch pro-life Catholic here on rabidly pro-abortion Slashdot, I am rather wary of wading into the muck of the abortion debate, just because of the energy involved in holding the discussion. With your information, I know that it's not necessary.)
as well, if the R&D didn't reflect the
umbrella of stem-cell research, stanford
might risk losing billionaire clark's funding...
from news at biospace (expired 8/31/01 via
reuters):
"Netscape founder Jim Clark is withholding
$60 million of his $150 million contribution
toward a biomedical research center at Stanford
University in protest of federal restrictions
on stem cell research. The billionaire
entrepreneur made his startling announcement
in an opinion piece published in this
morning's New York Times. Stanford University
President John Hennessy, who was told in
advance of Clark's decision, alerted his
faculty late yesterday. The university has
already broken ground on the center, which
will marry several science and engineering
disciplines to develop new cures for disease.
The center is named in Clark's honor."
so, did the sixty million ever come through?
I can be immortal. Or at least live for 5 or 6 centuries while never aging past my comfortable young age of 25. Then I will be interested. Clone me up some new superglands that will keep me healthy and young for centuries!
TallGreen CMS hosting
Both methods have potential. At this point, it is not possible to say which will work. Given the number of people in need, the only ethical choice is to proceed energetically along both lines of research. The concern about stem cells giving rise to cancers is a real one, but it will remain a concern with any undifferentiated cell, whatever its source.
It isn't informative, or even well read, but it is a valid point that contributes to the discussion. If I had points I would give it +1 insightful.
Given that a reply to this has been given +1 interesting, I'ld say this needs to be modded higher.
Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.
Lesson #2 learned -- Preview again after making changes.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I imagine there are plenty of people who would limit stem cell research for non-religious reasons. After all, this quickly degenerates into an abortion debate.
Really, who? Pro-lifers are pretty uniformly conservative Christians. That implies a religious motivation to me. IOW, pro-lifers believe that embryos have souls. That's a religious belief.
Non-religious folk understand that many embryos spontaneously abort, so if they really are "ensouled" that's a lot of dying souls. They choose to use more reasonable critera, like fetal viablity. Or legal critera (property rights, etc.) Criteria that religious thinkers were happy with for centuries.
If you don't want to protect human life as an embryo, why should your human life be protected now? What is your argument that your life is intrinsically more valuable than a human embryo to be used in stem cell research, or the Jews experimented on by the Nazis? Where and how do you draw the line at where the value of human life begins?
This is called the "slippery slope" fallacy.
How about this similarly inane argument: Stem cell research offers the best hope for effective treatments or cures for cancer. By preventing stem cell research you are indirectly causing the deaths of millions of people. Therefore you, and all other pro-lifers, are mass murderers.
The reality is that if you are dying of heart disease, this technique will create stem cells that are genetic clones of your own tissue. No new human is created. Right now, researchers know of only one way to create such stem cells, and that involves using an egg to "reprogram" the patient's own cells.
As far as when to define the beginning of life, every religion has a different take and there is no unanimity. Scientists are hard-put to describe the exact moment when a blastocyst is really a unique person. But to sacrifice a tiny dot of cells -- your OWN DAMN CELLS, for chrissake -- is not tantamount to abortion.
On the other hand, NOT to use these cells when people are suffering is totally immoral. A majority of the world's religions concur: Jews, Moslems, Buddhists and even Presbyterians all support stem-cell research. Only hard-line Catholics and assorted fundamentalists are trying to make this an abortion issue. Stem cell therapy is a life-saver, and we are cowards and idiots if we let religion determine the future direction of medical research.