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Reprogrammed Skin Cells Turned Into Baby Mice
InfiniteZero writes "According to this WSJ story, 'Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists one step closer to creating medically useful stem-cell lines for treating human disease without having to resort to controversial laboratory techniques. However, the advance poses fresh ethical challenges because the results could make it easier to create human clones and babies with specific genetic traits.'"
but that's got nothing to do with stem cell research - you can kill other people to harvest their organs right now. and it does happen. so that's adding nothing to the discussion.
the point is, we should be given the freedom to get to the point where we need to answer such moral questions like "when is an cloned organ donor human?" for ourselfs, and not have that taken away by the moralist right.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Often they have done something (or a series of things) that most people wouldn't do, and that many believe one shouldn't do. It is rarely or ever a simple matter of the ones with the power having been the ones who were merely more capable. Free countries still have social norms, standard ethical codes, and even laws that a few choose to ignore. That those few who choose to ignore the norms, codes, and laws sometimes gain power is not an excuse for the rest of us to ignore them as well. An "every man for himself" culture often sounds great until that "every man" happens to be someone who is willing or able to take from you to get what they want.
The problem is some spirituals, such as Christians, believe cloning is like playing God, and should be eschewed by all means.
In that sense, we are in fact playing a role of their "God". Why don't they pray to their god and tell him to finally show himself in a physical sense and then we can discuss what his little rules are regarding this. This reminds me of that quote, "God did not create man in his own image, rather, man created God in his own image." Science is becoming God.
The summary is trying to bring up classic fears of cloning. However just because they raised pups from skin cells does not mean they can raise offspring from those cells that have a legitimate chance of living full lives. If they are indeed starting from adult skin cells, then they are starting with essentially old material; mammalian cells (excluding gametes and their progenitor cells) generally only can divide a certain number of times before they are no longer really viable for growth.
So before we see people start banging the drum over "ZOMG! Teh humanz r cloning!" we need to see if these mouse clones are actually viableclonesof their parents.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
God did it when he made Eve from the rib [cells] of Adam. This is nothing new or remarkable. But, because God did it, we shouldn't... just like flight and other technologies man has managed to understand the develop. Have I said that right? What say you "Religious Right"?
There is no scientific consensus on when life begins, but most would agree that the thing is a living human whenever the egg is fertilized.
It appears we are now on a slippery slope that some of us have been predicting for a long time. From the article: "All you need are somebody's skin cells to create a human baby."
That isn't quite true yet, but it will be soon. The technique these guys are using injects reverted skin cells into an existing embryo, so you still need an embryo to start with. But that's just a temporary thing. At some point we will be able to revert skin cells to zygotes, and at that point all the crazy "life begins at conception therefore abortion is wrong" folks will go really nuts, because the completely nominal line between "ordinary somatic cell" and "living human being" will be entirely erased. Every cell in our bodies will clearly have the potential to become an independent, living human being, just like a zygote made the old fashion way.
Every human society has practised some form of defacto infanticide, and abortion is WAY better than any alternative, and pregnant women are FAR more qualified than anyone else--both on an information-theoretic basis and a moral basis--to decide what happens to their offspring and their body. Ergo, life begins at conception, and abortion is not wrong.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
> Where do we draw the line?
I'm sure most of us agree we'll have to draw the line somewhere.
The first problem as you say is "Where?".
Whatever we choose will seem rather arbitrary, stupid and unsatisfactory to most people, but it's going to be even more stupid to not draw a line. Or worse- to draw many lines on a case to case basis.
Analogy: when you invent cakes, sooner or later someone has to draw the line and decide what can legally be considered a cake. It be seem silly, and the line may be redrawn later, but it will still have to be drawn. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes#Cake_or_biscuit.3F
Once we give ourselves a "power", it becomes our responsibility.
Which brings us to the next big problem. To me it seems like the scientists etc are merrily giving us "powers" way before we are ready.
To me, certain areas of research should be postponed till we are ready to draw the relevant lines.
Right now scientists and many other people keep saying stuff like "do it because we can", "don't stop progress", "don't be a luddite".
BUT this is NOT the same as being luddites or sticking our heads in the sand, this is in fact the opposite. This is seeing a potential issue in the horizon, and choosing to not charge at it, until we have a more well thought out plan of what to do when we get there.
The power to make "Jaffa Cakes" and biscuits is not a real biggie, but what should we do with human/animal/machine hybrids?
What makes you legally human? Killing a stray aka "free" dog and unplugging a brain dead human are considered different things legally.
At what points do we consider something human? Be very careful where and how the line is drawn, or many of us may end up not being legally considered human. If we draw the line another way, we might have to stop eating pigs, dogs, etc. The pigs might be happier (or not - since pig farmers will just close down their pig farms and leave them to fend for themselves aka die). It is no trivial matter. We already have enough problems convincing people what can and cannot be done with human embryos, imagine the problems with hybrid human-animal embryos.
If we are not prepared to draw certain lines yet, "don't go there yet" then. If we charge into things, the judges may not have enough understanding when they draw the first line, could then be a long and troubled wait till it is next redrawn.
There are plenty of other areas to do research in first (and limited resources anyway). Areas without such problems.
Lastly, even if a human embryo isn't much in the early months (or weeks), for symbolic reasons we could draw a more cautious (early) line. After all we for various reasons have chosen to elevate humans and human life above all other creatures. If we are going to value humans so highly, giving special value to a near brainless human embryo doesn't seem that stupid to me.
Plus if we don't, it might be harder to convince the future AIs or advanced hybrids to value humans and their embryos as highly ;).