#julian savulescu

[cassandralexxx]

“I believe that to be human is to be better. Or, at least, to strive to be better."

- Julian Savulescu. New breeds of humans: the moral obligation to enhance

#quotes #julian savulescu #Very Important to note #I don't really agree with his argument #my whole paper that I had talked about on my blog before was opposing his conclusion #and like saying one of his arguments does not have as much merit as it should #i'm not going to get into it but yeah #academia #my professor used this quote for when discussing the module on the ethics of genetic enhancement #and i think this quote goes hard #like if not for the whole GE thing this quote is rather lovely imo #philosophy #like fully 100% I don't think I agree with the conclusion that we as humans have a moral obligation to genetically enhance #but like divorced from that context i thoroughly enjoy that quote

[vonneumannmachine]

¿Y si Putin hubiera tomado oxitocina?

¿Y si Putin hubiera tomado oxitocina?

La oxitocina es una hormona y un neurotransmisor sintetizado en el hipotálamo y liberado al organismo a través de la neurohipófisis. Multitud de estudios le otorgan un gran papel en las relaciones sociales humanas, en la creación de vínculos afectivos, ligándola significativamente con la capacidad de empatía. Las mujeres la liberan en grandes cantidades durante el parto y en la lactancia con…

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#Francisco Lara #Julian Savulescu

[zetkink]

Julian Savulescu and the Moral Imperative to Have the Best Children

In 2001, Julian Savulescu sought to create a moral framework for impending problems relating to the advent of gene editing technologies in his paper titled Procreative Beneficence. In essence this titular concept refers to parents having a moral obligation to have the best possible children. As such, Savulescu believes that parents should utilize any available technologies (like genetic tests for both “disease” and non-disease traits) to maximize the potential welfare of their offspring. While I personally think that Savulescu’s argument is coming from a place of good intentions, I believe it has a number of troubling implications, such as who determines what “best” is and how does this determination affect communities who are considered “lesser.” These problems seem particularly bad when you consider that a large portion of his paper is discussing why his thesis is in the context of eliminating disability. Do you think his idea of maximizing the welfare of future children is accurate, or are you skeptical like me? Let me know what y’all think.

#philosophy #human genetics market #genetic disease screening #disability

[mostcreativetitle]

Week 1 / Day 5 - Couch to 80k

To be a good writer, you first need to read plenty! Here is a list of books I would like to read, as research for my novel which includes space travel, artificial intelligence and the meaning of being human.

Fiction

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Verifiersby Jane Pek

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Daemon by Daniel Suarez

The Mother Code by Carole Stivers

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Speak by Louisa Hall

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Non-fiction

Human Enhancement by Julian Savulescu (Editor), Nick Bostrom

Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality and the Future of Humanity by Sam Harris

A World Without Work By Daniel Susskind

Genius Makers By Cade Metz

The Alignment Problem By Brian Christian

Four Futures By Peter Frase

#creative writing #writing #writing research #reading

[kicka11]

Tweeted

RT @techreview: This research “raises the possibility that you’re creating an enhanced rat that might have cognitive capacities greater than an ordinary rat,” says bioethicist Julian Savulescu. https://t.co/5ITwhakUUT

— ⚕ ᑕᕼᖇIS ⚕ (@kicka11) Oct 13, 2022

#IFTTT #Twitter

[viralnews-1]

Human brain cells transplanted into baby rats’ brains grow and form connections

Human brain cells transplanted into baby rats’ brains grow and form connections

“It’s an important step forward in progress into [understanding and treating] brain diseases,” says Julian Savulescu, a bioethicist at the National University of Singapore, who was not involved in the study. But the development also raises ethical questions, he says, particularly surrounding what it means to “humanize” animals. Sergiu Pașca at the University of Stanford has been working for more…

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[leighlim]

The rest of the quote from Jennifer Douda is: “...Or will I wish I'd never discovered how it works?” 

The scenario for this episode: It’s possible now to select traits for your child. 

Episode Highlights:

Charlie: Julian, is it ethical to design a baby the way you design a house?

Julian: Well, you could start by looking at dispositions to disease. So, all of us carry lots of mutations that mean that we're disposed to getting cancer or Parkinson's disease...diabetes...or Alzheimer's disease. So you could start by looking at those things which are uncontroversially bad diseases.

Annabel: But this stuff's talking about hair colour and eye colour and stuff that seems like frippery to me.

Nazeem: What about, like, just weird social things? Like, you know, like, some people stand too close. Like if you could...

[Laughter]

Nazeem: If you could just edit that out of their genetic code, why wouldn't you?

Charlie: Is it a moral imperative to remove close talkers from the gene pool?

[Laughter]

Annabel: If you could do something with the mansplainers I'd be interested.

Charlie: What? Men?

Annabel: No, just mansplaining...I'll be quiet now.

————————-

Julian: ...or more resistance to aging. I mean that's what I'd want.

Nazeem: Oh that's pretty good. So, what, you can have a gene where you live forever?

Annabel: Oh no!

Julian: There's a thing called the Methuselah Mouse. It lives twice as long as a normal mouse, so...

Nazeem: What does it eat? Is that a supplement or something? Weet-Bix?

Julian: No, no, no, it's been gene-edited. So, you could actually increase human longevity and delay ageing.And that's something I think that, you know, we should give children, and I'd want for myself.

Annabel: But that sounds so tiring though.

Nazeem: Yeah, but do we have, like, a death gene that you could just delete? Is there something in our genetic code that means you die at some point?

Julian: Well, the estimate is the maximum human life span is about 1,200 years. So if you aged at the kind of age a 10-yea-old is ageing, you could potentially live 1,200 years. I don't know complete immortality, but you could certainly live much longer than we do now.

Annabel: We're really going to need to review out aged care policy, I think...

[laughter]

Annabel: ...before we step into this.

#TV #ABC #Tomorrow Tonight #Gene Editing #Designer Babies #Nazeem Hussain #Meredith Young #Julian Savulescu #The Perfect Baby #Season #Comedy #Debate #The Future #Charlie Pickering #Fiction #Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals #Annabel Crabb #Season 1 Episode 2 #S01E02 #S1E2 #Mansplaining #Immortality #Longevity

[sokos]

The most recent ask i replied made me question if there have been scientific advances for men to get pregnant in the future and i found the most disturbing answers:

-  “ To our knowledge, there has not yet been a case of pregnancy in an AMAB individual. However, advances in reproductive technology could make this a possibility in the near future for folks who have had hysterectomies and those who were not born with ovaries or a uterus.Pregnancy via uterus transplant. The first baby born from a transplanted uterus arrived in Sweden during October of 2014. While this procedure is still in its early experimental stages, several other babies have been born through this method. Most recently, a family in India welcomed a baby from a transplanted womb, the first such case in the country. Of course, like many such technologies, this method was developed with cisgender women in mind. But many have begun to speculate that this procedure could also apply to transgender women and other AMAB folks. Dr. Richard Paulson, the former president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, suggested that uterine transplants for trans women and AMAB folks are more or less possible now. He added, “There would be additional challenges, but I don’t see any obvious problem that would preclude it.” It’s likely that supplementation to replicate hormonal phases during pregnancy would be necessary. Cesarean section would also be necessary for those who have undergone gender confirmation surgery.” This part says it is not possible but the fact that it has been considered in the first place is genuily creepy: “It has also been suggested that it may be possible for AMAB folks to carry a baby in the abdominal cavity. People have made this leap based on the fact that a very tiny percentage of eggs are fertilized outside of the womb in what is known as an ectopic pregnancy. However, ectopic pregnancies are incredibly dangerous for the gestational parent and typically require surgery. A significant amount of research would need to be done to make this a possibility for folks who don’t have a uterus, and even then, it seems incredibly unlikely that this would be a viable option for a hopeful parent.”

- A fertility doctor says that in theory, men could attempt to become pregnant as soon as "tomorrow" thanks to advances in uterus transplant surgeries. But other experts say that such a procedure won't happen anytime soon because many more studies are needed to know whether it could be done safely.Dr. Richard Paulson, the outgoing president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), said he thinks it would be possible to perform uterus transplants on transgender women, who are born male and transition to female, according to The Telegraph. Speaking at ASRM's annual meeting, he said he sees no biological reason why the procedure wouldn't work in the male body."You could do it tomorrow," Paulson was quoted as saying. "There would be additional challenges, but I don't see any obvious problem that would preclude it. I personally suspect there are going to be trans women who are going to want to have a uterus and will likely get the transplant."But other experts point out that the procedure isn't even mainstream for women, let alone men.Uterus transplants are "still highly experimental," said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics and head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's School of Medicine. This means that the procedure is still being studied for its safety and effectiveness in women, and it is performed only as part of experimental trials.Because of the additional research needed to understand the risks of the procedure and its effect on the fetus, performing a uterus transplant on a man right now would not be responsible, he said. "Surgically, could you put [a uterus] in a man tomorrow? Yeah, but it would be completely irresponsible."  

They say all of this now and say it’s not possible yet, they make sure to leave the idea that it may be possible in the future. you know that with how many advances trans people have done to get their “rights” recognized in first world countries, i could actually see a future in which they fought for this to be a right for them or something. I personally don’t think it’s possible for science to beat and oversmart nature completely, but it has been tried and there have been things we thought impossible before, and i’m kinda scared for our future.

- “Dr Richard Paulson, outgoing president of American Society for Reproductive Medicine said that with advancements in science, it is possible to now allow similar operations to be carried out on those who started their lives as men. He also mentioned that people who have gone under sex-change operations may want to avail this opportunity which would allow them to conceive a baby. He further explained that there was not anatomical reason why a womb can’t be successfully implanted in a transgender woman. He added that men and women may have different shaped pelvis but both have room for an implanted womb.  The process would however, be highly complicated and transgender women will have to deliver through caesarean. Moreover, hormones will have to be injected to replicate the changes that take place while a woman is pregnant.  Despite advancements, the womb transplant is still an experimental procedure. Many British experts warn that pregnancy in transgender women can be deemed unethical as it could pose risk to the fetus. While carrying a baby may give psychological benefit to the mother, it needs to be “weighed against any psychological harm to the child being born in this atypical way,” said Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford university.”

Notice how they say the only reason that men getting pregnant would be unethical is because it would bring risk to the fetus, nothing else, they don’t even care about what this would represent for women.

I think about the way that women who can’t get pregnant are stigmatized and demonized to this day because the only worth women have in society is the ability to be mothers, I think of the way women have been seen as a reproductive resource for men during centuries and the way they have always tried to control women’s reproductive rights, I think of the way some cultures are highly misogynistic to the root but still “respect” women because they’re the only ones who can create human life. And i think about what would happen if men realized they don’t need women for that. What would happen if science became so advanced that they could have children on their own? How would they start treating and seeing women as? I can imagine that trans women wouldn’t be the only ones taking advantage of this. It’s so disturbing. I know this possibility seems very unrealistic and like something that won’t happen any time soon. But they’re trying to make it happen, maybe it could happen. And this sounds like a highly dystopian future to me.  

#sokos.txt #radblr #radfems do touch #radfems do interact #terf safe #terfs do touch #terfs do interact #ok ok i swear this is my last post about this topic. i'll go back to stop posting about trans people and focusing on women only now #long post #womb envy #terfs please touch #terfs please interact

[arcticdementor]

Oxford University panjandrum and philosopher Julian Savulescu has spent most of his career advancing positions that push the envelope of acceptable medical practice.  He has told us, for instance, that we are morally obligated to genetically engineer our babies under a principle he terms “procreative beneficence.”  His efforts often strike one as having the seeming intent of giving the IVF and biotechnology industries cover under a supposedly ethical flag. No surprise, then, to find him advocating for us to engage in “extreme altruism” in the time of COVID-19.

In a recent post on the Practical Ethics blog with co-author Dominic Wilkinson, also at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Savulescu argues in favor of allowing (or even perhaps encouraging) acts of extreme altruism in the time of coronavirus.  The response to the pandemic has already revealed some unsettling realities about how we differentially value lives, with politicians and others directing medical and fiscal resources toward the young , the white, and the well-to-do, as Black , indigenous , and people of color, or those with disabilities are shortchanged.  The argument Savulescu and Wilkinson make is thus all the more disquieting as a rationalization for such actions.

…

All this breezy offering up of patients’ lives is highly problematic.  In cases 1 and 4, the authors say participants might benefit, which is a bit of a stretch, given that they also might be hurt or killed; in cases 2 and 3, patients are on death’s door and stand to profit not at all from having tissues or organs taken from them, while they forgo any chance, however slight, of recovery. 

…

As for mustering nursing home residents to the fight against COVID-19, the scheme bears more than a whiff of Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens, the Nazi program of destroying “lives unworthy of life.”  This widespread euthanization effort predated the death camps and targeted institutionalized Germans, including frail or physically impaired older people and those with disabilities and chronic ailments.

Bizarrely, the authors imply that we perpetrate a kind of ageism in preventing nursing home residents from volunteering for risky medical experiments given “that challenge studies using the SARS-COV2 virus (which causes COVID-19) would be ethical […] in healthy young adults.”  Why, then, shouldn’t those in nursing or care facilities have the same option?

…

In the end, one wonders why the authors even bothered to assemble their argument, as it seems difficult to imagine how such extreme altruism would play out.  Who, actually, will be tasked with evaluating whether a person in a care facility genuinely understands what they are agreeing to when they volunteer out of an excess of care for their fellow human beings or in a desire to advance scientific understanding? Is someone sedated heavily on a ventilator capable of assessing whether they should allow their organs to be harvested in advance of their death? Does it seem likely that healthcare workers who have made a yeoman’s effort to save a patient’s life would voluntarily switch gears at the last minute to offer them the chance to serve as experimental fodder?

Savulescu and Wilkinson opine that “…there is a constant national emergency: we are all aging and slowly dying. There is a war against aging and death: we are fighting it with medicine. And people should be able [to] sacrifice their interests or lives in this war.”  The use of this militaristic language obscures the fact that aging and dying are inevitabilities that medicine cannot ultimately address.  Especially in a time of pandemic, we need to be especially clear about making false promises in that regard.  Certainly, we should not be deploying rhetorical claptrap based on tired tropes to justify using vulnerable populations as sacrificial victims.

#center for genetics and society #covid19 #eugenics #gina maranto #julian savulescu

[lescroniques]

Un biòleg rus pretén crear 5 nadons modificats genèticament per evitar-los la sordesa

Un biòleg rus pretén crear 5 nadons modificats genèticament per evitar-los la sordesa

El biòleg rus, Denís Rébrikov, que en declaracions a la revista Nature fa unes setmanes va anunciar que té intenció.[…][…] (abc.es)

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#Clínica de Investigación Ginecológica Kulakov de Moscú #Denís Rébrikov #He Jiangkui #Julian Savulescu #Rusia

[cristianesimocattolico]

Pezzi di ricambio cercansi tra le vittime di eutanasia

Pezzi di ricambio cercansi tra le vittime di eutanasia

Poche vittime di eutanasia donano gli organi e, per alcuni dottori belgi e olandesi, questa realtà va cambiata, incrementando le donazioni. In questo modo viene stravolto il concetto di donazione di organi, che è un atto “nobile e meritorio” dopo morte certa. Ma che in questo contesto resta una mera ricerca di pezzi di ricambio. E chi non chiedesse l’eutanasia oppure la chiedesse senza donare gli…

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#bioetica #commercio #euromassoneria #eutanasia #finestra di Overton #ideologie #Julian Savulescu #malati #morte #organi #propaganda #sanità #tratta di esseri umani #vita #vittime

[nullarysources]

Ed Yong, The Atlantic:

Before last week, few people had heard the name He Jiankui. But on November 25, the young Chinese researcher became the center of a global firestorm when it emerged that he had allegedly made the first crispr-edited babies, twin girls named Lulu and Nana. Antonio Regalado broke the story for MIT Technology Review, and He himself described the experiment at an international gene-editing summit in Hong Kong. After his talk, He revealed that another early pregnancy is under way.

It is still unclear if He did what he claims to have done. Nonetheless, the reaction was swift and negative. The crispr pioneer Jennifer Doudna says she was "horrified," NIH Director Francis Collins said the experiment was "profoundly disturbing," and even Julian Savulescu, an ethicist who has described gene-editing research as "a moral necessity," described He's work as "monstrous."

Those are the kinds of rave reviews that a scientist craves

#news #science #genetics #China

[espirg1]

References

Alonso, Marcos, Jonathan Anomaly and Julian Savulescu. 2020. "Gene Editing: Medicine or Enhancement?" Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics (11): 259-276.

Boland, Julia, and Elena Nedelcu. 2020. “CRISPR/Cas9 for the Clinician: Current uses of gene editing and applications for new therapeutics in oncology” The Permanente journal (24):1-3

Flinter, Frances A., 2001. “Preimplantation genetic diagnosis”. National Library of Medicine 322(7293): 1008–1009.

Garland-Thompson, Rosemarie. 2020. “How We Got to CRISPR: The Dilemma of Being Human.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 63(1):28-43

Gumer, Jennifer M., 2019. “The Wisdom of Germline Editing: An Ethical Analysis of the Use of CRISPR-Cas9 to Edit Human Embryos” The New Bioethics (25)2: 137-152

Neumann-Held, Eva M., 2001. “Can it be a 'sin' to understand disease? On 'genes' and 'eugenics' and an 'unconnected connection”. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (4): 5-17.

Redman, Melody, Andrew King, Caroline Watson, and David King. 2016. “What is Crispr/Cas9?” Archives of disease in childhood. Education and practice edition 101(4): 213–215

Rulli, Tina. 2019. “Reproductive CRISPR does not cure disease”. 2022. Bioethics 33(9): 1072-1082

Stern, Alexandra M. PhD, Nicole L. Novak PhD., Natalie Lira PhD., Kate O'Connor MPH, Siobán Harlow PhD. and Sharon Kardia PhD. 2017. "California's Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress." American Journal of Public Health 107(1):50-54

[mongoose232323]

Go Ahead .. Fuck Around And See

Human Cells Grown In Monkey Embryos

Spark Ethical Debate.

From The Article

Monkey embryos containing human cells have been made in a laboratory, a study has confirmed.

The research, by a US-Chinese team, has sparked fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments.

The scientists injected human stem cells - cells that have the ability to develop into many different body tissues - into macaque embryos.

The developing embryos were studied for up to 20 days.

Other so-called mixed-species embryos, or chimeras, have been produced in the past, with human cells implanted into sheep and pig embryos.

The scientists were led by Prof Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute in the US, who, in 2017, helped make the first human-pig hybrid.

Human-pig 'chimera embryos' detailed

First 'mixed embryo' monkeys born

Their work could pave the way in addressing the severe shortage in transplantable organs as well as help understand more about early human development, disease progression and ageing, he said.

"These chimeric approaches could be really very useful for advancing biomedical research not just at the very earliest stage of life, but also the latest stage of life."

He maintained that the study, published in the journal Cell, had met the current ethical and legal guidelines.

"Ultimately, we conduct these studies to understand and improve human health," he said.

'Ethical challenges'

Some scientists have, however, raised concerns about the experiment, arguing that while the embryos in this case were destroyed at 20 days, others could try to take the work further.

They are calling for public debate over the implications of creating part human/part nonhuman chimeras.

Commenting on the research, Dr Anna Smajdor, lecturer and researcher in biomedical ethics at the University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School, said it posed "significant ethical and legal challenges".

She added: "The scientists behind this research state that these chimeric embryos offer new opportunities, because 'we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans'. But whether these embryos are human or not is open to question."

Prof Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, said the research "opens Pandora's box to human-nonhuman chimeras".

He added: "These embryos were destroyed at 20 days of development but it is only a matter of time before human-nonhuman chimeras are successfully developed, perhaps as a source of organs for humans. That is one of the long-term goals of this research."

Sarah Norcross, director of the Progress Educational Trust, said that while "substantial advances" are being made in embryo and stem cell research, which could bring equally substantial benefits, "there is a clear need for public discussion and debate about the ethical and regulatory challenges raised".

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56767517.amp

[tachtutor]

Not recommending AstraZeneca vaccine for the elderly risks the lives of the most vulnerable – Watts Up With That?

Not recommending AstraZeneca vaccine for the elderly risks the lives of the most vulnerable – Watts Up With That?

Jonathan Pugh, University of Oxford and Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford Regulators in Europe are at odds over whether the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine should be given to the elderly. In the UK, the vaccine has been approved for use in adults aged 18 and up, but France, Germany, Sweden and Austria say the vaccine should be prioritised for those under the age of 65. Poland only recommends it…

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[tpolp]

Written by Julian Savulescu and Jonathan Pugh The current UK approach to allocating limited life-saving resources is on the basis of need. Guidance issued by The General Medical Council states that all doctors must “Make sure that decisions about setting priorities that affect...