Debate on Science

[citizenzen]

The question is, how large of an exception is acceptable?

More than you're going to reference.

How many corrupt preachers would it take to make you change your religion?

 

[wil]

More than you're going to reference.

hmmm would science accept that from a religious zealot?

 

[nativeastral]

Bryan Magee is a philosopher, not a scientist, and it shows.

Sure, but you don't get much scientists nit picking or pontificating about the justification or otherwise of their practises or methodology; just like Dawkins the biologist was accused of a sophomoric [undergraduate?] fail grade in his literary philosophical argumentations by Nagel.

That was just an historical overview on the fallibility of the so called objective, ahistorical and value-free view of scientific empiricism then. Now 'post modern', philosophy of science in all its fields is still nit picking no doubt. The Churchlands [he a scientist,she a philosopher] are doing a good double act in promoting materialist neuroscience.

 

[citizenzen]

hmmm would science accept that from a religious zealot?

I don't doubt the value of your religion in your life despite the vast fraud perpetrated in its name.

If you want to judge any field based on the charlatans who've practiced it, what would be left?

Very little, I'm afraid.

 

[seattlegal]

The question I'm raising is whether there is any such thing as "pure science."

I could go along with that. One could then ask the question, "is the practice of 'pure science' even possible?"

It's very hard for science be objective, neutral, and free from private interest is very hard to fulfill in a marketing societies and knowledge-based economies.

I would rather say, "It's rather hard for scientists (rather than science) to be objective, neutral, and free from private interest..."

Historically, for example, scientific findings are byproducts of government funded military enterprises that were intended to achieve military advantage. As I understand it, the Internet is one of them.

The real 'spoils of war,' perhaps?

Persuasion is also a possible intent among skeptics who take a dismissing position on scientific findings they don't like.

That is also true. However, the disliked theory could still benefit from the skeptical critque. (Another test...)

 

[Quahom1]

well Tao, I guess that makes us fishy brothers as I'm a Pisces too. earl

Odd, I'm tied by the tail as well, but I prefer to struggle up stream rather than go with the flow. Any dead fish can go with the flow of the stream...

As far as pure science, it is a fantastic and needed tool for us to understand the world around us. But the proclaimers of the highest of intellectual science today, sound more like "fundimentalists" at a pro-religion rally (only they call it a university auditorium).

God is dead, long live the "new god".

When science becomes the whereforall, to the exclusion of everything else, then one has a new religion in town. Most of if is based on conjecture and unproven theory...hmm kind of like religous zealots and scriptures of old...

To me, the only good and sound science is that which can be applied repeatedly, with constant results. Otherwise it is simply religion, by another name.

For example: I can fuse metals of different elemental makeup, through the science of metalurgy. That is a true and time tested science. Why? we can see the results all around us as hard evidence (planes, ships, cars, space craft, fantastic alloys greater than their base elements...). I can apply physics to make us go, or provide leverage, or use intertia to my advantage, every time. These are "hard" sciences, objective in nature. They are practical. They are provable.

On the other hand, Anthropology still can't provide the missing link between great apes and humans. sociology still can't prove dynamics of a population due to statistical analysis, psychology still can't define the thoughts of man, psychiatry still can't prove man as an animal and nothing more. Biologists can't prove evolution. These are "soft" sciences, subjective in nature. They are cerebral, based on nothing more than opinion. They still haven't been proven. Might as well be called pseudo sciences, since they are right in line with "Astrology", and God forbid, religion or "faith".

Yet the "soft" science adherents can stand up and state there is nothing more than here and now (no God), like theirs is the final say...lol

Sounds like "alchemy" to me...

So, in closing, I submit that "science" has to seperate the fact, from the fantasy, in order to become a constructive force in the development of "man".

The instant a "scientist" declares there is nothing but us, is the instant he or she becomes clergy or a sort. And that is where people begin to walk away from what science has to say.

On the other hand, the instant scientific theory is "proven" as fact, beyond the shadow of a doubt, it no longer is science, but becomes "engineering".

And the instant "faith" is "proven" beyond the shadow of a doubt, it is no longer "faith", but becomes "knowledge".

some things to consider.

Q

 

[Tao_Equus]

Odd, I'm tied by the tail as well, but I prefer to struggle up stream rather than go with the flow. Any dead fish can go with the flow of the stream...

Some fish....like salmon? Swim far upstream to breed? To swallow a nobs feathered hook and die?

To me, the only good and sound science is that which can be applied repeatedly, with constant results. Otherwise it is simply religion, by another name.

Boll....boll.....balderdash! Without experimental science you have no good science. You do not get a tasty Gorgonzola when you milk an udder. You do not go out with a pointy stone and mine a mint new battleship. They take far more failures than successes to produce.
The second sentence you is so nuts you utterly destroy my ability to think beyond the idea that you are only trying to rib me How generous am I !

On the other hand, Anthropology still can't provide the missing link between great apes and humans.

Q .. You ARE the missing link between great apes and modern humans. Modern humans are those people who understand the principles of evolution. Which you clearly do not. You ignore what scientists do outside of those that design bits of metal that give you a thrill. Yet there are many people who do get a thrill out of their work and many people who have benefited from their research. Social fields and evolutionary research has a lot to say about self-centred ego in animal communities. High time you read some

Yet the "soft" science adherents can stand up and state there is nothing more than here and now (no God), like theirs is the final say...lol

Who? When? In what context? It is not soft science not to believe in god, that is called atheism. Most scientists leave religion well alone, most also know a lot more about how things really work than you do too.

The instant a "scientist" declares there is nothing but us, is the instant he or she becomes clergy or a sort.

Q

I think most scientists would refuse to be quoted declaring that universally and emphatically. But I think it is possible to make a compelling scientific thesis that states "human religions, their gods and their laws are made in our image and do not exist outside of our collective imagination and construction".

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

I enjoyed the quotes in the OP, Tao. I read the whole thread too. I think that the "science" that reaches the average couch potato via the the common channels of infopinion isn't much more than a caricature of what's really going on.

Chris

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

It's interesting how quickly the old canards about science not being the be all and end all of intelligent inquiry pop up. It reminds me of how people are politically manipulated into siding with science deniers of other kinds whose real motives are vested with large, corporate polluters.

Chris

 

[path_of_one]

I had to add... couldn't resist... there is no one "missing link" and anthropology has already found dozens of specimens of various species that take one from australopithecines to modern H. sapiens.

When you line up the skeletons one after another, even my most vehement anti-evolution students can see for themselves that there is a gradual yet readily perceptable change from one to the other... leading from a chimp-like critter that first walked around bipedally to us.

Australopithecines are as close to THE missing link as you get- they are clearly chimp-like critters (same size, cranial morphology, etc.) that first walked around consistently. Their anatomy still shows evidence of tree-climbing along with the walking, demonstrating a very clear transitional stage between apes and upright-walkers. Those upright walkers continued to get larger and larger craniums after that point along the gracile Australopithecine line and eventually (early on, with H. habilis) demonstrated tool manufacture and use.

It is really very clear when you actually see it in person- the "lineup" is really all the evidence anyone needs to clearly see the evolution of modern humans from ape-like walker. It's pretty obvious.

 

[Quahom1]

Some fish....like salmon? Swim far upstream to breed? To swallow a nobs feathered hook and die?

When salmon go upstream to spawn, they do not eat, and once they spawn, they die from exhaustion. So the only "hook" that might get them would be a "gaff".

Boll....boll.....balderdash! Without experimental science you have no good science. You do not get a tasty Gorgonzola when you milk an udder. You do not go out with a pointy stone and mine a mint new battleship. They take far more failures than successes to produce.
The second sentence you is so nuts you utterly destroy my ability to think beyond the idea that you are only trying to rib me How generous am I !

Without conclusive results, scientific theory is simply that. It is not fact until proven repeatedly. Which evolutionary concept are we referring to? Macro, or micro (cellular)? On a macro scale there is not one new species that has evolved naturally in tens of thousands, if not millions of years. However, the earth has lost millions of species to time. On a micro level, there are mutations that happen all the time, usually resulting in destruction of the organism mutating. One can't blend aluminum and steel together to form a ship, unless one understands "datocoupling" the two dissimilar metals with wildly different molecular structures, let alone extremely different heat properties, and can control the fusion in such a fashion, as to maintain the integrity of both, while bonding them together. And yes there were the initial failures, until the first success, followed by the second, and so on.

Q .. You ARE the missing link between great apes and modern humans. Modern humans are those people who understand the principles of evolution. Which you clearly do not. You ignore what scientists do outside of those that design bits of metal that give you a thrill. Yet there are many people who do get a thrill out of their work and many people who have benefited from their research. Social fields and evolutionary research has a lot to say about self-centred ego in animal communities. High time you read some

I miss nothing concerning those that experiment and explore. I simply stated that without recorded and repeatable positive results, theories are simply that, not fact. As far as social fields of study...well, observing animals in their natural habitat shows that they already understand and apply such social concepts daily, within their collective family. Only they don't call it "science", but rather use the "instinct" or common sense for the collective good of the whole. For such "intelligent animals" we haven't seemed to grasp that yet (based on the state of the world in general and mankind in particular).

Who? When? In what context? It is not soft science not to believe in god, that is called atheism. Most scientists leave religion well alone, most also know a lot more about how things really work than you do too.

Most "scientists" have their "religion" to follow.

I think most scientists would refuse to be quoted declaring that universally and emphatically. But I think it is possible to make a compelling scientific thesis that states "human religions, their gods and their laws are made in our image and do not exist outside of our collective imagination and construction".

Again, that is an opinion, not a scientific fact. Ironic isn't it, that those of religious affiliation and/or Faith can accept the "science" of discovery, yet science or those "majority" as you state, can not accept the possibility (let alone probability), of God.

Seems to me, that I have the advantage, since I can accept both (in proper context). Not all religions can be considered religion. Likewise not all declared "science" can be considered science. Faith without science is blind, while science without faith, is lame...

So, I'm the monkey's uncle? Hmmm, that's pretty cool.

 

[Quahom1]

I had to add... couldn't resist... there is no one "missing link" and anthropology has already found dozens of specimens of various species that take one from australopithecines to modern H. sapiens.

When you line up the skeletons one after another, even my most vehement anti-evolution students can see for themselves that there is a gradual yet readily perceptable change from one to the other... leading from a chimp-like critter that first walked around bipedally to us.

Australopithecines are as close to THE missing link as you get- they are clearly chimp-like critters (same size, cranial morphology, etc.) that first walked around consistently. Their anatomy still shows evidence of tree-climbing along with the walking, demonstrating a very clear transitional stage between apes and upright-walkers. Those upright walkers continued to get larger and larger craniums after that point along the gracile Australopithecine line and eventually (early on, with H. habilis) demonstrated tool manufacture and use.

It is really very clear when you actually see it in person- the "lineup" is really all the evidence anyone needs to clearly see the evolution of modern humans from ape-like walker. It's pretty obvious.

Ok, but not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. And until it is proven to such a degree, it is still a theory. Ironic that for being so close to other animals, our DNA is totally incompatible with any other than Homo sapien sapien. Yet, canines of various types are quite compatible with each other...

One can only speculate that there is a chasm between human and primate, rather than simply a missing link...

 

[citizenzen]

Ok, but not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

In U.S. courts the "shadow of a doubt" requirement has been replace by a "reasonable doubt".

Are you a reasonable man, Q1?

 

[path_of_one]

Ok, but not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. And until it is proven to such a degree, it is still a theory.

Very few things are ever proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, but in the meantime, they are really useful and prove themselves in application. However, in biology and genetics, there is considerable talk that enough evidence in both morphology and genetics has been amassed to call evolution a law... that is, the consensus is getting closer to seeing evolution as being proven beyond doubt than not.

But, as I always tell my students, if someone is not a geneticist, population biologist, or evolutionary medical doctor- I don't think it really matters. It goes on whether people acknowledge it or not.

Ironic that for being so close to other animals, our DNA is totally incompatible with any other than Homo sapien sapien. Yet, canines of various types are quite compatible with each other...

We are incompatible with others because we branched off from the common primate ancestor we had with other apes much farther back than some of the "species" who continue to interbreed successfully. Wolves and dogs, for example, only split with domestication about 12000 years ago, which is nothing compared to the millions of years we've been separated from the other primate lines and on a unique trajectory.

Furthermore, there are many instances in nature in which species cannot interbreed with each other, yet have clear morphological and genetic shared heritage. The exceptions tend to be issues in which the different "species" are, in fact, not separate species at all (by the biological definition) and instead are sub-species or varieties that we only thought were different species due to geographical or behavioral barriers to interbreeding. When these are removed, interbreeding resumes. Some examples are different species of salmon that occur here in California- a more notable one is the recent interbreeding of Polar Bears and Brown Bears due to a very recent change to geographic isolation as a result of climate change.

Overall, evolutionary theory and population genetics are really quite complex and my experience is that most people, unless they study for a few years minimum in this subject, really just don't understand how they work. Even a couple years of introductory biology is insufficient to really get to the nuances and debates about how to define a species, especially given the increasing capacity to use genetics rather than morphology to "see" splits in the biological record. I didn't get to the complex and compelling information until third-year (upper division) biological anthropology classes specifically on population genetics and the sorts of dynamics that make up evolution and hominid morphology and behavior.

 

[Quahom1]

In U.S. courts the "shadow of a doubt" requirement has been replace by a "reasonable doubt".

Are you a reasonable man, Q1?

In as much as I am willing to entertain both trains of thought within context, and for the sake of debate, could argue either side with the sole purpose of winning the debate, regardless of whether I fully believed the validity of the topic or not...yes.

I can tell you that I do not accept the argument for creationism, nor do I accept the argument of evolutionism, as strictly the thruthes, where one is right and the other, wrong. Nor do I adhere to the recent conglomeration of "intelligent design", wherein "God" is constantly tweaking things to improve upon them, thus causing their evolving.

What I do accept is that DNA was not randomly created, any more so than blue prints for algorithms for self learning Artificial intelligence computers were.

As an engineer, I recognize the complexities of the simplest DNA structures, including the billions upon billions of possible configurations needed for that "blue print" to precisely allow for life to even exist, let alone cause a more or less perfect shell to develop that would successfuly contain life. I also recognize how said DNA is designed to compensate or adjust itself as warranted in order for life to adapt and survive, no, thrive in climates the organism finds itself in.

Something or someone, had a hand in that design somewhere in the distant past, but made it so that it could develop, adapt, without any further outside help.

And one ironic twist is that for all the haluboo about man being related to apes, we are actually genetically closer to "porcines", than "primates".

US law is based on "reasonable doubt", due to the fact that it is better that 100 guilty go free, rather than one innocent be jailed. (Judicial law is an art, not a science, therefore, allows for certain uncertainties, based on social needs for mercy and grace - which is another topic all together).

Science is based on "absolutes" due to its very nature of trying to decipher the principles by which the universe is designed and functions. Any study which allows for uncertainty and unknowns in order to express a result, conviction or conclusion, is an "art", not science. Or at best, it is a scientific "theory".

Any "scientific conclusion" that is later found to be in error, is promptly removed from the realm of immutable truth (Aristotle and Ptolemy on the earth as the center of the universe). Even Einstein argued his theory on quantum physics was not ready for publishing, because he wasn't certain he had it right (up to the day he died). Yet his constituants took and ran with it as if it were fact (we still do not know for certain if it is).

Oxygen was said to be a supporter of life. This is only partially true. There are organisms (we now know), that are anarobic. And we know that oxygen under pressure, can kill all animals because of its toxicity. The "fact" that oxygen supports life, had to be modified to state that oxygen supports some life, and only under certain conditions.

That God exists, can not be proven nor disproven. Can the study of God be considered a "science"? Perhaps. If so then it would be considered a theory.

That God doesn't exist, can not be proven or disproven. Therefore the "scientific theory" of no God can only be considered a theory.

Now, "faith" can be used by either party, to declare that there is a God, or that there is no God, but that simply means one has a belief either way, with no solid evidence to back up their respective arguments. Though a personal "truth", neither is an absolute truth.

As a final note: yes I can play myself at chess, it just takes a long time (a day per move), so that I can look at the game from a different perspective..

 

[Quahom1]

Very few things are ever proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, but in the meantime, they are really useful and prove themselves in application.

Hmmm, I'll have to think on that.

However, in biology and genetics, there is considerable talk that enough evidence in both morphology and genetics has been amassed to call evolution a law... that is, the consensus is getting closer to seeing evolution as being proven beyond doubt than not.

In a court of law, that would be considered "circumstantial evidence" which rarely on its own merit, results in a conviction.

But, as I always tell my students, if someone is not a geneticist, population biologist, or evolutionary medical doctor- I don't think it really matters. It goes on whether people acknowledge it or not.

I would give more credence to one who has some learning (enough to understand the basis of each of the professions identified above), than one with no knowledge at all, who is responding in a knee jerk reaction due to "fables" told to him/her in the past, that have nothing to do with the same said studies.

We are incompatible with others because we branched off from the common primate ancestor we had with other apes much farther back than some of the "species" who continue to interbreed successfully. Wolves and dogs, for example, only split with domestication about 12000 years ago, which is nothing compared to the millions of years we've been separated from the other primate lines and on a unique trajectory.

As this is a theory with no evidence conclusive to back the supposition up, I'd have to call it as it stands...not proven (yet). There are arguments now that state Neandrathal walked side by side with and even bred with homo sapien sapien as little as 40,000 years ago...

Furthermore, there are many instances in nature in which species cannot interbreed with each other, yet have clear morphological and genetic shared heritage. The exceptions tend to be issues in which the different "species" are, in fact, not separate species at all (by the biological definition) and instead are sub-species or varieties that we only thought were different species due to geographical or behavioral barriers to interbreeding. When these are removed, interbreeding resumes. Some examples are different species of salmon that occur here in California- a more notable one is the recent interbreeding of Polar Bears and Brown Bears due to a very recent change to geographic isolation as a result of climate change.

But the point there is that the DNA still contained enough compatible attributes to even allow for such continuations of breeding, after long periods of isolation. Horses and donkeys can breed and produce mules (but that is a dead end, due to the sterility of the offspring). Man and apes can not. And genetically speaking, dogs, wolves, horses and donkeys have the same chromosonal numbers...Man and apes do not. But all primates other than man, do share the same number of chromosones...

Overall, evolutionary theory and population genetics are really quite complex and my experience is that most people, unless they study for a few years minimum in this subject, really just don't understand how they work. Even a couple years of introductory biology is insufficient to really get to the nuances and debates about how to define a species, especially given the increasing capacity to use genetics rather than morphology to "see" splits in the biological record. I didn't get to the complex and compelling information until third-year (upper division) biological anthropology classes specifically on population genetics and the sorts of dynamics that make up evolution and hominid morphology and behavior.

To assume one is not knowledgable due to a lack of PHD, would be...an assumption I would not be willing to entertain. One never really knows who exactly makes up an individual's family tree, or what professions they hail from...

Could be priests, engineers, nuclear nurses, lawyers, surgeons, biologists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists, professors and...sailors. Talk around the supper table at family gatherings might be a bit more than "how have you been", and football statistics.

 

[citizenzen]

Just a couple of thoughts, because though I agree that you're a reasonable man, I have a few quibble with your post.

And one ironic twist is that for all the haluboo about man being related to apes, we are actually genetically closer to "porcines", than "primates".

This doesn't pass my smell test (whoa... maybe I am more closely related to the truffle sniffers than I think!). Could you please provide evidence?

Science is based on "absolutes" due to its very nature of trying to decipher the principles by which the universe is designed and functions. Any study which allows for uncertainty and unknowns in order to express a result, conviction or conclusion, is an "art", not science. Or at best, it is a scientific "theory".

Any "scientific conclusion" that is later found to be in error, is promptly removed from the realm of immutable truth (Aristotle and Ptolemy on the earth as the center of the universe). Even Einstein argued his theory on quantum physics was not ready for publishing, because he wasn't certain he had it right (up to the day he died). Yet his constituants took and ran with it as if it were fact (we still do not know for certain if it is).

Oxygen was said to be a supporter of life. This is only partially true. There are organisms (we now know), that are anarobic. And we know that oxygen under pressure, can kill all animals because of its toxicity. The "fact" that oxygen supports life, had to be modified to state that oxygen supports some life, and only under certain conditions.

I find this description of science to be suspect as well.

Absolutes? Immutable truths? I'm not sure what science you're referring to, but I think there are relatively few things that fit that description. The vast majority of scientific knowledge is not absolute, not immutable. Just as your paragraph on oxygen demonstrates, scientific knowledge improves and expands over time.

You say that any uncertainty is "art" and not science. Science doesn't know what gravity is, yet can use it to steer a rocket into collision course with a comet moving at over 100,000 miles per hour! Whatever you want to call it, science—even the uncertain kind—has proven its utility.

 

[Quahom1]

Just a couple of thoughts, because though I agree that you're a reasonable man, I have a few quibble with your post.

This doesn't pass my smell test (whoa... maybe I am more closely related to the truffle sniffers than I think!). Could you please provide evidence?

Man, can take the heart of a pig and live, with little or no rejection, Same with pig skin. Same with intestines. (I don't think other organs have been tried, but then perhaps there have been no human shortage of the same). Ape organs absolutely do not work within the human body.

I find this description of science to be suspect as well.

During the Apollo 13 mission, the laws of inertia were so crucial, three men's live depended on it. The pilot, "Lovett" had to hit the trajectory window the thickness of a postal envelope. Either that or burn up, or bounce off into space. That to me is an absolute. The critical mass of a nuclear bomb, or a nuclear reaction to produce power can not be off more than 1/1,000,000th of a gram, or else you have nothing, or a catastrophe...
Sodium and chlorine are metals that will kill one dead. But if combined exactly, you have...salt, a neccessary nutrient that the human body can't live without. Terminal velocity of a body is 125 MPH. If the material (rip-stop) is not capable of opening and maintaining integrity at such velocity, yet be light enough to be negligable in weight to not detract from the slowing effects as intended, one either hits the ground with a streamer, or hits the ground with a torn shute...either way is not good. Again there is no room for approximates or uncertainty.

Absolutes? Immutable truths? I'm not sure what science you're referring to, but I think there are relatively few things that fit that description. The vast majority of scientific knowledge is not absolute, not immutable. Just as your paragraph on oxygen demonstrates, scientific knowledge improves and expands over time.

That is an error. Hard science has no choice but to be absolute, or else it doesn't work, or worse.

It isn't scientific fact, until proven so. Otherwise it is theory. There is no other exception to science. Applied science is science that is proven (by its nature). Or else the "application" would not work.
You say that any uncertainty is "art" and not science. Science doesn't know what gravity is, yet can use it to steer a rocket into collision course with a comet moving at over 100,000 miles per hour! Whatever you want to call it, science—even the uncertain kind—has proven its utility

.

Science in and of itself knows nothing. People applying "scientific" tools to determine certain principles better know something. Gravity could care less about science or people. Yet gravity is an absolute, and how to work with it requires absolute certainties, or else one can die. Gravity is the law of attraction one body has for another, and unless counteracted, those bodies will meet...

Gravity also has a second property that is relatively new to discovery, and that is the ability to curve space around a body, which throws a whole new wrinkle into the law of attraction.

These are immutable truths...the hard sciences. The rest, meh...

 

[citizenzen]

And one ironic twist is that for all the haluboo about man being related to apes, we are actually genetically closer to "porcines", than "primates".

Man, can take the heart of a pig and live, with little or no rejection, Same with pig skin. Same with intestines. (I don't think other organs have been tried, but then perhaps there have been no human shortage of the same). Ape organs absolutely do not work within the human body.

Simon Jeffery
guardian.co.uk
Thursday 3 January 2002 15.19 GMT

Pig to human transplants

What is special about the pigs?

The five cloned piglets - Noel, Angel, Star, Joy and Mary - have been genetically modified so humans will not reject their internal organs. This opens up the possibility of pig to human transplants, which may save the lives of many seriously ill people.

Can you give pig organs to humans?

The animals are sometimes called "horizontal humans". Although they are more distantly related to us than, for example, the great apes - pigs are about the right size, and so are their organs. A 75kg pig has the same-sized heart as a 75kg human, with the same pumping capacity. In theory it should be possible to farm pigs for their organs, much as we now farm them for bacon. But there are problems.

Such as?

Our immune system is designed to attack any foreign material that enters the body. Many human to human transplants are only possible with powerful drugs that suppress the immune system and prevent it from treating the new organ or tissue as a huge infection and rejecting it. Doctors try to match donors to recipients to keep rejection to a minimum, but the problems are greater with pigs. If an unmodified pig heart were given to a human, the reaction would be so violent that the heart would turn black in 15 minutes and be virtually destroyed in 30.

How do the genetically modified piglets get round this?

They are an important step towards "knock-out" pigs, meaning animals where the specific gene that causes the human immune system to reject pig organs is made inactive - or knocked out. The all-female litter of five lacks one of its two alpha gal genes (which put a sugar on pig cells to which the human immune system reacts aggressively). When an all-male litter is born next month (also lacking one of its two alpha gal genes) it will be possible to mate the two animals. A new breed of pig will be created where every fourth offspring will have no alpha gal gene at all, making it a true "knock out" and an ideal source of spare parts for humans.

Is that all?

No. David Ayares, vice president of research for PPL Therapeutics (the company that helped clone Dolly the Sheep), says it is only the first step and speaks of a need for further modifications before the company can create the "ultimate pig". It will take until at least 2005 to figure out how to deal with adverse immune reactions and conduct trials with primates before human clinical trials can begin. There will also be a need to ensure that pig diseases do not cross to humans, and to establish whether a heart that will serve a pig for its 30-year life span will last longer in humans.
​

 

[Quahom1]

Lol, who is talking about "cloned pigs"? My neighbor can attest to the fact that standard pig organs work in human bodies...she is still alive because of one giving heart parts to her.

Citizen, you are grasping at straws in desperation...

Oh, and Ms. Bailey got her pig parts in 2007...your article is about seven years out of date...

ironic there is no mention of the possibility of ape parts taking pig parts' place in keeping humans alive...

more ironic is your failure to research and provide the possibility of ape parts fixing humans...

If I wanted to be fair, I'd research both sides of the argument...and present both for coparrison...