In the last 15 years I have lost no less than 7 family members and close friends to Cancer...3 more have had "close calls" but have managed to pull through the disease. The way I see it is simple, in our current climate it would be safe to say that we are not even close to finding a "cure for cancer". However, that is not to say that with a hell of a lot of research we could change our way of thinking and develop an entirely new, currently unbeknown, approach to the matter. If you took our current knowledge and technology back just 100 years, we would not believe how much we have acheived in such short a space of time. I don't see it as false hope to think that in the future, although maybe not in our lifetime, we may be able to advance our technology to help us at least surpress cancerous symptoms.

As for diabetes, another "genetic disposition" that my family holds (can't wait for that!), there have been MANY advances in its treatment over the last 20 or so years. My father experienced some serious diabetic problems last year for the first time in his life (almost 60). He was prescribed a new kind of insulin that has only just been released. It is entirely different in the way that his body is less dependent on the drug and therefore can eat at any time of the day or night without repercussions...unlike the old method of having to inject and eat at set times of the day. Unfortunately users of the old drug can't safetly switch to the new version, however the next generation of diabetics have and will benefit hugely. So with this enormous leap in medicine in mind, you may understand that I hold a large amount of faith in human intelligence.

As for the mice, this may be seen as hypocritical but I don't believe in experiments like this, I can see no reason for them. Meddling with Mother Nature in this way is likely to serious resulting problems....the way I see it is that we're in enough **** as it is, why add to our problems?!! However not all Gene research is like this, and therefore I can't see why we are spending needlessly on so-called "groundbreaking experiments", when we could be pumping the same resources into helping save the millions a year that die from diseases like Cancer.

or we could be colonizing space.. but thats just OT. hang on.. we *are* in OT

I agree with kimk, we should be doing things other that performing genetic experiments. Now that doesn't mean I'm not in support of things like the diabetes advancements gromit mentioned, but is it all that necessary to be able to make a mouse without a dad?

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't"

I reckon good 'ole science could cure Cancer. We are in fact coming ever closer to beating it, not directly fighting it, but by avoiding it. Advances in cloning will soon mean we will have plenty of organs to go around, just clone 'em, cut 'em up and stick what's needed into the original. All we have to do is crush all the ethical/religious crap. I mean, if there was some major force (nature/god) that science was opposing, then it would be impossible to do anything that that force didn't agree with.
Another way we could cheat death is by transfering our minds into robots (which will almost certainly be possible, although definitely illegal, in the next 50 or so years), which would make us immortal, although technically speaking, we would still die, only we'd be replaced by an identical (in mind) version of ourselves.
My idea is that this could be done on death, which would mean that humanity would last no longer than the current generation, to be replaced for ever by human minds in machines bodies. New minds could be created using cloning.

That... is my dream.

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If you think about this a little bit, though, it is not as if Mother Nature doesn't tinker with genomes. Consider the virus. One of its greater survival powers is its propensity to mutate or at least, to be readily susceptible to it.

Bacteria also are very capable of developing into strains that are highly resistant to modern anti-bacterial agents. This also is a form of genetic "manipulation" of a sort.

So is it against Nature? I don't know. Does it still repel me morally? Yes.

This is just a guess, Corsair, but do you play Total Annihilation a lot? On topic, though, I think that would be a good idea if a) they could recreate the mind exactly and b) if the robot was similar enough to the human body that we're adapted to use it. Certainly the first one needs some work

"There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't"

Never heard of Total Annhilation. Is it a kind of soft drink?

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yes cosair, total anhilation totally anhilates all bodily defense mechanisms and leaves you open to bacteria and viruses which inevitably runs over your other tissues rendering you clinically dead within a day, hence the name total annhilation.


back OT please (whereby OT = on topic and NOT off topic)

Edited by - kimk on 4/23/2004 10:30:29 AM

Arg, kimk, OT, TO, you're making me to be confusedesness

I was a moose once......

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All we have to do is crush all the ethical/religious crap. I mean, if there was some major force (nature/god) that science was opposing, then it would be impossible to do anything that that force didn't agree with.

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That argument is completely flawed by freewill. But thats another thread altogether.

Back OT: I think this whole argument can be summed up with one question..."Why waste money trying to get two females to procreate without a male?"...

i read an article in readers digest about how adam could be eve's rib. it was talking about how man was created by higher testoterone release.

and grom you got a point there (sh!t ! nooo i've been infected with the multi smiley virus!)

Thats amazing though you have to give them to em, they came through with that but we cant have ladies ruling the world, hopefully the breakthrough wont cause to much trouble for us lads

until they decide that they could do a better job of running the planet than we could, mind you, they could be right

believe it or not lads.. tho it may not seem like it on TLR.. the female population actually outnumbers us on this planet.