Cure All Fountain of Youth? by AnthonyT

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Cure All Fountain of Youth?

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Friday, December 17, 2010 20:15
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Friday, December 17, 2010 10:23 AM

My scientific knowledge on this is wholly lacking, but once you HAVE a collection of stem cells, what then prevents em from simply encouraging them to reproduce themselves, farming them, in effect - so that once in hand, you needn't harvest more ?

I mean, sure, there's compatibility, which means you'd have to have different genetic groups and whatnot, leastways I suspect you would, but why the need for continued harvesting ?

Not to mention, yanno, clone the damn things - even if the cells have a really short span cause of that, if they fix the damage, what's the problem ?

But honestly, full admission - I have about zip-diddly of the required knowledge to even discuss this at anything more than a concept level, and am thus not comfortable trying to discuss it.

Oh, and twas not an insult of the mans argument, twas an insult of the man - get it right, I was making unnecessary and gratuitous *personal* insult, quite deliberately, rather than addressing an argument so ridiculous I didn't feel it needed to be addressed at all.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, December 17, 2010 11:31 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
That's okay, I just had a nap and am feeling pretty shiny. I had a feeling I wasn't aware of the entire process. I never envisioned the cackling mad scientist, but I do still worry that if these were NOT a relatively abundant resource, then someone would make 'em to kill 'em and harvest 'em. I don't have any problems with them coming from failed in-vitro attempts, and agree with you that it would be great if these unsuccessful lives were able to save another life. I still worry about the potential for abuse (lying so they can harvest or whatnot) but I recognize that as irrational, at least so long as the resource is abundant.

I don't think the potential for abuse, or the fear of that potential or that abuse, is necessarily irrational. Remember, I actually HAVE SEEN people wage war on one another and commit atrocities purely for the promise of great profits for their country and their company. Never underestimate the potential for abuse, but know that such abuses aren't the norm. And don't let "irrational" fears of such abuses stop you from having a thing, either. I don't stop driving to work for fear of being hit by a drunk driver, after all. (Or for fear of being attacked by those darned Muslim terrorists that so many seem to see under their beds at every turn.)

Anyway, I get where you're coming from, and agree up to a point. I just wanted to make sure that where you were coming from wasn't from where I *feared* (irrationally, as it turns out!) you were coming from.

Yes, there IS a potential for abuse and misuse. As with anything thought up by humankind, there is someone who will try to cheat and exploit for personal gain. There always is.

Quote:

I think you've just saved me a lot of time and research, but I'll do some more digging on my own at some point. Been a while since I looked at stem cell research but I remember it being hard to understand (in high school), I'm probably a mite better at those things now that I've been through some college labs.

Please DO NOT let me save you the time and effort. Please do look into it, because the more people learn, the more open-minded they tend to get about such things.

This Space For Rent!

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Friday, December 17, 2010 8:15 PM

DREAMTROVE

Frem

My apologies for an uncalled for comment. I was having a bad day. I'm having a really really bad month.

Christmas, it's kind of ironic. It's like Tim Burton or Terry Pratchett got a hold of it.

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