Breeding humans for scientific study?

[Pae]

If we bred humans for scientific study, would that help us progress the knowledge of our nature? Do the possible benefits justify breeding humans for this purpose?

If we created a world for these human lab rats where death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good, would that psychological mindf**k cancel out any negative feeling they may experience?

I am, ofcourse, not advocating that we do this; I just want to throw this idea out and see what people here think.

[Roboramma]

If we bred humans for scientific study, would that help us progress the knowledge of our nature?I'm sure that we could learn a lot about human biology and maybe psychology by doing so.

Do the possible benefits justify breeding humans for this purpose? Not in my opinion.
Do the benefits of experimenting on humans who were not bred to be used as lab animals justify using them as such?
If not, is there any reason why breeding people for the purpose would be morally better? I actually think it would be worse.

If we created a world for these human lab rats where death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good, would that psychological mindf**k cancel out any negative feeling they may experience?
How are you going to "make a world were death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good"?
Also, notice that you say, "not bad, but viewed as good". I don't even know what this means. It's not impossible for something to be viewed as good and still be bad.
If you're suggesting creating a breed of humans that experience pleasure from the stimulus that would cause us pain - well, A) that goes beyond our means, and B) doing so would likely cause us to lose the benefits of experimenting on humans to begin with - the results wouldn't necessarily mean anything for the non-research humans.

I might actually be in favour of some experimentation on humans beyond what is done now. But it's very dangerous ground and your proposal seems to tread much too far into it for my comfort.

[stamenflicker]

If we bred humans for scientific study, would that help us progress the knowledge of our nature? Do the possible benefits justify breeding humans for this purpose?

If we created a world for these human lab rats where death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good, would that psychological mindf**k cancel out any negative feeling they may experience?

I am, ofcourse, not advocating that we do this; I just want to throw this idea out and see what people here think.

Can I recommend the book, That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis? Your post creeps me out.

[Dave1001]

If we bred humans for scientific study, would that help us progress the knowledge of our nature? Do the possible benefits justify breeding humans for this purpose?

If we created a world for these human lab rats where death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good, would that psychological mindf**k cancel out any negative feeling they may experience?

I am, ofcourse, not advocating that we do this; I just want to throw this idea out and see what people here think.

I'm all for it. We're all apparently going to die in mere decades. Therefore, morally, we're in the same situation as someone fighting for their life.

In my opinion, we'd be justified in agressively breeding humans for scientific study, for example, creating knockout humans like we create knock-out mice.

There are probably huge inefficiencies in doing testing first with mice and chimpanzees from promising therapies. If we went straight to stage III trials we'd save a lot of time in my opinion.

There's an argument against doing this, even from the most selfish perspective (you and I could be next as expendable guinea pig) but I think the odds favor everyone on this message board, participating in this discussion to be smart enough to prevent themselves and the people they have personal relationships with and care about from becoming guinea pigs.

I think we should support massively expanded and derestricted human experimentation, including breeding humans for experiments, to cure various causes of mortality.

I don't see this happening, but if the culture shifts, I'll support the change, provided there seem to be reasonable safeguards to protect me personally.

[Beth]

I'm all for it. We're all apparently going to die in mere decades. Therefore, morally, we're in the same situation as someone fighting for their life.

In my opinion, we'd be justified in agressively breeding humans for scientific study, for example, creating knockout humans like we create knock-out mice.

There are probably huge inefficiencies in doing testing first with mice and chimpanzees from promising therapies. If we went straight to stage III trials we'd save a lot of time in my opinion.

There's an argument against doing this, even from the most selfish perspective (you and I could be next as expendable guinea pig) but I think the odds favor everyone on this message board, participating in this discussion to be smart enough to prevent themselves and the people they have personal relationships with and care about from becoming guinea pigs.

I think we should support massively expanded and derestricted human experimentation, including breeding humans for experiments, to cure various causes of mortality.

I don't see this happening, but if the culture shifts, I'll support the change, provided there seem to be reasonable safeguards to protect me personally.

This is a really interesting POV. I've never given much thought to the concept beyond an initial emotional revusion at the idea. But, on consideration, I think we already are experimenting on human beings, very slowly and carefully. We can do a lot of genetic selection pre-conception these days. There are scientists experimenting with gene-based therapies for certain chronic conditions.

I wouldn't favor an aggressive program, but I don't think what's going on now is at all ethically reprehensible. As long as 'guinea pig' children are raised in a loving environment, taught to be responsible members of society and given full rights as automous citizens when they are adults, I wouldn't be necessarily adverse to the idea.

Still, it makes me uncomfortable. I'd want to be very certain it was handled ethically.

[Dave1001]

This is a really interesting POV. I've never given much thought to the concept beyond an initial emotional revusion at the idea. But, on consideration, I think we already are experimenting on human beings, very slowly and carefully. We can do a lot of genetic selection pre-conception these days. There are scientists experimenting with gene-based therapies for certain chronic conditions.

I wouldn't favor an aggressive program, but I don't think what's going on now is at all ethically reprehensible. As long as 'guinea pig' children are raised in a loving environment, taught to be responsible members of society and given full rights as automous citizens when they are adults, I wouldn't be necessarily adverse to the idea.

Still, it makes me uncomfortable. I'd want to be very certain it was handled ethically.

Thanks for giving this POV a fair hearing. Personally I think that my coming apparent mortality (and yours) will render any ethical considerations either of us share absurd. So I think rationally our first step should be to establish and safeguard our immortality, and then if we have true surplus resources devote time to purely aesthetic ethics. However, I do think it's important for us to devote energy to ethical frameworks now that will make sure we minimize the odds of either of us dying from exploitation in the proces of attempting to create and safeguard immortality -either for us or for others more nimble or luckier than us.

[Iamme]

Can anyone share just what might go on in a program like this?

We already have available people for study. People who have sort of lost their rights that others of us have: Jailbirds. Use them, when we can.

If prisoners were used as guinea pigs, we would first have
to pass some sort of legislation that has a starting date for this so that anyone convicted of a particular crime AFTER this legislation went through would be up on the chopping block. All those prisoners who went to prison, not realizing they could ever be a guinea pig, would be exempt.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Shouldn't this be in Humour?

[ponderingturtle]

I don't see this happening, but if the culture shifts, I'll support the change, provided there seem to be reasonable safeguards to protect me personally.

What is your basis for your privliged status? This was done, by those noble humanitarians the Nazi's as well and the Japanese and to a lesser extent american experiments on blacks.

So working on a historical basis the perfect people to experiment on are the blacks, jews and chinese.

[Dave1001]

What is your basis for your privliged status? This was done, by those noble humanitarians the Nazi's as well and the Japanese and to a lesser extent american experiments on blacks.

So working on a historical basis the perfect people to experiment on are the blacks, jews and chinese.
What is your basis for your privliged status? This was done, by those noble humanitarians the Nazi's as well and the Japanese and to a lesser extent american experiments on blacks.

So working on a historical basis the perfect people to experiment on are the blacks, jews and chinese.

My basis for my priveliged status ideally would be based on social contract with people like you and Beth. We'd agree to use other humans as guinea pigs but protect each other from being used as guinea pigs ourselves.

[Sleepy]

Wouldn't it be cool to breed humans for other useful purposes too? Like, umm... servants, labourers, soldiers, sources of spare organs, etc, etc. This would offload some of the more unpleasant stuff that us humans currently have to deal with onto, umm.... humans.

[Jim_MDP]

Wouldn't it be cool to breed humans for other useful purposes too? Like, umm... servants, labourers, soldiers, sources of spare organs, etc, etc. This would offload some of the more unpleasant stuff that us humans currently have to deal with onto, umm.... humans.
Sounds good, at least until my robot slave shows up...

...with my flying car.

[Silly Green Monkey]

This is just getting closer and closer to that story I read (possibly in alienskinmag.com) where people on some human colony would clone themselves. Their clones would then do all the work of supporting them throughout their lives and . In the story, the protagonist was a little boy scheduled to start his first clone. When he woke up after the procedure, he and we discover that he is actually the clone and is shipped off to start his life of labor. The clones have their originals' memories, and get a huge shock when they see the numbers tattooed on their foreheads.

[Dave1001]

This is just getting closer and closer to that story I read (possibly in alienskinmag.com) where people on some human colony would clone themselves. Their clones would then do all the work of supporting them throughout their lives and . In the story, the protagonist was a little boy scheduled to start his first clone. When he woke up after the procedure, he and we discover that he is actually the clone and is shipped off to start his life of labor. The clones have their originals' memories, and get a huge shock when they see the numbers tattooed on their foreheads.

gee, I hope that doesn't happen to me.

[Starthinker]

Wasn't this the plot of "The Island"?

[Roboramma]

My basis for my priveliged status ideally would be based on social contract with people like you and Beth. We'd agree to use other humans as guinea pigs but protect each other from being used as guinea pigs ourselves.

Dave, are you being serious? (This isn't sarcasm, I really am uncertain).

If you lived in Nazi germany when medical experiments were being carried out on jews, would you have been in support of it? If so, okay. I just think that's horrible.

As I said, I wouldn't be opposed to all forms of human experimentation. But the person to be experimented on should at the least agree to it.

Personally, I'd rather die than force someone else to go through immense suffering, or death, to give me a few more days, months, or years of life.
But then, maybe I'm just not that worried about my own death.

[marting]

I think Dave is the one actually conducting a human experiment......

[ponderingturtle]

Dave, are you being serious? (This isn't sarcasm, I really am uncertain).

If you lived in Nazi germany when medical experiments were being carried out on jews, would you have been in support of it? If so, okay. I just think that's horrible.

I am unsure, he might be trying to represent the common theist view of how athiests think and build their morals, that doing what you want it OK as long as you can get away with it.

Or rather, he is representing that idea, if he is serious or not about it I don't know.

[Dave1001]

My basis for my priveliged status ideally would be based on social contract with people like you and Beth. We'd agree to use other humans as guinea pigs but protect each other from being used as guinea pigs ourselves.

Dave, are you being serious? (This isn't sarcasm, I really am uncertain).

If you lived in Nazi germany when medical experiments were being carried out on jews, would you have been in support of it? If so, okay. I just think that's horrible.

As I said, I wouldn't be opposed to all forms of human experimentation. But the person to be experimented on should at the least agree to it.

Personally, I'd rather die than force someone else to go through immense suffering, or death, to give me a few more days, months, or years of life.
But then, maybe I'm just not that worried about my own death.

Sure I'm being serious. Or should I say transparent. A good argument could be made that you Roboramma are a non-transparent (maybe even to yourself) beneficiary of similarly morally horrific arrangements that provide you all sorts of goods and services to maintain your lifestyle.

Of course, that doesn't justify further innovations moral depravity (in some people's estimations) such as by creating knockout-humans to more quickly understand the roles individual genes (or numbers of repetitions of individual genes, etc.) play.

I would justify that only as a way to maximize my odds (and the odds of people I'm in social contract with) of not dying -I wouldn't do it, for example for capricious cruelty.

As for nazi germany, I think it was pretty wasteful to experiment on jews. They were a disproportionately intelligent population (I remember reading that the japanese, germany's allies eagerly snapped up a number of jews to contribute to japanese industry and academia) and further, if I was a non-jewish aryan german (or whatever haplogroups, if any, that that corresponds with) I'd probably be best served with aryan german rather than jewish guinea pigs.

Just like presumably we're not trying to cure cancer and heart disease in mice, presumably as an aryan german I wouldn't be trying to solve the problem of mortality -for jews.

Anyways, that's a thought experiment. I live in 2006, and I'm of undisclosed ethnicity.

[ponderingturtle]

Sure I'm being serious. Or should I say transparent. A good argument could be made that you Roboramma are a non-transparent (maybe even to yourself) beneficiary of similarly morally horrific arrangements that provide you all sorts of goods and services to maintain your lifestyle.


So ethics are based on what you can get away with? No wonder you are in training to be a lawyer.

[joobz]

You need to assume that not all humans are equally viable. This has been the primary assumption that allows the fuedal system, communism, imerialism, tribal warefare, land wars, slavery, racism, sexism, elitism, ...
It's a path travelled multiple times, for multiple reasons, and it never ended pretty. Nope, as a thought experiment, it's a very immature and naive idea.

BTW, Dave1001, Human knockout studies would be impossible. It'd take at least 20+ years/experiment to exhibit the more subtle effects that would be studied. The more drastic lethal knockouts are able to be evaluated in other models. Not to mention the number of generations of breeding needed to get a reliable and fully backcrossed knockout.

[Roboramma]

Sure I'm being serious. Or should I say transparent. A good argument could be made that you Roboramma are a non-transparent (maybe even to yourself) beneficiary of similarly morally horrific arrangements that provide you all sorts of goods and services to maintain your lifestyle. Sure, but the fact that I benefit from something that I consider wrong that happened in the past and is and was out of my control doesn't have any bearing on me, morally. That is, I have no obligation to stop benefiting from something that's already happened, or that I can't do anything about.
Now, if by benefiting from it, I was also contributing to it, then you'd have an argument for my hypocrisy. Otherwise, sure, I'm glad I have the benefit gained by, for instance, the slave labour of centuries past without which our civilization would be very different. On the other hand, if it were in my power to change the past, I would do so. It just happens that it's not, so there's no reason for me to feel guilty about enjoying those benefits.
(similarly I think there were many atrocities committed in the events that lead to my ancestors, and later myself, living in Canada. If I could somehow stop those atrocities, i would. But since I can't, I don't see any moral problem with riding a bike around Vancouver (when I'm in Canada), buying the produce there, or renting a place to live.)

But I think this is all slightly off topic, so to get back on:

Of course, that doesn't justify further innovations moral depravity (in some people's estimations) such as by creating knockout-humans to more quickly understand the roles individual genes (or numbers of repetitions of individual genes, etc.) play.

I would justify that only as a way to maximize my odds (and the odds of people I'm in social contract with) of not dying -I wouldn't do it, for example for capricious cruelty.
I can see how you justify it for yourself from a practical standpoint. It helps you to stay alive, so to you it's worthwhile. On the other hand, that is far from a moral argument.
I happen to believe that killing (or torturing) innocent people is wrong, and I don't want to be a party to it, even if it would help me to live longer.

As for nazi germany, I think it was pretty wasteful to experiment on jews. They were a disproportionately intelligent population (I remember reading that the japanese, germany's allies eagerly snapped up a number of jews to contribute to japanese industry and academia) and further, if I was a non-jewish aryan german (or whatever haplogroups, if any, that that corresponds with) I'd probably be best served with aryan german rather than jewish guinea pigs.
That's a pretty thin argument. I find it very unlikely that experiments on Jews that offered viable treatments of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, or any other serious illness would not be just as effective when those treatments were applied to 'Aryans'.

Just like presumably we're not trying to cure cancer and heart disease in mice, presumably as an aryan german I wouldn't be trying to solve the problem of mortality -for jews. The difference here is that genetically speaking Jews are so similar to other Germans that the results would necessarily translate.
A treatment that worked for Jews would work for other Germans as well.

Anyways, that's a thought experiment. I live in 2006, and I'm of undisclosed ethnicity.
Fair enough. But given that it's a thought experiment, I wonder if your objection to it is only based on possible practical considerations. That is, would you have objected to experiments on Jews only because they might have been inefficient, or because they were wrong (edit: or for some other reason)?

[Mojo]

No need to breed humans for experiments: we can just use anti-vivisectionists. I'm sure they'll be prepared to volunteer to save the animals.

[Dave1001]

Sure, but the fact that I benefit from something that I consider wrong that happened in the past and is and was out of my control doesn't have any bearing on me, morally. That is, I have no obligation to stop benefiting from something that's already happened, or that I can't do anything about.
Now, if by benefiting from it, I was also contributing to it, then you'd have an argument for my hypocrisy. Otherwise, sure, I'm glad I have the benefit gained by, for instance, the slave labour of centuries past without which our civilization would be very different. On the other hand, if it were in my power to change the past, I would do so. It just happens that it's not, so there's no reason for me to feel guilty about enjoying those benefits.
(similarly I think there were many atrocities committed in the events that lead to my ancestors, and later myself, living in Canada. If I could somehow stop those atrocities, i would. But since I can't, I don't see any moral problem with riding a bike around Vancouver (when I'm in Canada), buying the produce there, or renting a place to live.)



I don't have the time/energy to respond to (or even read) all the points in your post, but I'll try to do so soon. Please feel free to remind me if I don't respond soon enough. But as for this particular point, in my opinion there's a lot of convenient backwards rationalization in there. And I wasn't even talking in the past, I was talking about the present. There are arguably (I believe certainly) a lot of built in injustices and inequities occuring in the present that contribute to all manner of things you benefit from, many of which aren't even to survive but are for luxuries. Me too, of course. I'm okay with that, and further, I'm okay with being internally transparent about it (externally too, but only anonymously).

There is a bit of Casablanca-ian "I'm shocked, shocked!" when people are confronted with the cruelty and inequity affecting others that goes into their daily conveniences. It's only okay for them as long as they aren't made consciously aware of them. So perhaps human experimentation should be done in third world toy and clothing factories, which are magically invisible to the rest of us? That way it will never exist except for the occasional unpleasant moments when it's rubbed into our faces.

[nails3jesus0]

If we bred humans for scientific study, would that help us progress the knowledge of our nature? Do the possible benefits justify breeding humans for this purpose?

If we created a world for these human lab rats where death and pain are not bad, but viewed as good, would that psychological mindf**k cancel out any negative feeling they may experience?

I am, ofcourse, not advocating that we do this; I just want to throw this idea out and see what people here think.


chances are some kids have been screwed up in that exact same way multiple times. albert fish comes to mind.

[Dr. Imago]

There is a bit of Casablanca-ian "I'm shocked, shocked!" when people are confronted with the cruelty and inequity affecting others that goes into their daily conveniences. It's only okay for them as long as they aren't made consciously aware of them. So perhaps human experimentation should be done in third world toy and clothing factories, which are magically invisible to the rest of us? That way it will never exist except for the occasional unpleasant moments when it's rubbed into our faces.

Other examples? I think you're venturing into the realm of what Western society's ethnocentrism leads us to believe is exploitation and what third-world inhabitants may perceive as opportunity, so I'm not sure yours is a good example. You'd have to stipulate what part of this proposed "human experimentation" would involve free choice versus coercion, if you are going to rely on such examples.

-Dr. Imago

[Davo]

Anyone familiar with the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.

At the restaurant at the end of the universe, Arthur Dent and company are presented with a cow who wants them to eat it, they are generally disgusted.But they would have happily eaten steak from a normal cow (who probably didn`t want to be killed and eaten)

I think this reference is close to the topic in question.