Embryonic stem cell research

#241

Nihilism is just examined Atheism so +1

#242

I acknowledge the existence of no man’s deity.

#243

Myself as well.

And go figure, I see no problem with continuing research on Stem Cells. At the risk of going into a wall of text…

The main argument against human stem cell research goes something like this; it is unethical to kill an innocent human being. A human embryo is an innocent human being. Therefore, it is unethical to kill the embryo. Disregarding the fact that this does not discount a good portion of human embryonic stem cell research, which utilizes stem cell lines that prior research has already made available, it does open an entirely different can of worms; namely the question of when does a human being begin to exist? It can be argued either way. A blastocyst does not count as a human being because it is incapable of reasoning, and has no differentiated cells; being for all intents and purposes a blob of unformed cellular tissue. Alternatively it does count as a human being because it has the potential to eventually mature into a human being.

My personal beliefs on the issue, are thus. If given a choice to terminate a blastocyst, a nonsentient, unware, blob of cells and protoplasm, in order to eventually cure horrific diseases and save the lives of countless people, I say it is perfectly ethical. My personal belief is that, though an embryo has the potential to become a human, it is not a human. Harvesting cells from a blastocyst in order to save lives and advance medical knowledge is a perfectly reasonable action. The ending of a potential (emphasis on the ‘potential’) life is not a reason to permit the ending of an actual life. Even given the fact that utilizing stem cells to create new mature cell lines is probably several years off, the potential cures and advances in medical science far outweigh what happens to the donor blastocyst, despite the usual bitching and moaning from the religious/social conservative crowd.

#244

You forgot me.(of course I AM only a cockroach)

#245

I thought I’d stepped on you already.

#246

No comeback.

#247

Don’t they say a cockroach can live for like 2 weeks without a head? You must have missed a bit.

#248

i-like-where-this-thread-is-going.jpg

#249

i saw two sikh guys makin out and it was kinda rad

#250

What does this have to do with anything, ever?

#251

bangs head on table

#252

i dont personally want to kiss a man or wear a turban at an airport like those guys did but when i saw that i wanted to tell em “right on”

#253

Im scared.

#254

I am twelve years of age and words cannot describe this, for I do not know what this

#255

and me

#256

Who are you?

#257

Lol, Cup o Joe accused me of being in denial! :lol:

Here’s a bit of food for thought: Humans and Chimpanzees share 98% of their DNA sequence, no? Can 2% of the genome account for the differences we see in humans and chimpanzees? No. In fact, DNA has very little to do with the overall appearance of an organism. All a single gene of DNA does is provide the blueprint for a single protein. Now I’ll be the first to admit that this next statement is made based on evidence that is so far poorly understand by human science, but as far as we know, DNA doesn’t tell those proteins how to stick together to form an organism. Certainly if you put human DNA in a jar with an infinite amount of raw materials and the machinery required by the DNA to manufacture proteins, you wouldn’t get a human.

So, humans and chimps sharing 98% of their genome. Guess what makes a human a human and a chimp a chimp? Must be that developmental period, that regulative cleavage I talked about. Now, it’s never been tried, it’s never been suggested, and the technology doesn’t exist, but supposing we had a machine that could manipulate those chemical gradients I talked about? I could take an early human zygote and subject it to the chemical gradients experienced by a developing chimpanzee, and I would bet you my worldly possessions, my testicles (to be collected sans anesthesia), and the lives of my friends and my family that it would be born a chimpanzee. If you were to give it to a surrogate chimpanzee mother, it would grow up to act like a chimpanzee. It would lead a happy little chimpanzee life, and die a sad little chimpanzee death. It would meet a little chimpanzee lady, although the two of them probably wouldn’t be able to have little chimpanzee babies.

The point here is that it wasn’t human at conception. It was - as anyone with an eyeball and a microscope will tell you - a cell that happened to possess human DNA. But human DNA doesn’t necessarily need to make a human. The little experiment I detailed above would work because of the uncanny similarity between humans and chimps: all of the blueprints for the materials you’d need to make a chimpanzee would be present in the human genome. It was just a matter of steering its development - post-conception - towards a chimpanzee rather than a human.

EDIT: And, since it seems to be the height of fashion in this thread, I, too, will declare my faith. I am agnostic, and a devout believer in God.

#258

<-- also Atheist.

#259

You could go further. Most early stage mammal embryos look very similar, regardless of species.

Development of a pig, cow and goat:

As you can see, it’s not until the very late stages of gestation that they begin to show different characteristics unique to their species.

#260

And yet you Believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, which have even less empirical evidence than all-powerful world-creating deities do. :smiley: [COLOR=‘DarkSlateGray’]
[COLOR=‘Black’]this thread is NEVER GOING TO DIE, thanks Johnkiller118

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