Slashdot Mirror
Harvard Scientists to Clone Human Embryos
An anonymous reader writes "Harvard University scientists claim they will soon start trying to clone human embryos to create stem cells. Even with the history of controversy and fraud researchers hope they can one day use the newly created stem cells to aid in battle against many diseases. From the article: 'The privately funded work is aimed at devising treatments for such ailments as diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Harvard is only the second American university to announce its venture into the challenging, politically charged research field.'"
And even if you think cloning humans is morally acceptable, the practice of killing the "superflous" embryos (note the language! Imagine you are suddenly considered "superfluous") that are created in the process by dumping them in the bin can be equated to murder (read: intentional killing of a human being).
Some researchers/clinics freeze them, but there is no guarantee that they are allowed to live (which violates their human right to live).
Well, the UK has been doing this for a little while, in Newcastle anyway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4563607.stm & http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6272
So, I'm guessing it's not banned in the UK - under certain conditions at least.
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silas
Those changes in size are most likely related to environment, in the form of improved nutrition, rather than genetic changes. Besides, to be a consequence of evolutionary forces, there'd have to be something making sure that taller people reproduce at a higher rate than shorter ones.
No
I have nothing to say.
Let me ask you this: why assume that if someone is opposed to embryonic stemcell research, they're religious, and thus their only reason for opposition is that "god made the embryo, it's life"?
I'm not religious. I'm all for scientific advancement. I'd love nothing more than to see those diseases cured. However, something in me just doesn't sit right with the idea of using embryonic stem cells. I can't give you a scientific reason. I can't give you logical reason. Hell, I probably can't give you a "rational" reason. It just *feels* wrong.
What does that make me?
It also raises another problem: just because we *can* do something, should we do it? Do we research things even if our gut tells us "this isn't right"? Should science and morality be seperate? If no, whose morality do we use? If yes, well, where does that leave us?
Too bad there's no easy, rational answer.
I'm seeing a lot of Slashdot comments suggesting that the Harvard researchers aren't going to get very far because the U.S. government is going to shut them down. There is no legislation (at the moment!) to support such an action; In the recent controversy over government regulation of stem cell research, Congress passed a law which denies federal funding to researchers who use artificially fertilized embryos to produce stem cell lines. The article specifically mentions that Harvard is doing this with private funding. They're home free; I wish 'em luck.
I meant what I said. 25,000 years is in the right neighborhood.
The changes in humans over the last thousand years are believed to be mostly nutritional, and it's likely we've seen most of the improvement we're going to see from that (note that developing countries, such as China are experiencing a height boom, and it's not from intermarrying with us). Plus our population pool is now much larger, so any drift is going to be that much slower to get established as a widespread preference.
Every citation I could find seemed to think that the last major brain case change happened roughly 100,000 years ago.
Here's a couple:
http://www.onelife.com/evolve/manev.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/human-evolution
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think we can be certain consciousness does not develop before the nervous system.
From the article they are harvesting cells after 5 days and the nervous system starts to develop after 17 day.
I assume that changes you mind about this, unless, of course, you think one can have consciousness without a nervous system.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major