When Is A Human Human?

A pair of posts which, put together, are worthy of being moved from Facebook to this blog. The point of both being that as medical science advances we more and more find ourselves in need of careful ethical considerations before performing many types of experimental research.


https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/brain-waves-detected-in-mini-brains-grown-in-a-dish

> The EEG recording of a 28-week-old mini-brain mimicked the recordings of a pre-term infant at 35 weeks’ gestation. < Does anyone else find this deeply disturbing? I was worried about something along this line occurring when they first created these “mini brains”. At what point does this become a form of an actual human brain? At what point does this experiment require informed consent? Remember, that’s the consent of the mini brain. https://nextshark.com/chinese-scientists-human-genes-monkey-brains/ As if mini brains that artificial intelligence identifies as having brainwave patterns indiscernible from those of a premature baby, now we’re implanting human brain cells in monkey brains. Science-fiction horrors are looking more and more like nonfiction horrors. > “To humanize them is to cause harm. Where would they live and what would they do? Do not create a being that can’t have a meaningful life in any context.”<