Scientists Create Mice From 2 Fathers 435
An anonymous reader writes "Using stem cell technology, reproductive scientists in Texas, led by Dr. Richard R. Behringer at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, have produced male and female mice from two fathers. The study was posted Wednesday at the online site of the journal Biology of Reproduction. The achievement of two-father offspring in a species of mammal could be a step toward preserving endangered species, improving livestock breeds, and advancing human assisted reproductive technology. It also opens the provocative possibility of same-sex couples having their own genetic children, the researchers note."
Re:What a waste of money (Score:5, Insightful)
These mice are no more gay than using a surrogate mother is adultery.
They're combining DNA, not teaching mice to appreciate musical theatre.
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
A very rational approach to it, but do you think the less rational religious types will concur?
Re:Monstrous fetuses will prevent it (Score:5, Insightful)
The same could be said about IV fertilization and other fertility treatments. In fact, the same thing WAS said about them, but it was a strawman every bit there as it is here. You don't even know what's gonna happen, yet you have no problem with conjuring the image of numerous "monstrous fetuses" that die "soon after birth", apparently in an attempt to provoke both disgust and sympathy in your audience on the same time. Who's gonna think of the monster children?
Re:I for one (Score:4, Insightful)
such a procedure has the potential to clear up the whole nature/nurture debate in the case of homosexuality.
Why? Gay people have normal children all the time. Doesn't that give you enough data?
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some scientific pursuits we should refrain from (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you like it if your mom was drunk that one night and got knocked up by a guy she didn't even know and that result is you?
No?
Gee, too bad, life ain't a request programme. You get what you're dealt.
Would I prefer if both my parents were guys who went through the hassle (legal, financial and otherwise) to have a child together and that child is me? Sure as fuck more than the alternative I gave above. Because one thing's sure: They definitely, truely and without a doubt WANTED me to be. I would've been no accident, not even a "happy coincidence", there is positively no way that I could have existed unless they really, really strongly wanted me to exist.
I honestly can't think of any better way to tell that parents WANT a child than going to impossible lengths to get one. Take in vitro. Does anyone doubt that these parents really wanted to have that child, an that this child will probably be loved more than many other kids who "just happened"?
Personally, I like the idea that my parents really wanted me.
Re:I for one (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine the above isn't a troll, but just in case the abortion argument really is still in the "stone age" as it were, I'll bite:
The way to understand the anti-abortion mindset is extremely simple, but very difficult (apparently) for many supposedly "rational" thinkers. They believe that a person is alive and has rights from the moment of conception. Potential life, in their eyes, is to be as revered as full life-- in fact in some ways more so because it has no adequate defenses or ability to survive without help*.
Simply put, any act that ends the life of another (in this case even an abortion) must be justified-- and for many people there is even more simply no justification for the taking of another life. To get a feel for this type of mindset just replace the word "abortion" with murder, and then try to argue the typical "right to privacy", "betterment of other people" arguments.
It's much harder to justify scientific research for the betterment of mankind when the process to procure the research material involves murdering children-- which is exactly what these believers think.
More importantly, it is important to realize that as "silly" as this idea may seem to you, the fact that the question is far more philosophical than scientific means that you can't simply disregard this option because you don't agree. Many people hold at least some personal belief about when "life" starts-- the fact that you've chosen one point in the timeline of development and that someone else has chosen another does not discount their opinion.
Because we are dealing with one of the most basic and agreed upon human rights-- the right to life-- the argument understandably gets heated when one side believes that the other is committing what they believe is murder in order to improve their own lives.
*(It should be noted that this is in no way a new idea, and has existed even in ancient cultures where the murder or beating of a pregnant woman would be dealt with more severely than with one who was not-pregnant. In "ye olden days" when having a baby was even more dangerous than it is today, and the infant death rate was extremely high, the idea of "potential life" was very important to early peoples.)
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Doesn't follow. Homosexuals alter the balance of the sexes for reproductive purposes; they often provide a different and useful set of sensibilities to the community (Alan Turing, Isaac Newton, Plato, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alan Turing, Francis Bacon, Henry David Thoreau...) If your thesis is that the only value proposition in the human race is that of reproduction, then you're just being silly. We're intelligent; we have our own uses for our fellows that go far beyond if they choose to breed or not.
And if their "biological imperfection" doesn't infringe on other people's well being or freedom, and the "imperfect" person is well satisfied? Einstein could be viewed, using your simplistic "not the same as the rest of us" criteria as being afflicted with a "biological imperfection"... would you have "fixed" him? Or Alan Turing? I mean, really. You need to think this over a little more comprehensively.
Marriage, at present, is a state that alters access to health care, access to one's SO in the hospital, taxes and other issues. This is entirely aside from the warm and fuzzy feeling one might enjoy if "married" is a state one admires. Consequently, there are very practical reasons to seek (and not to seek) marriage. The obvious spit here is over the contractual and ritual components. Myself, I see no reason that marriage should provide any contractual elements at all. If you want the ritual and then choose to proclaim that the ritual means something to you, then by all means, have at it. If you want to enter into a contract with someone, you should do so. The mixing of the two is what makes marriage such a mess.
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, now that we have progressed so far with science, all bets are off. All kinds of genetic defects that would normally get weeded out pretty much straight away in nature, are now able to thrive as we 'fix' all the ailments that they create. All we have done here is fixed yet another (and in so doing we are enabling the homosexuality genes to flourish in future generations).
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
You forget that they'd consider emulating god to be hubris.
You mean except in cases where they offer "clarification" on His words.
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:2, Insightful)
Dr. House's statement you quoted is irrational. Arguing with an athiest about God's existence is like a 16th century man arguing with a man blind from birth about the existence of color.
Absense of proof is not proof of absense.
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:3, Insightful)
By what logic do they stop at the moment of conception? The thing that was just conceived is almost exactly as alive as the amoebas you killed washing your hands, and yet you do it anyway. The only thing abortion does is kill the potential of a human life. At what point does it stop? Why is conception the point at which it goes from being "not a potential human life" to "a potential human life"? After all, every second you spend not having procreative sex is a second in which you are preventing the birth of a potential human life. And should we start charging women who miscarry with negligence? It was a potential human life, and there are definitely steps a woman can take to reduce the risk of miscarriage; if the woman didn't take those steps, isn't she causing the death of a potential human just like an abortion doctor would have?
The main thing, though, is that I simply don't see the anti-abortion movement putting their money where their mouth is. Protesters are always in front of clinics saying "Don't get an abortion! Abortions are bad!" - but if they really cared about the potential baby's life, why aren't they saying "Don't get an abortion! We'll adopt the child!"?
Keep in mind also that we're talking about first trimester abortions here; the pro-choice movement is not saying "abortions for everyone whenever they want them!", they're saying "abortions for everyone as long as it's before the fetus has developed past a certain point".
Re:In b4 shitstorm (Score:5, Insightful)
I get that. And that's respectable.
However, IRL, the people that I've run into that are "anti-abortion" are usually pro-war, have some detectable racism tinge, have no issues with issues like child exploitation (eg. google "baccha bazi DynCorp"). To me, that's hypocrisy. They have no respect for the lives already here that need protection because they are defenseless (civilian casualties, sexually exploited children, the list goes on..)
Yet they try to project some vague "respect for life" ethos. I wonder how much of that is a case of "every sperm is sacred" (Meaning of Life) mentality as opposed to truly valuing and respecting life.
Re:Mr. Black and White, meet Doctor Gray (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, smoking crystal meth is a choice, at least the first time you do it, yet most people are perfectly OK with judging that behavior and saying it it morally wrong,
Citation needed. Recreational drug use has been around since long before current social structure and laws came into being.
By your logic, would not alcohol also be judged by "most people" as morally wrong? What about marijuana? Apparently you are ignorant of the 60's & 70's, and/or have a very skewed view of what exactly a moral is.
Recreational drug use is recreational. We have warlords in Mexico running amok because our idiotic government won't legalize and tax the recreational drugs that give them power.
Remember the prohibition of alcohol and the gangsters that the sell of illegal alcohol funded? Clearly, people would rather purchase their recreational drugs from a safe, clean, regulated environment such as a grocery store, liquor store or pharmacy rather than purchasing their drug from a gangster... Evidence: Gangsters are not selling illegal alcohol to the public at large now that it is legal. Tobacco Cigarettes are nearly addictive as heroin, yet they are legal and not "morally" wrong to most people; The common belief is, "If you want to smoke, fine, just don't do it around those that do not smoke."
I would argue that most people judge moderate recreational drug use (such as drinking wine, liquor, beer) as moral. Many people I know only judge the use of other recreational drugs (such as marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth) as "wrong" because they are illegal. Many of these same people have told me that if using said drugs were not against the law then it would not be "wrong" to use these drugs in moderation. Therefore, I posit that this it is not so much a moral issue, but one of legality.
Abuse of any drug is wrong simply because abuse inherently implies wrongdoing. Please do not confuse Abuse with Use.