Stem cells

This is a post I did in one of my summer internet classes. I'll post any follow-up responses I get in the comments section. FYI, chances of seeing a sophisticated response are low. Then again, one of you may put one up.

"Alright, let's see how few words I can do this in. I'm first going to look at this from a practical perspective and then from a philosophical perspective. I want to start by noticing some of the places where we can get pluripotent stem cells. We can get them from bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, recently deceased babies, adult skin, and embryos. There isn't any debate on the first four (there is of course debate on how it is these babies come to be deceased since the overwhelming majority of stem cells harvested from this source come as a result of elective abortion). There is however, significant debate on that last one, embryos.

As is custom I’ll refer to all non-embryonic stem cells as adult, and of course all those embryonic as embryos. This distinction is important when we look at the fact that every single poster before me used the benefits of adult stem cell research as an argument for embryonic stem cell research. Virtually all of the advances in stem cell therapy come from adult sources of stem cells. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, to be fair, the majority of the money available for research has gone to adult stem cell research and so more progress has been made. Secondly, with embryonic research there is the problem of rejection. The body doesn't want parts it hasn't made. One rather well kept secret (or at least one point the advocates never bring up) is that the way around this is to clone yourself (hollow out your cell nucleus and put it in a hollow egg), have your clone gestate for five days until it matures into a blastocyst and then kill it and harvest its stem cells for use on you. Finally, embryonic stem cells have an unforeseen and tragic propensity to form tumors. Whether in the brains of mice they’re injected into as in New York, or in the spinal column of the 13 year old Israeli boy with A-T. These points are to show that it's not as though if we just put more money towards this the field would blossom. There are major technological hurdles to be overcome and the solutions are not just around the corner. On the other hand, they are already here for adult stem cells, so even on a practical level we should be funding and researching what is going to save the most lives soonest.

Now what about this philosophical argument, I’ll actually leave it out since this is rather long. I’ll just give it a little blurb. This argument is going to look at what it means to be a person. It will move on to consider functional definitions of personhood (a person is a person if and only if they exhibit function x), say consciousness or rationality. It will then show how those fail by having to reject humans on the edges of life (for years after birth [esp. conception] and years before death). It will finally close with several reasons to think of personhood in terms of potentiality or essence (which protect those on the edges of life). But as I say I won’t give it now, although I would be happy to if anyone wants to get into it.

What I will do instead is look at this argument some people have mentioned about using embryonic stem cells from frozen embryos which are just going to get discarded anyway. The estimate for the current amount of frozen embryos is 300,000 to 400,000. Our current retrieval rate (the rate at which we successfully extract stem cells from embryos) is at about 5%. So it would take just under 20,000 embryos to form 100 cell lines, you don’t have to be a math major to see that this supply is going to run out pretty quick. I want to finish though by pointing out that this is entirely beside the point, that it’s actually irrelevant whether or not they are going to be discarded. And we can do this by looking at an analogy Scott Rae gives. That is, we can see a way in which we could find a source for all the needed organs so that there would be no more waiting lists, and we could heal everyone who was sick. And the analogous category is all those people on death row. These people are going to be executed anyway, so why don’t we just harvest their organs now while they’re still usable. And we would say this is beside the point, what matters is not that the category of people is on death row, but that they are persons with dignity, these aren’t throwaway people. And this is analogous to frozen embryos, it’s beside the point.

Given the wide range of adult cells available for advanced therapy, given the technological hurdles involving embryonic research, and finally given the moral objections to the research, it seems to me we ought to at least settle these questions before we do the research. At least, we sure wish the Germans thought about the Jews a little more deeply before they started slaughtering them."

An update!

I've got a month before I start summer school. In it I plan to do heaps of stuff. Luckily for me I can also work full time for a month, and since my boss is going on vacation I can. This means that I'll finally get to that illegal downloading post I've been wanting to do, among other things.

Soon.

I also wanted to complain about this link blog thing over on the right. You can't comment on any of the links you put up, maybe I'll just start blogging the good ones instead.

Like this one from the guy over at real live preacher. He's a Baptist preacher who is taking several sabbatical leaves for ecumenical worship. This week he went to an Orthodox church and he's writing about how they do church.

Pews? We don’t need no stinking pews! Providing seats for worshipers is SO 14th century. Gorgeous Byzantine art, commissioned from a famous artist in Bulgaria. Fully robed priests with censors (those swinging incense thingies). Long, complex readings and chants that went on and on and on. And every one of them packed full of complex, theological ideas. It was like they were ripping raw chunks of theology out of ancient creeds and throwing them by the handfuls into the congregation. And just to make sure it wasn't too easy for us, everything was read in a monotone voice and at the speed of an auctioneer.

I heard words and phrases I had not heard since seminary. Theotokos, begotten not made, Cherubim and Seraphim borne on their pinions, supplications and oblations. It was an ADD kids nightmare. Robes, scary art, smoking incense, secret doors in the Iconostas popping open and little robed boys coming out with golden candlesticks, chants and singing from a small choir that rolled across the curved ceiling and emerged from the other side of the room where no one was singing. The acoustics were wild. No matter who was speaking, the sound came out of everywhere. There was so much going on I couldn't keep up with all the things I couldn't pay attention to.

Summing up he says,

So what did I think about my experience at Saint Anthony the Great Orthodox Church?

I LOVED IT. Loved it loved it loved it loved it loved it.

In a day when user-friendly is the byword of everything from churches to software, here was worship that asked something of me. No, DEMANDED something of me.

“You don’t know what Theotokos means? Get a book and read about it. You have a hard time standing for 2 hours? Do some sit ups and get yourself into worship shape. It is the Lord our God we worship here, mortal. What made you think you could worship the Eternal One without pain?"

See, I get that. That makes sense to me. I had a hard time following the words of the chants and liturgy, but even my lack of understanding had something to teach me.

“There is so much for you to learn. There is more here than a person could master in a lifetime. THIS IS BIGGER THAN YOU ARE. Your understanding is not central here. These are ancient rites of the church. Stand with us, brother, and you will learn in time. Or go and find your way to an easier place if you must. God bless you on that journey. We understand, but this is the way we do church.”

I realise this probably isn't going to be appealing or inviting to most visitors here. Nevertheless, there it is. Kickass.

In other news today I've discovered the 'biker nod'. Every biker nods at each other in passing, it's like a little two wheeled clique. It doesn't matter what you're riding so long as it's on two wheels it seems. Let's face it, I don't drive the coolest bike. Nevertheless I get 'the nod' from bearded bikers on fat boys. Now I'm considering moving to a spiffier bike instead of a car whenever some cash comes around.

Amen.

I'm done!

And so I will finish my breakfast and go to sleep.

Upgrading my life

I am Married!

Rational Robotics

This was a concept I've had in my head for years now, and one I've attempted to create on more than one occasion. Finally, after 3 previous attempts, I've created something that I feel is an adequate realization of this intangible notion.

It represents 12+ hours of my life that I'll never get back, but as far as I'm concerned it was time well spent.

So, without further ado, I give you Alice, the Paranoid Android.



The above piece must be viewed full-size for full effect (click it), as it's highly detailed.

Harumph

Sorry chaps, I've been lax (and Jer has been even "laxier") with my posting duties, that and some of my argument needs are being sated at school - [digression] did you know that there are literally still people that actually think the baby is just a part of the mother's body? I couldn't believe it, it' like finding a flat-earther, you hear about them but you never think you'll actually meet one [end digression] - nevertheless I fully intend to continue on here (hah, intentions) and have a nice solid bit up in no time, although no doubt what will actually happen is that I'll just put up papers I write for school, I've just finished one on the axiological argument for God that I'll give to my English class but I've already done that one here several times so I won't put it up, but the next one I want to do will be a kind of noological argument from consciousness, given my teachers continued good will of course.

In any case, until then.

An Interesting Perspective

I just received this comment on one of the blogs that I moderate, and I thought it held some pretty amazing insight into what it's like to be on the Israeli side of the fence. The plight of the Palestinians is pretty evident, and from an outside perspective it's very easy to get the impression that the Israeli's are aggressive, ruthless, and warmongering as a collective nation. Rarely do you get a glimpse into the deceit and propaganda that the Israeli authorities spread liberally amongst their own people. Read on.

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