Kevin's Watch

Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan have created fully functioning sperm from mouse embryonic stem cells. The sperm cells were able to fertilize mouse eggs in vitro, and when the scientists implanted the embryos into surrogate mothers, the mice gave birth to healthy offspring. The research, published in the journal Cell, may someday help treat infertility in humans.

This, as well as THIS, poses some interesting questions about the future of human reproduction.

Such as it now being theoretically possible for a woman (or man) to create a viable sperm and egg from nothing more than one of their own skin cells. No participation required! I think that's about as close to a clone you can get?

Another interesting angle on this is that one could possibly acquire cells surreptitiously from another individual and clone them without their knowledge or consent. Would the source of the donor cells be legally (morally?) bound to the embryos created from a cell they left on a wineglass or cigarette?

There are countless ways in which this could affect the evolution of humankind both physically and mentally, as well as scientifically and philosophically, if not spiritually.

What do you think? Good or bad thing for our future as we don't know it? Does this "go against God" or is this the world's scientific salvation? How many other ways can something like this affect humankind on every level imaginable?

As with all things, when humans are involved, there will be good and bad. Pretty amazing thing, though!

Or at least, we were never told that it occurred.

Seems the consensus so far is both. As Fist said...the potential for both is always present in any discovery or endeavour.

--A

I don't see how this could possibly be bad in any way or interpretation. The vast majority of people will still reproduce the old fashioned way. A very small fraction will reproduce this way. And natural selection will judge the results. If clones are better adapted to their environment, they'll thrive. If not, not.

I think the potential for positive results (like a dozen Stephen Hawkins, etc.) is an amazing resource we would be fools not to develop.

Zarathustra wrote:I think the potential for positive results (like a dozen Stephen Hawkins, etc.) is an amazing resource we would be fools not to develop.

What if the Hawking clones don't want to do what you bred them to do? You can't force them...or can you? If they are clones, do they have the same human rights that natural humans do? They should but some people might think differently.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:I think the potential for positive results (like a dozen Stephen Hawkins, etc.) is an amazing resource we would be fools not to develop.

What if the Hawking clones don't want to do what you bred them to do? You can't force them...or can you? If they are clones, do they have the same human rights that natural humans do? They should but some people might think differently.

there's that. And a couple other things...
What if we did a "repaired" Hawking, so he was healthy?
And we found new answers/questions on the whole nature/nurture thing...what if Hawking 2.0 [and any/all of the others] not only didn't WANT to do the function, what if they COULDN't? [cuz we didn't know the clue/trigger/encounter/incident that "switched on" his mind/potential?]
What if all the healthy iterations revealed to us that, really, all he ever wanted to do was be a dancer??

interesting replies for sure. one thing that I'm not clear on tho, does parental cognitive/physical ability determine an offspring's abilities? Were Einstein's children geniuses? Has there ever been a child of a superstar athlete who has surpassed their parent's accomplishments, or even matched them? Would the fact that there were "competing" dna in the child's makeup affect it's development, meaning would a child created by only one set of DNA be more likely to mimic the donor's traits because of less interference (contamination?) from another's DNA in it's growth and development?

Also, regarding the attention marriage has been getting as of late, wouldn't it also follow that if a marriage required a man and a woman to be legitimate, wouldn't also a child require the same to be called legitimate?

Theo Mach II wrote:does parental cognitive/physical ability determine an offspring's abilities?

Not normally, no. Natural reproduction is such a mixed bag that virtually anything can result, within reason. This, though, should allow for an increased chance that a brilliant musician's offspring (essentially clone) would also have a high degree of musical aptitude.

Although I prefer bionics over cloning, I think I should get cloned. The world needs a dozen of me running around in it.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:...I really want a prosthetic eye linked to a webcam or a USB port jacked into my brain. Then again, I am weird like that.

Sounds like a case of Warden Dios envy to me, Director.

Yeah, I could easily see people making slaves.

It's that damned prosthetic eye of his. He won't give me the specs for it and I didn't build it so I can only speculate how it works. I designed an IE-cloaking system once--even used it when I talked with him--and he still saw through my carefully-crafted deceptions

Seriously, though, there is a guy in England who has a webcam built into a prosthetic eye; he hires himself out as a "walking undercover camera". I know researchers elsewhere have made a contact lens with a current display resolution of 2x2 pixel; they hope to have it to 16x16 by the end of the year. If they can succeed well enough, they could design a prosthetic eye that functions as a two-way video link.

Fist and Faith wrote:Yeah, I could easily see people making slaves.

Cloning and bionics are going to force us to answer more concretely "what is human?". The best catch-all definition I think would be one that defines "human" based on genotype--if the DNA pattern reads "human" then you are human, even if you are only a brain in a jar (an extreme bionic scenario).

Ah, but then we'd be back in the abortion debate.

Not looking to derail, but you're the one who brought it up. At what point does DNA read human? Conception, I think. Which probably means that will not be the criteria you were looking for.

These would not exactly be clones, though, would they? I'm not exactly a geneticist, but by my understanding of it: Sperm and egg cells only contain half of your genetic information, and it is not a defined half. The offspring would share all its DNA with you, but not be exactly the same (likely to have two copies of the same gene in places where you have a differing pair).

Of course, if you did it through enough generations you might eventually get nothing but exact clones... and probably some inbreeding-style genetic defects along the way.

Yeah, you're right. Not clones. But one person whose genome came entirely from only one person.

Fist and Faith wrote:that will not be the criteria you were looking for.

I second that--it will open up too many other cans of worms.

Zarathustra wrote:The vast majority of people will still reproduce the old fashioned way. A very small fraction will reproduce this way. And natural selection will judge the results.

Natural selection is no longer much of a factor in human reproduction. We've already developed enough medical tech to largely circumvent it.

If this is a viable means of reproduction, as you point out, only a fraction of people will use it. Most likely the very rich. Which probably has its own social implications.

--A

Avatar wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:The vast majority of people will still reproduce the old fashioned way. A very small fraction will reproduce this way. And natural selection will judge the results.

Natural selection is no longer much of a factor in human reproduction. We've already developed enough medical tech to largely circumvent it.

If this is a viable means of reproduction, as you point out, only a fraction of people will use it. Most likely the very rich. Which probably has its own social implications.

--A

You never circumvent natural selection. We might change the parameters of life, but nature will always decide who dies.