Stem Cell research! Good or Bad

LFCFan

With the news that Stem Cells have been successfully harvested from a cloned human embryo, do you think cloning/stem cell reseach is a good thing?

dr_manhattan

well, given the development was inevitable, and the fact that this was discussed here in depth about a month ago, I'm not gonna say a lot except "yes"

And I think if anyone really thinks about the pointlessness of trying to stop medical research, i think they'd agree - besides which, what does a "good thing" mean? Very few things are "good" in and of themselves, in research - it depend what you use them for.

So I'm against building genetically modified supersoldiers or 322 legged chickens, but I'm for rebuilding spinal columns, growing new organs, beating genetic disorders, and the like.

Nuff said

Paddy20

Good. If used ethically for the benefit of mankind.

P. :ninja:

embee

Good.

Sparks

It's like a chainsaw. Used every day by millions of people round the world productively, bringing in a living to them and providing us with lots of products and raw materials, but one idiot makes a bad horror film and suddenly everyone gets antsy around them....

Silent Bob

I see no reason not to, particularly with placental stem cells.

There might be ethical issues about harvesting embryonic stem cells but I can't see how these would apply to the placental variety.

Catsmokinpot

well tbh i dont see any reason why cloning of a complete human being is necessary the prospect of being able to create replacement limbs for ones that have been lost or new kidneys etc is very kool but as long as its for that and that alone

what happend with CLONAID and the RALIENS werent they supposed to have cloned 6 kids?

or was it bull?

Kell

Against.

Personally I have this romantic notion that given enough time, our species will develop an immunity to all ailments that affect us. I see tampering with our species to that degree removes the idea of survival of the species and will leave us a weaker race as a result.

K-

Sparks

Originally posted by Kell
Personally I have this romantic notion that given enough time, our species will develop an immunity to all ailments that affect us.

An immunity to severed limbs or spinal cord damage or renal failure?
Neat trick...

ixoy

Originally posted by Kell
Against.

Personally I have this romantic notion that given enough time, our species will develop an immunity to all ailments that affect us. I see tampering with our species to that degree removes the idea of survival of the species and will leave us a weaker race as a result.

Scientifically speaking it's extremely inplausible. Unless we become Cybermen. That'd be cool. No more gold for us - a sacrifice I could live with.

dr_manhattan

sorry, just laughed my ass off at that: even if we DO eventually evolve an immunity to everything (assuming that "everything" signs a treaty agreeing not to evolve immunities to our immunities LOL) - surely we should at least *try* and protect ourselves meanwhile?

I am very glad that the likes of pasteur didn't take this "romantic notion" on board, heh.

And btw, where does "tampering with our species" begin and end? Surely once one human being has failed to reproduce due to war, famine, etc. then the species is irrevocably "tampered with"...?

I think you should check your biology, mate: we evolve immunities every day. Genetics is an arms race, and it will never stop....

... until the point where 'romantic notions' wipe us out, that is ;-)

Villain

Anything that could help a cure be developed for Alzeimers (excuse my spelling) and the like has to be a good thing.

Beruthiel

Originally posted by Paddy20
Good. If used ethically for the benefit of mankind.

what paddy said

mike65

Has anyone else noticed that the poll as phased makes no sense?

I voted yes, as in yes its a good thing.

Mike.

LFCFan

Originally posted by mike65
Has anyone else noticed that the poll as phased makes no sense?

I voted yes, as in yes its a good thing.

Mike.

What do you mean? You either think it's good or you don't or you have no opinion? The topic is Good or Bad but the actual poll question makes sense! Maybe I'm missing something?

bus77

No way are they investing all that money so they can cure a few obscure genetic disorders.
It's all about how to turn the aging gene off, then sell to the highest bidders. Not to mention "Make my kid smart"
All those horror storys from sci-fi are on the way, fast.

Beruthiel

Originally posted by bus77
Not to mention "Make my kid smart"
All those horror storys from sci-fi are on the way, fast.

Gattaca
that would certainly be scary!

Sparks

I fail to see why it's such a bad thing to let the parents choose to have their children genetically modified to be smarter or stronger or more resistant to disease. Gattaca, let's not forget, is a bad sci-fi movie designed to entertain, not a serious consideration of the implications of such ethical decisions. Me, I'm with Dr. Watson on this one. If you trust the parents to look after the child's best interests for twenty or so years after its birth, it's bloody silly to assume that they won't have its best interests at heart before the birth. And Watson's not only got the scientific credentials to show that he understands the issue technically (Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA for heaven's sake), but he has the personal experience of what it's like to be a parent of a child with a genetic illness, so he has been considering the non-technical side of the argument for decades as well, and not from a safe academic distance.

Besides which, it's not like we can simply decide to produce a kid with an IQ of 300. It's more likely to be evolutionary in nature rather than the fictional "chinese menu" approach to producing a child. We'd just be speeding up the evolutionary process to operate on a time period of decades rather than eons. And besides that, there's the fact that the medical profession has had ethics boards for decades now, whose professional lives are spent in consideration of the ramifications of ethical decisions, and there are bodies like the ACLU and it's equivalents worldwide, who would happily stamp on the idea of discrimination against or for ethnic groups. So we're hardly likely to see something like Gattaca, even in our rather corporate-run world.