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Chinese Develop Remote Controlled Pigeons
Many readers sent us links to the story about Chinese scientists developing pigeons whose flight can be controlled remotely. The best coverage may be Wired's, both because they link to the English language version of the original Peoples Daily Online release, and because of the (disturbing) photos. The birds can be commanded to fly left, right, up, or down. Reader KDan writes, "A number of obvious uses jump out to me... the remote-controlled pigeons will finally allow us to create an efficient implementation of RFC 1149 and RFC 2549."
This sounds horrible. I find the idea of overriding another animal's free will very disturbing. The words "won't someone please think of the pidgeons!" come to mind, but we humans are animals after all. I would definitely not want this kind of mind control implemented with humans, and I don't want it implemented on any self-aware being.
It is another step.
Ugly and non-ethical, yes, but most details on animal experiments are like this one.
Always wanted brain implant? - well, some research must be done.
Like it? No? Me either, but at the end people will forget all ugly parts and will use direct brian computer interface.
a lack of ethical concerns here on subjects like these.
Don't worry, the pigeons have all signed informed consent forms - see the peck-marks? Our lawyers also told them that eating the birdseed we provided implied their agreement to the experiment. And they ate it.
The chinese opened their heads and stuck wires into them. NO big deal and nothing really scientific.
Right, I mean, I read your articles about how the pigeon brain works. This was a totally unneccesary experiment, since we had that knowledge already. Why do we need more "proof"?
If I'd be in charge these scientists would lose their funding, their job and their accreditation all at once
I wouldn't be so fast to cut the funding of a group who can control animals remotely. Have you never seen the movie "The Birds"? Maybe one morning you'll be pecked to death by 2000 angry pigeons...
not very far from what the Nazi KZ Doctors did to the people captured in the camps
Umm, sticking electrodes into the brains of birds, with proper aseptic and anaesthetic techniques (after all, you want a functional bird at the end of it in order to get useful data), is not quite the same as dunking people in ice water just to see how long the average survival time is...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
1. Make a judgement that someone is unethical based on one's own perception.
2. Reinforce the perception with extreme or individual incidents that are in line with that judgement.
3. Dismiss evidences that contradict the judgement or undermine the credibility of it.
4. When the position is not defendable in a debate, use unsubstantiated claim or cite anecdotal evidence.
5. Repeat 2-4 as necessary.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
That's ridiculous. The point of free will is not how you arrive at a decision or how you rationalise it, but rather that you can make the decisions at all. It doesn't matter how your brain goes about it.
What matters is that there is a process in the brain that makes decisions, and they're messing with it.
And free will and consciousness being illusions are just catchphrases. In order to be subject to an illusion, you need consciousness in the first place, and I don't think that consciousness could exist without the capacity of controlling your thoughts (free-will style).
Remote controlled pigeons are fine, but they have one drawback -- they cannot carry beer.
I'm still waiting on my remote-controlled beer fetching attack monkey. Keep at it, scientists!