6 replies to this topic

[Penguin101]

Moral science:

 

Just imagine for a second you weren't judged by anyone else on the planet for what you deep down believe in - answer this.

 

Do you feel scientists would make a lot more headway in breakthroughs that could improve humanity and help the planet without any "ethical boundaries"? ala Rapture in Bioshock. Or do you think it's our ethics in science that will be the most beneficial to mankind and our mother planet?

 

Do you think there's a middle ground where certain "unethical" experiments are given the go-ahead under strict supervision?

 

Is science already too unethical in how things progress?

 

Are we progressing too quickly?

 

Do you feel there are still illegal experiments already going on behind closed doors funded by governments? (ala Vladimir Demikhov who performed semi-successful head transplants on dogs, and Dr Robert White who continued the work with monkeys, who knows if ethics were ignored, and the work was continued it could have have furthered our surgical techniques, and by now allowed people to donate their entire bodies to a majority of terminally ill patients!)

 

In my honest opinion, I simply don't know, but I'd love to have a balanced intellectual debate amongst people here in order to form a solid opinion of my own!

Edited by Penguin101, 20 February 2014 - 08:28 AM.

[Mignaga]

 

I feel like Rapture is the perfect example of where a world without ethics would end up. Obviously there was more to the downfall of Rapture than just the scientific side of the city, but regardless, I think that it would cause a lot more problems than it's worth.

Edited by Mignaga, 20 February 2014 - 09:09 AM.

[Nollog]

I doubt it.
We all have our own eithical bias.
Hitler progressed us a lot, but then so did the Jews in America who blew up Japan because of him.

Edited by Nollog, 20 February 2014 - 09:15 AM.

[Hunter]

I think science probably would make a lot more headway if there were no moral or eithical concerns to get in their way. We would probably end up with something similar to Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Apart from the world being destroyed from pollution and many animals becoming extinct, genetic engineering and human cloning would probably be a lot more advanced than it is already and humans meddling in that sort of thing would probably have disastrous consequences. 

Edited by Hunter, 20 February 2014 - 11:46 AM.

[Penguin101]

Say I cloned hundreds of thousands of humans, grew them at different ages and sexes, kept them heavily sedated unless absolutely necessary, deliberately infected half of them with every disease and parasite known to mankind, took data samples of the common genes in all the diseases and parasites that weren't common in the human body, created a plasmid that blocked those common gene types including cancerous gene mutations, and basically tested the plasmid out on the other clones until I perfected so it made the human immune system smarter, and then disposed of all the clones as humanely as possible. Hypothetically if I'd created a smart cure for every human disease on earth, would the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of human clones be worth the price of a disease free human race?

 

If you answered yes, then problems arise when pharmaceutical companies either fold possibly causing another recession OR they start developing new diseases. Now is this excusable in order to maintain global financial stability? AND if they didn't, does a disease free human race mean we overpopulate the earth even more and use up it's resources causing wars as more people try and live alongside each other? 

 

In another more simple question. If I created hundreds of thousands of white rhino using a cloning technique I pioneered through slightly unethical means in order to save a species, is it right first of all to save a species, is it right to improve my cloning technique through slightly unethical ways, and where does the species saving stop, woolly mammoths being reintroduced into the wild?    

 

Also the craze of biohacking is becoming ever popular. You can now buy your own do it yourself genetics lab online where you can splice open source gene types into other species. I've seen 8 year olds create glow in the dark plants, will it one day be ethically acceptable to modify our own bodies much like body piercings, will divers give themselves gills?

[Elric]

I think science probably would make a lot more headway if there were no moral or eithical concerns to get in their way. We would probably end up with something similar to Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Apart from the world being destroyed from pollution and many animals becoming extinct, genetic engineering and human cloning would probably be a lot more advanced than it is already and humans meddling in that sort of thing would probably have disastrous consequences. 

You don't think that the world could be destroyed by pollution? I think China has an artificial sunrise because the pollution is so bad. 

 

 

http://world.time.co...smoggy-beijing/

[Hunter]

You don't think that the world could be destroyed by pollution? I think China has an artificial sunrise because the pollution is so bad. 

 

 

http://world.time.co...smoggy-beijing/

 

I said it would be destroyed by pollution...

 

What I was saying was if there wasnt any ethical or moral concerns in science then it would probably be ten times worse than what it already is.