Oops, typo there, the Title should be "This Time On Philosophy Weekly: Science vs. Ethics: What's Wrong With *Playing God?*"

Anyway...

I personally don't see why we shouldn't strive to improve our design. Human beings are, at life's beginning, raw material- nothing more. Stem cells are just building blocks, just pieces we can rearrange or perform whatever biological work is required (I'm no biologist, so I don't know the exact process) to help improve this or repair that. I've read about trials done with promising results, I believe even one with ALS, some movement was regained.

And if we can genetically engineer hearts someday to last longer and not wear out, or perform similar workings with other organs to make out bodies last longer- why not do it?

If the technology were ever available, what about cloning a duplicate of ourselves and brain-scanning our memories, have a device that does that until the point of death, take it out at death, put it in the mature clone body, and bam- no more death.

Even better, maybe when we start hitting 40 we can pay for duplicate clone bodies of ourselves to be made, and then at, say, 75, to be really sci-fi here, take the brain/memories from the old body and put it into our new, freshly cloned 25-year old body.

Some of those are a bit out there, but the point is it might be possible if not for all these "it's just not right" and "who are WE to do this?" arguments?

Why not try and improve ourselves as a race, not through eugenics (let's stop any talk of that here and now, that's not what I mean) but through essentially making the human body faster, stronger, better- and then eventually get to the point where the body is only the hardware, and we can jsut take our brain, the flashdrive of our being, to stretch the metaphor, and once the old "hardware/computer" is breaking down, go out to "Clone-o-Mart" and pick up a new body...imagine a world without death, or with less death.

And with that population boom and the sufferings of deatha nd death anexiety gone, maybe we can focus on other pursuits, maybe we can leave Earth and pull a Star Trek.


It's far-fetched...but the wildest dreams have a start in reality, and we have that start now with stem cells and genetic engineering- why not use it?

It still seems you are creating a strawman with this one. Maybe if you limited the discussion to one argument? Stem cell reseach perhaps?

Even with Stem cell research, I think it's no longer necessary to use acutal tissue from fetuses, which I think was the primary objection.

As to the original question which I interpret a little differently "Why let ehtics get in the way of scientific progress" I'd say ethics is a significant part of that progress. It doesn't hold back progress so much as insure that it's moving in ways that we want.

For example:

MD's prescribing antibiotics to kids with viruses, when they knew that it wouldn't do any good, but would shut the mother up. Unethical behavior that added in evolution of superbugs.

*aided*

Yeah, in retrospect that question was worded a bit oddly, so yes, the main question is what the balance of science and ethics should be, ie, the stem cell thing (and I heard about that with the actual fetuses, so that's great...but then why not go ahead and do it? And again, something like cloning- why not? It's dangerous, can be abused, but that's the same with any science, so why not grant them funding for clonign so that we can try to create more and better organs, seems a worthy cause for research...so yeah, this is meant to encompass the scientific advancement vs. "should man tamper with this?" whatever "this" is in the given scenario.)

As for MDs overprescribing, that's not what I meant by a question of ethics (though that definitely is one), again, I mean how far should man go in improving himself or altering himself via science? Stem cell research? Cloning? And that "brain-scan-for-memories" idea I mentioned, say that were possible- should we do that, and allow for, potentially, the possiblity of cheating death, or does a clone with an identical memory count as "you" at all?

i dont think its actually "as old as time"

i mean... maybe as old as science anyway

Science and knowledge are only tools. The use of fire has been around for a million years, untill relatively recently was seen as the power of the gods as was lightning. It could be said that we play god any time we strike a match. To avoid science and technology is to deny Prometheus. If you want to control how it is acquired and how it is used it's best you do so before someone you consider unethical does.

Ther is no God there playing him is not an issue.

And for insulting the Lord, thou shall go down and burn for all eternity for not believing. Humans don't play god, if we did, then what would God do, punish us. There is but one God in my religion, so I don't think he would be all too happy with humans playing him right in front of Him.

@Killer: enjoy your fantasy

@diplomat, enjoy rotting down in the Place. Maybe you'll get roasted like a marshmallow. Have fun, you non-religious idiot. Religion has been a major influence on all of history and I don't expect anyone to truly change that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aRNj3mw_iM

@Killer: religion has indeed been a major influence on history, even sometimes for good. However, I do not believe that there is a god behind it/us.

One bad thing religion has brought us is the Christian-muslim Crusades and Muslim extremists/ or terrorists, however you say it

@Killer: that is a good example. You don't actually need "god" to exist for groups of people to use him as a reason to go to war.

Hey, hey!

-100 diplomat, killer!

You know I'm no proponent of the whole Christian ideology thing, but insulting one's belief is not the same as having a sane or productive discussion about it, it's just rude and, frankly, childish, and killer, saying he'll go to Hell for being a "non-religious idiot" is a bit close-minded and just not on, and anyway, if you believe in God as written, then who are you to condemn him to the flames, anyway? No better than an insulting troll or a religious zealot, the both of you, there!

So chill!

Plus it's all wildly off-topic and just a flame war, so put out the flames...

I don't think any scientist has gone to work one morning and thought "I want to play god today". The term "playing god" is frankly bizarre, poorly defined, and more than a little insulting. They are not playing, they are trying to earn a living and make the world a better place. There are only a handful of people on the planet who really seem to actually want to "play at being god" and, aside from the Pope and Kim Jong-Il, most of them are locked up in asylums.

As far as a world without death goes, I pity the poor souls who opt for it. Death is one of humanity's greatest gifts and to lose it would be a tragedy. When life first began it was essentially immortal. Death was one of the first improvements evolution devloped.

The thing is, I don't fear death, but I'd like to, strangely enough, have a world where people could die more by choice than just because their bodies broke down.

I mean, in the classic old stories, you have great heroes rushing into battle and they come to death, they meet it bravely and without fear, going out in a blaze of glory that makes their death actually something positive, I'm for, again strange sounding though it may be, positive deaths, living until you've fulfilled whatever it is you want to in life, and then you go.

There's plenty of interesting stories and "what ifs" about artists dying young Mozart, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche going insane relatively young...

Imagine if they could have worked until they were done, had no more to give, and then bid the world a very fond farewell, and met death under those circumstances.


Don't eradicate death, but eradicate premature death, make it more meaningful, so you can go out on top instead of too early or, conversely, hanging around until you're decripit and a shell of your former self, and your flame's a bit dulled.

When a hero goes out, he goes out like an Achilles or a Hector or Gawain or Lancelot or Robin Hood- at their peak and not at all diminished by years.

THAT is how we should meet death, at our peaks, having done all we can- and then we can leave as heroes, on a great pyre, if you'll allow the romanticism...

(Out of curiosity, who'd like a funeral pyre for their death someday? I would, either that or, since I love exploring and wouldn't be too keen staying in a small hold in the ground, maybe by that time they can pull a Wrath of Kahn funeral service for people, make a space coffin and shoot you into space, with a Scotsman playing "Amazing Grace," of course...) ;)

So what you're effectively in favour of is suicide becoming the norm? That would take one hell of a shift in society to achieve, and it would be an incredibly painful process. I can see the appeal of banishing old age and living the length of life you want, but even if technology allowed it the pressures from family, friends, religion etc etc to live that little bit extra would be huge. Not to mention the effect on global population.

To be honest my personal view is that we are immortal anyway. We live on in our children, which are combinations of yourself with the addition of your favourite other person, with all the crippling memories of mistakes, prejudices, and sadness built up over a lifetime stripped away. The birth of children allow us to live on, and death allows us to forget.

"And that "brain-scan-for-memories" idea I mentioned, say that were possible- should we do that, and allow for, potentially, the possiblity of cheating death, or does a clone with an identical memory count as "you" at all? "

Let ask you this in reply. Say that you found that perfect girl and married her. If she died at the end of the first month and was replaced by a clone with identical memories would it be her? How would you know? What if she wanted to get divorced after a year under the grounds that she never agreed to marry you in the first place. Does she have that right? Is she going to be aware that she died or are we going to selectively deny those memories to her?

**Let's**

The argument that it is wrong to "play God" by playing with DNA, etc is bogus. First of all, if there is a God, then *He* designed the DNA in such a way that is can be manipulated, changed, combined, etc. If He didn't wants us to do it, He wouldn't have made it doable.

But apart from that, the hypocrisy from the religious community is glaring. On the one hand, we say that it's wrong to play with genes and design a better person...stronger, smarter, whatever, because you should be the way God wants you to be. And then, when that person get's high blood pressure, they pop a pill to correct the condition. uhhh...isn't that counteracting the way God made you? Shouldn't you endure the gift of high blood pressure, instead of trying to eliminate it?

If I could design my child from conception and thereby give him or her (I haven't decided what I would pick....oh hell, I haven't....it would be a boy this time!!) a better shot at success, I most certainly would! Improved immune system, strong heart, better memory, good looks....all of the above and more, if I could. I really like to add some jellyfish genes, too...but just to his finger tips...so that they would put off a dim fluorescent glow to help him pick locks in the dark...

ethics vs. science is obviously a false dilemma... but never mind that for the moment...
ethics should always have a voice... what is humane, what is kind, what is fair, what is good for humanity, what is good for other beings and the ecosystem... these questions should always be present. I heard a rather disturbing piece on NPR the other day about bioengineers... this grad student (at Harvard, I believe) spliced a wintergreen gene into an e. coli bacteria simply so that it would stop smelling like shit in the lab... sounds amusing and all until you think about what happens when it breaks out into the wild. ...animals including ourselves who are used to the warning sign of something smelling bad are suddenly attracted to something rotten but sweet smelling and poison ourselves... the bacteria dominates because it suddenly has numerous willing (but unknowing) hosts... great. This is a grad student that did that. How much is crap like that and worse happening all the time. The problem is that we don't really think about our consequences - we simply blunder ahead. As a classmate of his said nonchalantly, in explaining why they did that, "we make stuff". Great. It's a freakin' playground to these wet-behind-the-ears Oppenheimers.

This all said, I'm very pro-science... but ethics must be there constantly. Its simply about thinking deeply about what we are doing and trying to suss out all the consequences that await us. ...and some things, once done, can't be undone.