Nanotechnology and the nerve cell or Who said animal testing was useless again?

Agent Monkeysee on 14/3/2006 at 22:46

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

What's the point of doing these tests if you're just going to ignore the results, even if it's something with such trivial benefits as saccharin?

They don't ignore the results. The reason you can still buy saccharin is because it only causes cancer in massive sustained doses. It's considered safe enough not to regulate.

And that's the point. We wouldn't know that unless we researched it in the first place.

SubJeff on 14/3/2006 at 22:50

New lows of dumbness itt

Nicker on 14/3/2006 at 23:09

Congratulations to SE for cleverly hijacking his own Nanotech thread with his first post. At least now we can let the ID and Abortion threads die.

Animal testing is OK because (http://www.jokaroo.com/extremevideos/light_bulb_smash.html) animals are dumb whereas (http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/intelligent_animals.html) people are smart.

Ko0K on 15/3/2006 at 01:31

Screw medical research; resilience rulz!

jtr7 on 15/3/2006 at 02:17

"Praaaiise be to Karras...and the Builder.":angel:

Somnus on 15/3/2006 at 03:20

Quote Posted by Shayde

Why should human life be more valuable than that of an animal?

That depends on how you look at it. From an evolutionary point of view, it would be illogical and counterintuitive for you not to put your species first, so to speak. From this opinion is born the belief that the primary goal of an organism during its lifespan is reproduce and propagate its species. Thus, anything that can assist the organism in its survival, even at the expense of other species (so long as they are not symbiotic or vital to the ecosystem) would be very valuable. Mind you, this is a very depressing opinion to hold, but I tend to believe in at least some of it.

Alternatively, you could be a narcissist, which would actually explain a great deal about human behavior anyway. You could even tie this into the evolutionary idea above and bring in the success of humanity as a species, which you yourself observed as the overpopulation crisis (which, ironically, is now a grave weakness).

Then there's the benefit of the greater good, I guess. What's more important: one life, or a million? It seems to me that even IF you value human life as much as all others, that you would then still have to reason that such experiments were worth their while. Seeing as you don't, I find it difficult to believe that you find human life equal in "value" to all other forms of life. If you did, you wouldn't have asked your question. But perhaps your perspective is blurred by the fact that you are a member of a supposedly intelligent species which happens to differentiate itself from others based on its capacity to think imaginatively. And so you do not see yourself as being equal, because you see yourself as being different in a derogatory way.

Just my two cents. This is all asinine speculation...sometimes I just like to think aloud, sort of to cast the line and see what bites.

TheGreatGodPan on 15/3/2006 at 03:46

Quote Posted by Somnus

That depends on how you look at it. From an evolutionary point of view, it would be illogical and counterintuitive for you not to put your species first, so to speak.

That's because of the much higher likelihood that you are more related to a member of your own species than another, and as a result have more genes in common. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection) R x B > C

liquidfear on 15/3/2006 at 04:10

Inline Image:

http://www.planetdeusex.com/features/articles/gotghand/08/denton.jpg

Second Deus ex reference, for no reason.

Regenerating nerves? We're now one step closer to the incredibly redundant task of transplanting heads, like we were discussing not that long ago! :o

For the record, this is some pretty wicked stuff. I want to know more about the peptides, how they work, everything. It's something like this that I want to get into for a career after Uni.

Ko0K on 15/3/2006 at 04:24

Seriously, that is not something I would've imagined possible in my lifetime. If we get to the point where we can routinely perform head transplants, I'd like to have my head put in another animal, say, a dolphin. :thumb:

Somnus on 15/3/2006 at 05:08

Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan

My brother is actually a ring-tailed lemur.