Thread: Stem Cell research

Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

I'm at work man! What kind of guy do you think I am?

I really don't think I need to answer that question...(especially seeing as you didn't answer my question in the first place!)


I'm sure you have a lil' somethin' sumthin' in your top desk drawer to help get you through Mondays...

No, I keep it in the car.



So does this mean you don't have an opinion on the topic? (stem cell research, not drinking at work)

I used to support this research. Then, this weekend, I read this.
Stem cells used to produce pork - Science - Canoe.ca


Now I REALLY support it. Endless bacon for mankind!!! Everyone rejoice (well, except Kosher Jews, observant Muslims, and vegetarians, I guess.)

Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

No, I keep it in the car.



So does this mean you don't have an opinion on the topic? (stem cell research, not drinking at work)

I think stem cell research is risky business (as pointed out in the scallop pork product link smokelaw provided....).

I think they should take all of these embryoes, that would otherwise "be discarded", these embryos will then be cultured for a purpose other than to become humans. Implant them, let them go near to term, errr, I mean, allow the cells to undergo further development, then to intervene and use what's needed for another purpose, remove them, and harvest the fully formed organs for the betterment of an existing human life.

As I said, when they are trying to grow bacon in a petri dish, the results are none too promising. Do you want a stem cell cultured liver that is as soggy as a scallop? Heck no! Get the real deal, fresh livers, kidneys...you name it.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

I think stem cell research is risky business (as pointed out in the scallop pork product link smokelaw provided....).

I think they should take all of these embryoes, that would otherwise "be discarded", these embryos will then be cultured for a purpose other than to become humans. Implant them, let them go near to term, errr, I mean, allow the cells to undergo further development, then to intervene and use what's needed for another purpose, remove them, and harvest the fully formed organs for the betterment of an existing human life.

As I said, when they are trying to grow bacon in a petri dish, the results are none too promising. Do you want a stem cell cultured liver that is as soggy as a scallop? Heck no! Get the real deal, fresh livers, kidneys...you name it.

Couldn't we just use the poor for that? I want my petri bacon.

As a serious response, getting into the "further developed" argument, of course, sullies the waters as it does in that other tangentally related argument. When is it LIFE as opposed to the possibility of life? As soon as I have a definitive answer to when life starts, I'll be able to definitively tell you how developed is to developed to "harvest." I am pretty damned confident that pre-implantation embryo is not there yet. We've had this discussion before, though. I don't see it as really even debateable EXCEPT by one that believes "life" begins when egg and sperm join, and mustn't be destroyed by man. Then, of course, it is not an argument. It is just two different beliefs that are not really reconcileable.

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Couldn't we just use the poor for that? I want my petri bacon.

As a serious response, getting into the "further developed" argument, of course, sullies the waters as it does in that other tangentally related argument. When is it LIFE as opposed to the possibility of life? As soon as I have a definitive answer to when life starts, I'll be able to definitively tell you how developed is to developed to "harvest." I am pretty damned confident that pre-implantation embryo is not there yet. We've had this discussion before, though. I don't see it as really even debateable EXCEPT by one that believes "life" begins when egg and sperm join, and mustn't be destroyed by man. Then, of course, it is not an argument. It is just two different beliefs that are not really reconcileable.

That's easy. At some certain stage of development we remove the frontal cortex from the brain...er, I mean, main nervous system cell structure, thereby eliminating the possibility of that pesky conciousness getting in the way of what we are doing.

Well it's not the beginning of consciousness. That seems more important.

Hmmm, how early could we do that? If we can do that before the magic moment in my opinion above, and we could do so without using a woman like an incubator (maybe use a host that had gotten the same treatment?...ignoring the first "host" would need to come into existence somehow)....then why not? Really. WHY not? I know you can give another example making it more distateful, further down whatever slope you think we are on (one of my favorite styles of argument, much to my wife's anger)...but can you tell me why not? Is any use of human tissue wrong? Or are we really talking about the special nature of the embryo as a full human life? The possiblity of life? I'd love to know.

I DO believe that without a brain, we are just tissue. If we were never alive, there is no life, now or previous, to disrespect. I do not see a moral problem with it.

You've done it!! You've removed the moral quandry!! No brain, no conciousness (not even the pre-birth level of conciosuness that a mid term fetus MIGHT have). NO LIFE. Just a growing mass of tissues, that we may harvest at will. Other implications? Moral uses of such technology? Sure, those exist, but the mroal implications for the tissue qua subject of the moral inquiry....I'm good. Thanks. It would be difficult to look at, true, as these bodies would look human. It would FEEL wrong....but am I sure it really is? Not by a long shot.

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Hmmm, how early could we do that? If we can do that before the magic moment in my opinion above, and we could do so without using a woman like an incubator (maybe use a host that had gotten the same treatment?...ignoring the first "host" would need to come into existence somehow)....then why not? Really. WHY not? I know you can give another example making it more distateful, further down whatever slope you think we are on (one of my favorite styles of argument, much to my wife's anger)...but can you tell me why not? Is any use of human tissue wrong? Or are we really talking about the special nature of the embryo as a full human life? The possiblity of life? I'd love to know.

I DO believe that without a brain, we are just tissue. If we were never alive, there is no life, now or previous, to disrespect. I do not see a moral problem with it.

You've done it!! You've removed the moral quandry!! No brain, no conciousness (not even the pre-birth level of conciosuness that a mid term fetus MIGHT have). NO LIFE. Just a growing mass of tissues, that we may harvest at will. Other implications? Moral uses of such technology? Sure, those exist, but the mroal implications for the tissue qua subject of the moral inquiry....I'm good. Thanks. It would be difficult to look at, true, as these bodies would look human. It would FEEL wrong....but am I sure it really is? Not by a long shot.

And seeing as how you are unable to pin down when exactly that magic moment is, we can just paint with broad brush strokes until people start to recieve the benefits gleaned from this new method. And by then they'll be hooked! At that point we won't have to answer any questions, because people will have stopped asking them.

It is sort of like how we have reached the point we are at: provide fertility treatments, which most people will see as a "good" thing. And everytime we do, we fertilize many more eggs than could actually be used by a couple themselves, and so these go into storage. Eventually we have such a backlog of embryoes that would otherwise "be discarded", and it makes the use of the embryoes seem like a "good" thing as well.

Sure, some may quibble at the fact that if the very same embryo had been implanted it would also have become another child, just like the ones that were actually used in the fertility treatment itself, but those people are overly sentimental and are not looking at things with a critical eye!

So, judging from the last 3-4 posts, Seraphim thinks (embryonic) stem cell research is a bad idea?

Unless my perception of dripping sarcasm is way off.....

Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

So, judging from the last 3-4 posts, Seraphim thinks (embryonic) stem cell research is a bad idea?

Unless my perception of dripping sarcasm is way off.....

Why would you think my posts drip sarcasm any more than say a post such as this? Aren't we on the same page here?