For the record I am not opposed to stem cell research in general. I am opposed to human embryonic stem cell research for reasons we have discussed ad infinitum.

The scientific method can only tell you what you can do. It will never tell you what you should do. You want to advance civilization on the Kardashev scale. Ok why do you want to do that?  This is your judgement of our species.


I think you hit the nail on the head with this quote describing both the problem and the source of the problem which is not a lack of science but a lack of selflessness. There certainly is goodness in humanity worth preserving yet it is not at all unreasonable to describe us as you do.

Technological progress up the Kardashev scale does nothing to solve the problem. In fact it makes the problem worse by spreading it out farther and giving us more power to use unwisely. Transforming us from a plague upon the earth into an eternal plague upon the universe does not strike me as an admirable purpose.

Our purpose must be something more then simple propagation or genetic success as that road is clearly a dead end. The writing is already on the wall that our technological progress will soon obsolete our genetics.


The only solution to the problem of humanity is for us all to strive for selflessness which also requires us to be superrational. Our species is very bad at that.

See: Superrationality
and
See: Multiverse Wide Cooperation

Religion is the only thing capable of rectifying mankind. It is also the only force that can somewhat mitigate our selfishness problem on this earth.

Hey we agree on something for once. I am with you on this one something is true or false moral or immoral inherently and objectivity and it really does not matter if it is a majority or a minority that is able see to understand that truth.

However, I am surprised to see this line argument from you. It was not that long ago when you said this.


So are you a believer now in objective truth and objective morality?


Sounds like you have figured out that mankind is fallen. We indeed commit many crimes against nature which we have stewardship over. However, we will never be able to stop those crimes unless we first stop committing crimes against ourselves.

Romans 5:12-14
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command.

Revelations 12:12
woe to the earth and the sea

Af_newbie you do realize that 50% of the US population is prolife don’t you?

United States anti-abortion movement
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_anti-abortion_movement

Public opinion is slowly shifting on this topic and we are waking up from our stupor of institutionalized violence against the unborn.



I suspect current trends will continue and society will one day look back on our murderous crimes against the unborn with the same horror we now reserve for other great crimes against humanity.

Of course organisms are not "the same" at each stage of their life cycle. That is not the point and your language remains sloppy. You are not the same as you were 10 years ago or the same as you will be 10 years hence. Nevertheless you are human aka homo sapien at all points in your changing life and entitled to basic human rights throughout. 

Similarly the chicken is not the same at the various stages of its life but it is still a chicken Gallus gallus domesticus throughout each stage of its development and life.

Your problem is you want to take a portion of the homo sapiens species and arbitrary declare it non human based presumably on your personal desire to profit directly or indirectly via the scientific gains you feel the death and dismemberment of such individuals will afford you. That is wrong but you have somehow blinded yourself to that fact.

The only logical fallacy is yours. The start of life the moment of conception is the only clear and objective metric possible use when differentiating life from non-life. Any other division or "personhood metric" is utterly subjective. BADecker summed it up well above. Your failure to understand it is just that your failure.



What you can't seem to grasp is that you are accepting the moral exclusion of a vast portion of humanity. Such a process taken to its logical conclusion can just as easily be turned against you or more likely your descendants. A genetically engineered and "superior" branch of humanity may decide that your obvious inferiority makes you not a "real person" and mark you down for liquidation. Or perhaps an AI vastly superior to you in all ways will examine you as you examine the human embryo and decide that you are so far below its level of awareness that you don't count as conscious. After all is it not just to apply your own logical framework upon you? You may dismiss these possibilities as far fetched but technology is marching us day by day to the point where they will be very possible.

Yes that is a chicken embryo. This one was killed probably for this photo but had it not been killed and had it been kept warm between 99 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit it would have grown into a baby chick in less then 21 days.

For those who don't know. Chicken eggs purchased at stores are eggs not embryos. They lack the small embryonic tissue highlighted in af_newbies photo.    


It was the very beginning of a new chicken life. It is a dead chicken.

A chicken embryo is a very young chicken at the start of its life.

I mean seriously use your eyes and look at the picture of the embryo I posted immediately above. You can call it a "fertilized egg" all you want. Its obviously very young chicken about to come out of its shell.

You can go find pictures of chicken embryo younger then 14 days old that are clearly not ready to leave their shells. They will look less and less recognizable the younger they are until you get back to the single cell stage once more. That does not change anything those are still chickens. They are chickens in their very earliest stages of development and unrecognizable visually for what they are but they are chickens nevertheless.

No eggs do not spontaneously transform into embryos. The kind of eggs you buy at the store are not embryos they are just eggs. They never had any chance of becoming a chicken.

You are confusing yourself and attempting to mislead anyone reading this thread with your constant use of disingenuous and misleading language. An egg is not an embryo. The egg will not spontaneously do anything other then sit there. The embryo is the first stage of a new living organism and it will will spontaneously develop into a living adult.

You are too tied up in superficial and transient external characteristics.

If I asked you to draw a newborn baby chick what would you draw?
If I asked you to draw an adult rooster what would you draw?

These look nothing like each other but they are just stages of development of the same creation. The same is true of the embryo.

Embryo:


Chick:


Adult:

....

You are dehumanizing new human life at its earliest stages comparing it to spit on the side of the road.

You think this is justified and that the new human life really is just spit on the side of the road and should be treated like spit. In this you fall into the same tired pattern as the Tutsis, the Nazis, and the slavers highlighted above.

But this is different you say. These humans really are just spit they are not conscious, they are helpless, undeveloped, weak, and dependent on tremendous outside intervention to even stay alive. Without a mother they will quickly wither and die. That is all true but they are nevertheless human.

We are highly unlikely to agree on this topic.    

There is no exception. A skin cell is not a unique human with the potential for independent life. With a little time and support the human embryo will not only unfold into all of the secondary characteristics you so value it will also eventually learn to stand on its own and support itself.

Clearly you should care about what the Bible says perhaps then you would not be so keen to sacrifice the most vulnerable human lives upon the alter of science.  

Ah more dehumanizing language despite having been shown that it is not the most scientifically accurate language to use. Once again the proper term for what you are describing is a single celled embryo or zygote.

'Less Than Human': The Psychology Of Cruelty
https://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134956180/criminals-see-their-victims-as-less-than-human

Again you attempt to create an arbitrary disctinction without foundation.
Even your language is misleading. A egg after union of ovum and sperm is no longer an egg at all. It is inappropriate to call it one. The new life is a single celled embryo or if you want to be extremely technical a zygote.

We are talking about human beings. Early undeveloped human beings but human nevertheless. Humans go through many changes over the course of our lives. The embryo is different than the infant, the child, the adult, and the elderly and infirm. All stages are different but all are human and deserving of human rights and dignity.


A fetus is certainly not independent it is a life that needs its mother for a time to survive a need that extends long after birth.

That is the primary reason why sexual activity outside of marriage is ethically problematic. It often brings new human life into the world. New human life that emerges into an environment that often does not welcome or support its existence. It is immoral to engage in activities that lead to such an outcome.

There is no assumption just fact. Human life begins at sperm-egg fusion this is an uncontested scientific and objective conclusion. Furthermore it it’s a conclusion reached independently of any ethical or religious view of human life.

Development and growth is a continuous process but your attempt to argue that early human life has no value is logically flawed. Your “personhood” criteria a stage where you feel young human beings are suddenly deserving of being extended basic human rights is utterly arbitrary. You have deliberately avoided defining it because you know it’s arbitrary and that there is no solid scientific grounds for making such a distinction. Life begins at conception.

In regards to your claim of moral superiority... Well let’s just say we I think you are doing a good job showing us all what your morals really are.

I see so if I kill you before you have developed enough to know you are being killed it’s all good as long as I use your parts to help others?

You have fully embraced the modern narrative of death.

It is sad that you cannot understand that knowledge gained at such a price is a Faustian bargain.

That does not change anything. Yes you cannot visually distinguish a human embryo from an animal one but so what one is a human at the beginning of its life the other is an animal. Why do you seek to dehumanize a substantial portion of your fellow human beings?

Earlier you stated this was your moral code?


I am curious how you decided that killing someone does not count as harming them? Or is your stated moral code only for show something that rolls easily off of the tongue but is designed to be casually set aside when it becomes inconvenient?

Calling Hitler a very religious man is oversimplification. Hitler was a pantheist.

Adolf Hitler Was Neither Christian Nor Atheist
https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2017/02/adolf-hitler-was-neither-christian-nor-atheist/

Most people do not realize how fortunate humanity was that WWII ended as quickly as it did and that the Nazi ideology was crushed. The ideal timing of the US entry into the war. The fortuitous and and worst recorded winter in modern history and the fact that Nazi foreign intelligence service the Abwehr was led by Wilhelm Canaris actively worked against a Nazi victory were all critical. The tremendous role played by Canaris in ensuring Nazi defeat cannot be understated and to the day is largely shrouded in mystery and not publicly released. Despite that the Nazi were very close to an early victory as the following video demonstrates in stark terms.

Eastern Front of WWII animated: 1941
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu3p7dxrhl8

Well then we have isolated the point of our difference. I am not opposed to science but I am opposed to evil and the science of human experimentation unfortunately has a sordid history.

Not everything that can be done is worth consideration.

The fertility industry is full of misdeeds. Do you know where all of those extra embryos come from that they tear apart to get new human embryonic stem cells?

It’s all about money. It is expensive to artificially fertilize and implant a single fertilized egg so those of us in medicine give women drugs and get 8-10 all at once and fertilize them all. Then we implant several of them them intending to suction out and abort one or two if they all succeed a process thats euphemistically described as selective reduction because twins and triplets are often undesired. The rest of the extra embryos are then frozen perhaps for later use but often they end up in the trash or occasionally on the scientists petri dish to be torn apart and experimented upon.

A sane and moral society would at most allow only a single egg to be fertilized and implanted at a time respecting the sanctity of the life that was created.

However, that would be costly. It would require more doctors visits and more attempts for success. Patient costs would be higher and most importantly doctors profits would be lower. Why do it our modern society says. Why let few dead embryos stand in the way of money and power over nature. Create them and grind them up for science and study.

You accuse me of being a radical, anti-science extremist. I deny the charge. I in turn accuse you of supporting great evil which you will shrug off because you don’t believe in objective good and evil.

We will never agree but it is useful to highlight our differences so others reading can understand this issue better.

Yes

Your very question highlights your bias.

You are attempting to seperate humanity into two groups the ones who you feel are the “real humans” which you are calling “persons” deserving of human rights and “others” whom you presumably feel can be owned, sold, killed, or experimented upon as one would a lifeless object.

It’s a common error. Slavers have used it throughout history to justify the kidnapping and enslavement of the weak. Nazis used it to to justify mass starvation of the “inferior” Russians. We use it today to justify the killing of the unborn.

There is no “person” catagory. There are just human beings at various stages of growth and development young and old.