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Emergence of Lab-Grown Meat Poses New Questions for Religious Leaders (wsj.com)
Lab-grown meat is becoming closer to a reality. But this new technology poses new questions for people who typically avoid meat for religious or ethical reasons. An anonymous reader shares a report: Lab-grown meat has sparked a debate among rabbis in Israel about whether cell-cultured is the same as conventional meat and should fall under the same guidelines for keeping kosher. "There is a disagreement about it and there is a conversation. Also, definitely, there are new questions about lab-meat," says Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, an expert on kosher tradition and bioethics. WSJ has posted a video in which you can hear more from Rabbi Cherlow.
As far as ethics goes, I see growing a cell culture for food as entirely ethically positive. I see killing an animal for food as ethically dubious on its very best day. I have zero problem with cultured meat; no ethical dithering arises there at all. Make it practical, reasonably edible, and bring it on. The follow-on economic consequences, such as fewer farms where animals are packed like sardines in order to maximize production, look to me to be broadly positive. That the operators of such enterprises will suffer when they fail seems to me to be entirely appropriate.
As to the other, I'm not religious. I have no idea how this will play out in that area.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My wife is Jewish (while I'm agnostic -- former Roman Catholic).
One thing I've come to realize about Judaism is, they have a lot of rabbis and "fervently religious" who seem to believe a big part of the faith involves a lot of poring over scriptures and making philosophical declarations about what they do or don't mean for fellow Jews.
IMO, some of it borders on the ridiculous, with all the rituals they put themselves through to make sure they're not violating them.... But I suppose that's easy for me to say as an "outsider"? (I'm also convinced that part of the attraction to Judaism is the feeling that they're part of a closer-knit community BECAUSE they have so many strange customs. You know how HAM radio geeks seem to take a strange pride in knowing all sorts of esoteric stuff about radio waves and antenna design? Yeah ... kinda like that.)
But frankly, the different factions of Jews (Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, etc.) appear to me to have come about because there were various levels of commitment people were willing to give to all of these rules, too. People still felt an identity as a Jew but didn't always agree on how much ritual they had to go through as part of it .....
So I'm sure this debate on "lab grown meat" will rage on and on for them, with no conclusive answer that all Jews accept.
Well, if you want to get really technical, since meat grown in a lab neither chews its cud nor has cloven hooves, all lab-grown meat will, by definition, be trayf. It may be thrashed out that the lab-grown meat, because it is essentially nothing more than a remotely-grown part of the donor animal, inherits the status of the donor animal -- so lab-grown pig tissue is still trayf, because it's still from an unclean animal -- but I don't expect that pork will be determined to be parv just because it's no longer connected to the animal the original tissue came from.
Why not discuss real problems instead of spending time discussing how the invisible master in the sky may think about artificial meat?
More to the point, why did editors and moderators feel this qualifies as "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"? Oh yeah, that's no longer on Slashdot's banner. Still, why would people who are nominally scientifically minded and technologically sophisticated care about kashruth, halal, and the like?
Then again, given the extent to which science and technology have been impeded through the ages by superstition and religious dogma, perhaps this discussion DOES belong here. Then again, (again), perhaps it's good to have some countervailing force in society to check the (sometimes heedless and dangerous) headlong rush of scientific and technological advancement.
Slashdot - the place where I can argue with myself in public and not be bothered by the police or the psychiatrists...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
This is the mindset that has taken over conversation on the internet. "My thoughts on the matter are correct, therefore there can be no discussion. Furthermore, anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot!"
Maybe someone else has a differing view. Maybe they even have some good points. Of course, you'll never know because you don't want a discussion. You just want to be right.
PETA has had a nasty schism over it that may well turn into a full civil war. The members that primarily care about ethical treatment of animals welcome it. They are apparently a minority, however. Most seem VERY strongly opposed. The arguments I heard were that without cruelty being involved in the process, it weakens the arguments for the elimination of meat from society. Yes, that means much of PETA is not actually interested in animal suffering other than as another tool to eventually legislate mandatory veganism. Nutty as that sounds, that is where they see society going, and eliminating cruelty to animals removes what they see as a powerful tool for their agenda to bring society to more 'enlightened' age where meat consumption is a criminal act.