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Cyborg Cockroach Sparks Ethics Debate

Posted by Unknown on from the lightly-sand-the-carapace dept.

sciencehabit writes "A do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment that allows students to create their own 'cyborg' insects is sparking controversy amongst scienitsts and ethicists. RoboRoach #12 is a real cockroach that a company called BackyardBrains ships to school students. The students fit the insect with a tiny backpack, which contains electrodes that feed into its antennae and receive signals by remote control — via the Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones. A simple swipe of an iPhone can turn the insect left or right. Though some scientists say the small cyborg is a good educational tool, others say it's turning kids into psychopaths." Fitting the backpack requires poking a hole in the roach's thorax and clipping its antennae to insert electrodes.

15 of 512 comments (clear)

  1. Cockroach rights? by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People who have never killed a roach in their life are free to throw the first stone.

    Anyone?

    Anyone?

    1. Re:Cockroach rights? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't see a difference between killing it and doing this?

    2. Re:Cockroach rights? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agree. While I doubt this turns kids into psychopaths, I disapprove because it reinforces the notion that every other creature on the planet was put there to be our playthings and slaves.

    3. Re:Cockroach rights? by Capsaicin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This does seem a great deal more educational.

      Exactly. This teaches that living creatures, and one would hope by extension other humans, are properly controlled at our whim.

      As I'm teaching my boys, the point of life is to get other people to do stuff that is against their interests and in yours. All this talk of dignity, human rights, liberty &c. is, as Nietzsche pointed out, merely the pathetic cry of the weak, whom it is the right of my offspring to manipulate and exploit. I wonder where I can get this for them -given the great educational value.

      And they call me a sociopath ...

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    4. Re:Cockroach rights? by gsslay · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You've missed the point. No one cares about what's best for the roach. The roach is a insect without much of any brain and no conscious.

      What makes it worse is the attitude it fosters within the child.

      I'm not convinced it'll turn anyone into a psychopaths, but studies suggest this is how psychopaths start out; torturing insects and small animals. So this is one small step away from pulling wings off bees. Except this has educational approval!

  2. Missing the reality of what kids do to insects by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If anyone is worried about these slight actions turning kids into psychopaths, they would be AGHAST at what kids normally do with insects when they catch or find them...

    Fire, pliers, rocks, etc. All are involved.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects by artor3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You scoutmaster was a douche. Did he care to explain why it was cruel? oh right, no.

      Are you asking if my scoutmaster gave my ten year old self a lecture on consciousness and solipsism and morality?

    2. Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects by Any+Web+Loco · · Score: 5, Funny

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_animals#Psychological_disorders

      Just saying...

    3. Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects by clarkkent09 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We kill 9 billion animals for food each year, in the USA alone. We still somehow manage to remember that killing humans is bad.

      --
      Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
  3. Cruel by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Funny

    I completely agree. It's completely unacceptable to force innocent students to used something as restricted and crippled as iOS. For once could someone actually think of the children.

    1. Re:Cruel by Richy_T · · Score: 5, Funny

      Forget psychopaths. It might turn them into... hipsters.

  4. Makes sense by WGFCrafty · · Score: 5, Funny

    IPhones have been turning humans into mindless drones for years, now its the insects turn.

  5. Too buggy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried the app, but it was too buggy.

  6. No way, totally wrong by russotto · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not ethical to force an animal to move left and right by attaching electrodes to its head. Not at all. The ethical way is to put a metal bar in its mouth and pull on THAT to force it to move left and right.
     

  7. Re:What does this have to do with science? by bitt3n · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's the point of dissecting a frog? We already know what's in the frog. We're not going to find anything new. It just seems like you cut the frog open and look at the organs. What is to be learned from going through the motions?

    --
    how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?