New Stem-cell Trick: NO EMBRYOS!

[Drowsong]

The argument can be dismissed by analogy.

I am making a cheesecake. I've got cream cheese, sour cream, some sugar, butter, and graham crackers. Individually, these ingredients aren't a cheesecake. However, if I mix the first three and combine the second two, pour one into another in the appropriate tin, I certainly have the makings of a cheesecake.

But is it a cheesecake? Well, no, not yet. I haven't refrigerated it. It's not a dessert even if its distinct from the ingredients that made it. Only after I've let it set in a cold environment for an appropriate length of time can it be called a confection. Otherwise, it's a runny mess.

This is analogous to a fertilized cell. It's certainly distinct from the sperm and ovum, what with having a complete set of mixed and matched chromosomes with shuffled genes rather than a half set. But it is not a person. Under appropriate conditions it might become a human being, but it hasn't arrived there yet. Hence, the argument is flawed because it assumes that distinction implies humanity/personhood.

In order for that argument to fly, you are going to have to come up with some definitions of personhood and demonstrate that a fertilized egg meets them. And not make an appeal to authority by citing an unnamed textbook or give a "just because" argument from faith. However, frankly, if you had one, you probably would have given it already.

If you put the ingredients for cheesecake together and do nothing, you’ll never get cheesecake. It will not grow into a cheesecake on its own.

If you put a sperm and oocyte together, you will get a human being, so long as it is allowed to survive. It does so on it’s own. Why is that?

[Patrick Degan]

Well, we know that unless you suppose a mystical soul of some sort there's basically no way you can have human consciousness before the brain exists. Embryonic stem cells are taken when the embryo is still a clump of 100 cells or so (yeah, I'll admit that's from it's from Wikipedia), so unless there's a spirit of some kind responsible for human consciousness rather than it just being a function of the brain anybody who has ever squished a cockroach has probably killed something with more cognitive function than a human embryo at that stage.

Well...people are arguing about it being a human starting at the completion of fertilization without talking about souls or spirits at all. Like I said, some atheists are "hard core" pro-life, and agree that human person-hood starts at the completion of fertilization for purely secular reasons.

During the time of my life where I was confused if I was even a Christian (and even told my parents that I wasn't one), I was still very pro-life because of what is said in those Human Embryology textbooks.

Essentially, defining person-hood does not depend on consciousness. It depends on biology, and whether or not an organism can change from non-person to person. (Even an non-conscious person has would have right, if you can definitively say that they are a person.)

Except you can't definitively say a zygote is a person. No matter how some may argue that genetic fusion of the sperm and egg constitutes this state, it must be pointed out that there is no distinct sexuality to the embryo, no brain function, and certainly no capacity on the part of the organism to thrive independently. The argument of distinctive genetic structure is insufficient since this argument can also apply to cancerous tissue as well as to an embryo. And what we're talking about here in terms of what are used for stem cell research are blatocysts barely a week old and certainly lacking even a primitive neurological plexus or a structure more complex than any typical eukaryote.

Person-hood is necessarily a function of higher brain activity and physically independent existence from the mother; the only terms on which such a definition has meaning. Every other argument is a cloud which attempts to advance potentiality over actuality, in many cases on blatant appeals to emotion.

[Drowsong]

Except you can't definitively say a zygote is a person. No matter how some may argue that genetic fusion of the sperm and egg constitutes this state, it must be pointed out that there is no distinct sexuality to the embryo,

Not true. From the link I gave:
” Myth 5: "The immediate product of fertilization is just an 'it' — it is neither a girl nor a boy."
Fact 5: The immediate product of fertilization is genetically already a girl or a boy — determined by the kind of sperm that fertilizes the oocyte. Quoting Carlson again:
"...[T]he sex of the future embryo is determined by the chromosomal complement of the spermatozoon. (If the sperm contains 22 autosomes and 2 X chromosomes, the embryo will be a genetic female, and if it contains 22 autosomes and an X and a Y chromosome, the embryo will be a genetic male.)"”

no brain function,

Well, the argument is that brain function doesn’t define personhood.

and certainly no capacity on the part of the organism to thrive independently.

Neither can a born infant, unless it is fed and cared for…essentially the same as this newly formed human organism. The form of care and nutrition changes...not the essential nature.

The argument of distinctive genetic structure is insufficient since this argument can also apply to cancerous tissue as well as to an embryo.

So there is cancer that is a separate organism, with fully fledged and unique human DNA? I know we don’t like some people but it’s not nice to call them cancer.

And what we're talking about here in terms of what are used for stem cell research are blatocysts barely a week old and certainly lacking even a primitive neurological plexus or a structure more complex than any typical eukaryote.

Well, I admitted that my sources could be akin to creationist literature, and that I don’t know for sure. But according to those books, a zygote is human and a blatocysts comes after that in development.

Person-hood is necessarily a function of higher brain activity and physically independent existence from the mother;

Well, now see, that’s the problem. Many don’t define human personhood that way. Like 50% of the US population, including human embryologists.

the only terms on which such a definition has meaning. Every other argument is a cloud which attempts to advance potentiality over actuality, in many cases on blatant appeals to emotion.

So the dry definitions from the books I quoted are appeals to emotion? We need to verify if they are akin to creationist (misguidedly written) literature, but it’s hardly an appeal to emotion. It’s textbook definitions written by human embryologists.

[Gil Hamilton]

If you put the ingredients for cheesecake together and do nothing, you’ll never get cheesecake. It will not grow into a cheesecake on its own.

If you put a sperm and oocyte together, you will get a human being, so long as it is allowed to survive. It does so on it’s own. Why is that?

Sure it will. Once the ingredients for the cheesecake together and put it in the fridge, it very certainly become a cheesecake entirely on its own. I don't have to do a thing to it. But until it is done, it isn't a cheesecake.

Likewise, under the appropriate conditions (which, incidentally, don't apply in this situation to embryonic stem cells; see below) a fertilize egg will divide, become a blastocyst, then an embryo, a fetus, and the whole nine yards. But it isn't there yet, with considerable help from the mother's body. On its own, though, a fertilized egg doesn't do much on its own. Something that has the potential to develop into something is not a something.

In this case, the point is mute because the embryos we are talking about, ones that would be used for stem cell research most definitely will not develop into a human being on their own, since they are made as a byproduct of fertility treatment and would normally be discarded if not frozen for research.

[Cycloneman]

Lets say you have 4 special containment units (the website uses 5 Petri dishes, but I need something better), that are capable of giving all the nourishment and “tender love and care” that an organism needs to survive for, say 9 months.

You put a sperm into one.
You put an egg into another.
You put the scraping of someone’s cheek cells into another.
You put a fertilized egg into the last.

What happens to each?

To the best of my knowledge:
The sperm survives for awhile. It never grows. It eventually dies.
The egg does the same.
The scraping from someone’s inner check grows into a blob of tissue, and eventually dies.
The fertilized egg grows into a baby similar to what you see at the end of a 9 month pregnancy.

You see the difference?

Here, let me make a different analogy:
What happens if you put a scraping from a person's inner cheek, a sperm, an egg, and a fertilized egg into the vagina of a fertile female human?

The sperm may become a baby. To the best of my knowledge, none of the others do.

Just because you can cherry-pick a situation to support your claim, doesn't mean it's valid.

So to answer your question, a sperm CANNOT simply become a human being. Neither can an egg. When they join they fundamentally change, as is taught in any 100 level biology course. This is something most pro-choice people even agree on.

A fetus cannot "simply" become a human being, either. It requires extreme care and aid on the part of the womb in order to do this. The additional aid a sperm needs is very small - just a method of getting to the eggs and the eggs themselves. All the eggs need in addition is a sperm, as well.

Well, the argument is that brain function doesn’t define personhood

So, hypothetical situation:
We have a person. Via act of Q, their brain has been completely removed and they are currently attached to a life support system which is ensuring that all their (non-brain) biological functions still work.

Is it murder to deactivate this life support system?

[Surlethe]

no brain function,

Well, the argument is that brain function doesn’t define personhood.

Certainly that's not his argument; he's saying that any definition of personhood will imply that the person has some sort of brain function. Hence, higher brain function is a necessary element of any working definition of personhood to remove the possibility of absurdities such as cancers or petri dishes filled with cheek cells being considered human persons.

Person-hood is necessarily a function of higher brain activity and physically independent existence from the mother;

Well, now see, that’s the problem. Many don’t define human personhood that way. Like 50% of the US population, including human embryologists.

The quotes you've given don't establish any sort of criteria for personhood. If you look carefully, you'll recognize that there's a sharp distinction between human life and human personhood, which is there for a reason: life applies to any sort of organism, including individual cells; this is obviously not sufficient to conclude the sort of intrinsic moral worth we're discussing when we ask "Is X human life at time t?" with the implication that if X is 'human life', then we're not going to end it.

Also, please do note that 50% of the US population is not enough to make Mr Degan incorrect; after all, some 50% of the US population explicitly denies the evolution of humans.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Are there medical advances that we think we can make with embryonic stem cells that we know with certainty would be impossible with adult stem cells? (I'm guessing the answer is yes, there is, or we could close the debate now.)

Yes. Here is the thing. Embryonic stem cells are completely undifferentiated. They have undergone absolutely no modification to their pattern of gene expression that will make them any one type of cell. Adult stem cells have. There are three basic types of cells. Endoderm (which forms mostly the epithelial cells in the digestive tract), ectoderm (which forms the nervous system and skin) and mesoderm (which forms bone, mesenchyme the reproductive tract and the kidneys, among other things). Adult stem cells fall into those categories and are partially differentiated. They can only form the types of tissues that can be derived from the moe basal tissue from which they came. They are inherently limited, and also the findings from playing with adult stem cells cannot be generalized as easily to work with embryonic cells

How long did they research embryonic stem cells before the cut in federal funds, and what medical advances have we received from it?

three years from the first isolated line until the ban on usefull federal research if my memory serves. The next three years were spent just developing the lines and the benefits derived fro it have been basic research, with no direct medical advances as of yet. The basic research has to be done before we can start doing anything even resembling clinical trials.

If science is still undecided about whether or not embryonic stem cell research destroys human life, shouldn't it halt until we know conclusively that it doesn't?

No. There is a difference between a human life and a human being. A pre-implantation morula or blastula stage embryo is not a human being. period. It lacks a consciousness, a mind, it lacks all of the qualities that we can empathize with and value. It is morally irrelevant. The only way you can make it a human being is to invoke the idea of a soul, or define the concept of a human being so broadly that cancerous tumors would be considered autonomous human beings... and you wold exclude twins and chimeras (because to manage it without a soul you have to define human being in terms of a unique genetic code... which twins do not have and chimeras have two or more)

Is there embryonic stem cell research occurring in other countries besides United States that has a similar capable scientific background?

Western Europe and Korea.

Understood. However, we still cannot reach a consensus. How do we proceed in such a situation?

Take the route that saves real people. Especially because the embryos are set to be destroyed anyway.

Let me use an analogy..You live on an island with ten other people. One of them is sick and you know of a way that you may be able to save him/her

You can, with a bit of work, process a plant into a useful medicine. However three other people in your little group believe that this will do two things. 1) They believe the plant to have a soul and pulling up the plant will hurt this soul. They have no evidence for this, merely their subjective belief which they justify on their own say so. 2) doing so will upset some sort of earth spirit for which they have no evidence.

What do you do? Do you override their objection and process the plant anyway to save a real person from suffering? Or do you cave to their demands to use a less effective plant that requires more processing and will cause unpleasant side effects?

You will probably go ahead and use the plant.

Now, I will ask the question. What makes these individuals views here any different from the religious views (you will not find an atheist who is against stem cell research) of these individuals, and the religious views of those who oppose stem cell research?

Simply allowing it to continue when many people (including scientists) object seems odd to me. This is not like the Evolution versus Intelligent Design situation where the vast majority of scientists agree that Evolution is an excellent explanation of the diversity of life.

You have to look at the basis for their opposition. Many of the scientists who oppose or are critical of stem cell research have a similar personal belief system to the above plant worshipers.

I guess I should ask the question like this: When the population is split 50/50 on an issue…and science can’t define a sure answer either way…how do we proceed in accordance with morality?

We take the rational approach. The one that makes actual sense. Moreover, the population is not split 50/50 on this issue. The population at large is for embryonic stem cell research. The opposition is just very loud or will bomb the research labs...


As a side note, what of the Huma

n Embryology college text books that define human personhood as starting at [the conclusion of] fertilization? Are they allowing their pro-life bias into their textbooks? I’ve read what they have to say, and I’m heavily biased pro-life, so when I read it, it makes a lot of sense, and even seems scientific as a conclusion. To say that some mechanism later on can make an organism go from a non-person to a person seems odd to me. (I will admit my bias, but I was pro-life even when I wasn’t Catholic…some atheists are “hard-core”
pro-life as well.)

Not very many. The personness is properly defined as having a mind. An embryo does not have a mind. I want to know what the title of the textbook was. Because frankly, good textbooks in science do not put values into the text at all beyond the science. In other words yes your book was biased. No it is not a good textbook.

Well...people are arguing about it being a human starting at the completion of fertilization without talking about souls or spirits at all. Like I said, some atheists are "hard core" pro-life, and agree that human person-hood starts at the completion of fertilization for purely secular reasons.

Can you give me one of these reasons? Just because someone argues it, does not mean it makes sense. So please, give an example. And just because an atheist is pro-life does not mean they are consistent either. Their pro-life ness could be an artifact of how they were raised and they may very well be rationalizing their position. And rationalization rarely holds up to scrutiny

You see the difference?

And the argument is shit. Why? Because a potential human being is not actually a human being. That is like saying that we should treat an acorn the same way we treat an oak tree.

"[The Zygote] results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm ... unites with a female gamete or oocyte ... to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."
I know it's not much but this source says that this book is now its 7th edition, and that it is a best selling resource.

Poor wording. Nothing more. In fact I would now accuse you of intentionally distorting the text.

If you put a sperm and oocyte together, you will get a human being, so long as it is allowed to survive. It does so on it’s own. Why is that?

Actually... no. if you put a sperm and oocyte together and leave it alone, it will die. It will die rather quickly actually. It requires action on the part of a mother feeding it with her metabolism, protecting it, etc. In fact, most of the time, it will die despite the best efforts of the mother's body to keep it alive. The analogy still stands.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not true. From the link I gave:
” Myth 5: "The immediate product of fertilization is just an 'it' — it is neither a girl nor a boy."
Fact 5: The immediate product of fertilization is genetically already a girl or a boy — determined by the kind of sperm that fertilizes the oocyte. Quoting Carlson again:
"...[T]he sex of the future embryo is determined by the chromosomal complement of the spermatozoon. (If the sperm contains 22 autosomes and 2 X chromosomes, the embryo will be a genetic female, and if it contains 22 autosomes and an X and a Y chromosome, the embryo will be a genetic male.)"”

Strawman. He means phenotypic sexuality. IE. does it have genitals.

It is possible that a genetically male embryo will develop into a female under certain conditions. And vice versa

Well, the argument is that brain function doesn’t define personhood.

Please actually propose such an argument. It wont hold up

Neither can a born infant, unless it is fed and cared for…essentially the same as this newly formed human organism. The form of care and nutrition changes...not the essential nature.

Stop distorting people's arguments. Independence in this case means the direct dependence on another person's metabolism. It is a distinction that is important when dealing with these questions.

So there is cancer that is a separate organism, with fully fledged and unique human DNA? I know we don’t like some people but it’s not nice to call them cancer.

No moron. But genetic unigueness is insufficient precisely because cancer has fully fledged and unique human DNA. Indeed, by this definition, monozygotic twins are not human beings.

Well, now see, that’s the problem. Many don’t define human personhood that way. Like 50% of the US population, including human embryologists.

Appeal to popularity and appeal to a false authority. Embryologists are not philosophers, which is where this question belongs. In philosophy, which is INFORMED by science. Additionally, i have accused you of deliberately distorting the position of the book author.

So the dry definitions from the books I quoted are appeals to emotion? We need to verify if they are akin to creationist (misguidedly written) literature, but it’s hardly an appeal to emotion. It’s textbook definitions written by human embryologists.

Again, you have distorted the biologists in this case

[Drowsong]

I’m probably going to have to bow out of this conversation (read: admit defeat) on the basis of several reasons:

1)
“[…] because the embryos are set to be destroyed anyway.”
^ Others are saying this, but I quoted this because it’s most recent, short and to the point. I don’t have any arguments against this. While it’s possible they exist, I certainly don’t have them, and won’t likely anytime soon. This genuinely defeats me. (And is the crux of this thread, so this matters a great deal.)

2)
Having to respond to several people is very time consuming. I owe you all a response, and I’m a dick for not giving out one to each of you individually. However, to do so at this point would take many hours, and it will likely spiral the conversation out even farther. Before I know, I'll be spending 3-4 hours per response on a thread where I originally just wanted to get across that not all stem cell research is the same. (Not to mention, number 1 makes a 3-4 hour response seem silly.) Yes, it takes this long when you have many people to respond to...I generally try to edit my posts for grammar and make sure I have my quote "coding," and links correct.
Please forgive my not answering of you (all of you) in a point by point fashion. While I recognize that I got myself into this, I hope that by admitting my defeat, I won’t be subject to as many flames.

I will say a few closing statements:

- I personally still define “human personhood” and “unique [possible exception of twins] human individual organism” as the same. I don’t think that personhood is something this organism is endowed with later. The ability to reason, for me, does not define personhood, as I feel that would imply people with greater reasoning abilities as somehow “more human” than those with lesser reasoning abilities. Until I get to the library and find those books I’ve quoted, I will not argue this on the basis of science, or even at all. (And, frankly, I won’t be able to open my big mouth about pro-life stuff in SLAM, unless its not actually an argument about when life begins.)

- In regards to intentionally distorting text: Like I said, I got my information from the following link:
http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
I didn’t transcribe any part of the text myself. If there is a distortion of text, it was not done by me, and in fact mislead me into my current position in this argument.
I also used (WARNING: The site abort73.com in general has graphic imagery. The specific link I gave does not.)
to be perfectly honest, but those are the same exact sources. (With a possible exception for edition number.) The second link here has one of the same quotes, just longer. There’s also many more quotes there that led me to [solidify] my stance. If they are incorrect, it could explain my incorrectness in this issue.

I may not post in this thread again. I admit defeat in this argument.

[Surlethe]

- I personally still define “human personhood” and “unique [possible exception of twins] human individual organism” as the same. I don’t think that personhood is something this organism is endowed with later. The ability to reason, for me, does not define personhood, as I feel that would imply people with greater reasoning abilities as somehow “more human” than those with lesser reasoning abilities.

Nobody's been saying (at this point) that the ability to reason defines personhood (i.e., is both sufficient and necessary); they've only been claiming that it is necessary for personhood: if you haven't got it, then you're not a person. This is a subtle, but important distinction.

Now, here's some food for thought: suppose you are in a burning hospital, carrying a two-year-old. On the table, you see a bag with fifteen petri dishes, each containing a human embryo. You may choose either the bag or the child to escape with you and survive, but not both, and the one you do not choose will burn. Which do you pick?

[Cairber]

If you put a sperm and oocyte together, you will get a human being, so long as it is allowed to survive. It does so on it’s own. Why is that?

The one thing I keep thinking over and over again when reading your posts is that you seem to have this certainty about sperm + egg= inevitable baby. Yet it is estimated that 30-50% of all fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted before implantation.

[Alyrium Denryle]

If you put a sperm and oocyte together, you will get a human being, so long as it is allowed to survive. It does so on it’s own. Why is that?

The one thing I keep thinking over and over again when reading your posts is that you seem to have this certainty about sperm + egg= inevitable baby. Yet it is estimated that 30-50% of all fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted before implantation.

Obviously the mother should be charged with manslaughter

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

It really makes no sense to give moral consideration to an organism with the level of awareness of a zygote, embryo, or early fetus. On the interest scale, it's very low. Moral consideration ought to be given based on the capacity to form interests, to think, to suffer. Where does such an organism lie along that gradient? Not very far.

It's pretty easy to see, hypothetically, personhood as a concept is not unique to or synonymous with "human" as it's entirely possible to have non-human persons. You needn't even go into humans which aren't persons. Just draw analogy to another being with the awareness level of a human who...is not human. Would that suddenly cease to be a person worthy of said moral consideration? Of course not. It's obviously a trait possessed by that organism, not the membership itself of any one group. The trait just extends across lines.

A being who can think has potentially far more morally relevant welfare interests, more to lose, than an organism without thought or feeling. There's a reason why we feel very little when we slap a tree branch or kick a bush. They are alive, but they aren't person with those types of interests.

And person hood develops over time, not all at once, but there is a "before" wherein it has no higher thought, no self-awareness, etc. It's hard to maximize the interests or thwart them in those situations.

[Alyrium Denryle]

It is worth noting that there are a lot of reasons to give a being moral consideration. From placing value on the difference between pleasure and pain, the fulfillment of subjective preferences, the categorical imperative, to placing direct moral consideration on the functionality of systems.

The thing is, a fetus or embryo is not morally considerable to anyone who is consistent, who holds anything other than a religious based ethical system. Unless the person never harms any living organism, in which case they are Jains who are morally obligated to starve to death...

[Patrick Degan]

Except you can't definitively say a zygote is a person. No matter how some may argue that genetic fusion of the sperm and egg constitutes this state, it must be pointed out that there is no distinct sexuality to the embryo,

Not true. From the link I gave:
” Myth 5: "The immediate product of fertilization is just an 'it' — it is neither a girl nor a boy."
Fact 5: The immediate product of fertilization is genetically already a girl or a boy — determined by the kind of sperm that fertilizes the oocyte. Quoting Carlson again:
"...[T]he sex of the future embryo is determined by the chromosomal complement of the spermatozoon. (If the sperm contains 22 autosomes and 2 X chromosomes, the embryo will be a genetic female, and if it contains 22 autosomes and an X and a Y chromosome, the embryo will be a genetic male.)"”

Excuse me, but how in hell do you determine that "a girl or a boy" somehow refutes "no sex differentiation"? Just what the fuck do you imagine "or" means? A hint: hairsplitting and semantical games do not constitute a rebuttal of anything.

no brain function,

Well, the argument is that brain function doesn’t define personhood.

It's not my fault the "argument" is a fundamentally broken one.

and certainly no capacity on the part of the organism to thrive independently.

Neither can a born infant, unless it is fed and cared for…essentially the same as this newly formed human organism. The form of care and nutrition changes...not the essential nature.

Wrong —the difference between a newborn infant and an embryo is that if the latter is removed from the uterus, its life functions cease immediately.

The argument of distinctive genetic structure is insufficient since this argument can also apply to cancerous tissue as well as to an embryo.

So there is cancer that is a separate organism, with fully fledged and unique human DNA? I know we don’t like some people but it’s not nice to call them cancer.

Appeal to Emotion Fallacy. Almost predictable on your part. As for the former, cancerous growths do show genetic differentation from the host organism given that it is a mutation and one which feeds off the host and becomes progressively immune to the host's antibody defences. Your attempt to alter that statement into the strawman cancer = embryo is ridiculous on its face.

And what we're talking about here in terms of what are used for stem cell research are blatocysts barely a week old and certainly lacking even a primitive neurological plexus or a structure more complex than any typical eukaryote.

Well, I admitted that my sources could be akin to creationist literature, and that I don’t know for sure. But according to those books, a zygote is human and a blatocysts comes after that in development.

I'm not responsible for literature based on a fundamentally broken argument arising from an erroneous premise.

Person-hood is necessarily a function of higher brain activity and physically independent existence from the mother;

Well, now see, that’s the problem. Many don’t define human personhood that way. Like 50% of the US population, including human embryologists.

Appeal to Popularity Fallacy.

the only terms on which such a definition has meaning. Every other argument is a cloud which attempts to advance potentiality over actuality, in many cases on blatant appeals to emotion.

So the dry definitions from the books I quoted are appeals to emotion? We need to verify if they are akin to creationist (misguidedly written) literature, but it’s hardly an appeal to emotion. It’s textbook definitions written by human embryologists.

But that does not mean that the arguments arising from a selective usage of these definitions (i.e. cherry-picking the evidence) are correct. In fact, given that they proceed a priori from a fixed conclusion, they are most likely incorrect.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Excuse me, but how in hell do you determine that "a girl or a boy" somehow refutes "no sex differentiation"? Just what the fuck do you imagine "or" means? A hint: hairsplitting and semantical games do not constitute a rebuttal of anything.

The best part is that sex differentiation is such a late-stage and secondary development in the course of the fetus that it's entirely possible for some disorders to result in the complete development of an individual containing all sexual characteristics (save the actual sex organs) of the sex opposite of their chromosomal indicators. And yet it's so absolutely fundamental to the human sense of self. People with such disorders adapt so well to their developmental sex that frequently they're quite shocked when informed of their chromosomal sex. So their ingrained and biological sense of personhood clearly nonetheless simply did not exist until a quite late developmental stage, and arguably only after birth.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Hey I'm not trying to jump into the life begins debate but out of curiousity, would it be possible to get a viable working human clone from this non embryo destructive process?

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

EDIT: I mean to add "because if they are stem cells, shouldn't they be able to give rise to a human being and not just differentiated organs and whatnot?"

[wolveraptor]

EDIT: I mean to add "because if they are stem cells, shouldn't they be able to give rise to a human being and not just differentiated organs and whatnot?"

I believe Alyrea... Alyriun..Denri....the guy with the snake for the avatar made the valid point that these cells have already gone through many divisions already - their telomeres (which shorten with each division) will be too short to allow enough divisions for the clone to live for as long as a normal human. The clone's cells will essentially have been pre-aged, causing it to die and weaken much earlier. Also, there's the accumulated mutations that inevitably come with cell division.

[Alyrium Denryle]

EDIT: I mean to add "because if they are stem cells, shouldn't they be able to give rise to a human being and not just differentiated organs and whatnot?"

I believe Alyrea... Alyriun..Denri....the guy with the snake for the avatar made the valid point that these cells have already gone through many divisions already - their telomeres (which shorten with each division) will be too short to allow enough divisions for the clone to live for as long as a normal human. The clone's cells will essentially have been pre-aged, causing it to die and weaken much earlier. Also, there's the accumulated mutations that inevitably come with cell division.

And because of this, even trying to get a working human clone is so unethical it hurts. Not until we have found a way to fix those problems. Which, I am sad to say, we have not.

[wolveraptor]

And because of this, even trying to get a working human clone is so unethical it hurts. Not until we have found a way to fix those problems. Which, I am sad to say, we have not.

We know how to literally write DNA sequences, creating new species of bacteria and virii. Eventually, we may be able to simply sequence the DNA of the individual we want to clone and rewrite it into another human cell. Which would kick ass, of course. It would have all the advantages of cloning without the drawbacks of mitotic division.

[Justforfun000]

This was an intensely fascinating and informative thread. Thanks by the way Aly for explaining the limitations inherent in the adult cells being "changed" into stem cells. As usual, the paper trumpets news like this as simple black and white situations and it didn't even dawn on me that this wasn't a perfect replacement. Now I realize that as is most things that are fanfared, it is simply too good to be true.

Besides the presidency, I really think journalists should have mandatory science knowledge mandatory in their resumes....

A question: I'm a little confused with how Aly and Degan responded to the chromosomal gender issue...You can be genetically male or female and yet still develop genitally into a certain sex?

(Genitally? Is that a word?) lol