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Embryonic Stem Cells - Without the Embryo

BPSCG

Penultimate Amazing
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This could just as easily go into the Science forum, but since it's such a charged debate over the ethics of killing human embryos for research...
Researchers in Wisconsin and Japan have turned ordinary human skin cells into what are effectively embryonic stem cells without using embryos or women's eggs -- the two hitherto essential ingredients that have embroiled the medically promising field in a long political and ethical debate.

The unencumbered ability to turn adult cells into embryonic ones capable of morphing into virtually every kind of cell or tissue, described in two scientific journal articles released today, has been the ultimate goal of researchers for years. In theory, it would allow people to grow personalized replacement parts for their bodies from a few of their own skin cells, while giving researchers a uniquely powerful means of understanding and treating diseases.

Until now, only human egg cells and embryos, both difficult to obtain and laden with legal and ethical issues, had the mysterious power to turn ordinary cells into stem cells. And until this summer, the challenge of mimicking that process in the lab seemed almost insurmountable, leading many to wonder if stem cell research would ever wrest free of its political baggage.

As news of the success by two research teams spread by e-mail, scientists seemed almost giddy at the likelihood that their field, which for its entire life has been at the center of so much debate, may suddenly become like other areas of biomedical science: appreciated, eligible for federal funding and wide open for new waves of discovery.
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Link.

Appears to be a huge breakthrough. Even the Vatican approves.
 
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Amazing what you can learn looking forward, not back. Definitely Nobel-worthy work.

Michael
 
Great, now every body cell is sacred :rolleyes: .

(but seriously cool stuff)
 
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Sign me up for a replacement kidney, heart, and lungs. Hell grow me a whole new body. Eighteen years from now I will need one. Just transplant my brain and I will be good to go. :cool:
 
BPSCG said:
This could just as easily go into the Science forum, but since it's such a charged debate over the ethics of killing human embryos for research...
Link.

Appears to be a huge breakthrough. Even the Vatican approves.
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Wow.

Good for them.

Some very, very, very rich researchers...hope they retained the rights to it.

Tokie
 
Interesting thought on possible ramifications of this development.
Let's assume that creating embryos to destroy them is no longer "necessary" for the relevant science to proceed. As this truth sinks in, suddenly a lot more people are going to concede that there's something immoral or at least icky about creating embryos just to cannibalize their parts. Of course, because of the abortion debate, we won't get anything like unanimity on this point (some pro-choicers will never concede that there's much moral worth to embryos). But, since it's not necessary to create the embryos in order to proceed with stem cell research, most people will be much more likely to condemn the very idea of creating big eugenicky labs full of embryos. Imagine what a pro-life Hollywood could do with such dystopian fodder.

Or to change the example, look at child labor. America banned child labor only after mechanization, industrialization and education had progressed to a point where most people didn't need to put their kids to work. Once the necessity was gone for most Americans — particularly urban Americans — the ability to condemn the last vestiges of the practice as immoral increased enormously (which is why it was banned only when the practice had almost died out). As a philosophical point, if child labor is evil, it should have been more evil when, say, 95% of kids worked in dangerous conditions. And yet, socially and politically, the opposite was the case. Only when a mere 5% worked in dangerous conditions did the public suddenly become shocked that it was happening at all. In other words, only when kids don't need to work does it seem wrong to put them to work. Similarly, only when you don't need to create embryos to poach stem cells can a consensus form around the proposition that it is evil to create them to poach stem cells.

This is a very Whiggish point I'm making here about the nature of moral progress — or the perception of it — but I think it's really just a fascinating topic (with implications for everything from war to torture to even gay marriage) even if I'm not explaining it as well as I'd like. Perhaps some day.
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Necessity is the mother of invention, and "moral progress" - whatever that may be - arises out of that necessity and that invention?
 
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KingMerv00 said:
I can only speak for myself but embryonic stem cell research has never and probably will never be a moral issue for me. Do you have the opposite opinion?
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Nope. Never saw any problem with killing an undifferentiated mass of cells with no nervous system.

But that wasn't the point I was trying to raise for discussion. Do our perceptions of what is right and what is wrong depend at least partly on what is technologically feasible?
 
BPSCG said:
Do our perceptions of what is right and what is wrong depend at least partly on what is technologically feasible?
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I would say definitely. You don't even have to look at the specifics of stem cells. Consider genetic engineering as a whole - most people consider the possibility of "selecting" traits such as appearance, intelligence, talents etc. to be morally wrong. However, our entire society centers around fruitless efforts of self-improvement (fad diets, beauty products, plastic surgery, baby toys and programs to improve intelligence, athletic camps, changing lifestyle choices, etc. etc.) All of these things are widely accepted - in spite of the fact that they often don't work at all, don't work well, or are inefficient. So, attempting to improve oneself when it is less likely to work is ok. But, if the technology (genetic engineering) were present to make the improvements nearly gauranteed, it is not ok. I have always found this to be rather ironic.
 
BPSCG said:
Nope. Never saw any problem with killing an undifferentiated mass of cells with no nervous system.

But that wasn't the point I was trying to raise for discussion. Do our perceptions of what is right and what is wrong depend at least partly on what is technologically feasible?
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I think they do. Technology has allowed the US military to strike enemy targets from thousands of miles away with surprising accuracy. The public's definition of "acceptable loses" and "collateral damage" has changed drastically in the last 250 years.
 
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BPSCG said:
Nope. Never saw any problem with killing an undifferentiated mass of cells with no nervous system.

But that wasn't the point I was trying to raise for discussion. Do our perceptions of what is right and what is wrong depend at least partly on what is technologically feasible?
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It does if one is occupying a position of choosing the lesser of two evils. Case in point: me. I am uncomfortable with the destroying of those undifferentiated masses, but I am willing to concede it's acceptable simply because of its necessity to aid the sick. However, if it were no longer necessary to destroy them, my position changes from considering it a necessary evil to considering it just plain evil.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It does if one is occupying a position of choosing the lesser of two evils. Case in point: me. I am uncomfortable with the destroying of those undifferentiated masses, but I am willing to concede it's acceptable simply because of its necessity to aid the sick. However, if it were no longer necessary to destroy them, my position changes from considering it a necessary evil to considering it just plain evil.
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Why is it evil, necessary or otherwise?
 
The female period is evil per definition in the eyes of the life-begins-at-conception-crowd.

As Carlin said, any woman who has had more than one period is a potential serial killer.

The whole thing is complete and utter nonsense.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It does if one is occupying a position of choosing the lesser of two evils. Case in point: me. I am uncomfortable with the destroying of those undifferentiated masses, but I am willing to concede it's acceptable simply because of its necessity to aid the sick. However, if it were no longer necessary to destroy them, my position changes from considering it a necessary evil to considering it just plain evil.
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And I think that was Goldberg's point. Once, most people saw little or nothing wrong with child labor. Today, we almost universally consider it unacceptable. What changed, apart from the fact that technology made it unnecessary?

Might not the same thing someday happen as regards, say, torture (Goldberg hints at this)? Many people say torture can be a necessary evil ("ticking bomb scenario"), but if some very reliable, very safe, truth serum could be developed, would torture soon go from a lot of people calling it a "necessary evil" to everyone calling it "just plain evil"?
 
BPSCG said:
And I think that was Goldberg's point. Once, most people saw little or nothing wrong with child labor. Today, we almost universally consider it unacceptable. What changed, apart from the fact that technology made it unnecessary?

Might not the same thing someday happen as regards, say, torture (Goldberg hints at this)? Many people say torture can be a necessary evil ("ticking bomb scenario"), but if some very reliable, very safe, truth serum could be developed, would torture soon go from a lot of people calling it a "necessary evil" to everyone calling it "just plain evil"?
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I think a lot of things would be morally re-evaluated given technological progress. Just off the top of my head:

Abortion--if teleporters could safely remove the fetus with no harm to it or the mother
Eating meat--if cheap, good-tasting, healthy artificial meat could be grown without hurting an animal
Execution--if you could really rehabilitate someone with science
Animal testing--I can't imagine what would remove that necessity, but it would be nice

Right now, I'm in favor of all of those things. But if there were viable alternatives, I would have to reconsider.
 
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