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Real simple:

What are you?

  • Pro-life

    Votes: 19 32.8%

  • Pro-choice

    Votes: 39 67.2%
  • Total voters
    58
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Felicity said:
It has nothing to do with whether it's single celled or not...how about you do the research, jallman? It has to do with the structure and how those cells function.
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I did 4 years worth of the research as an undergrad. It bored me then and it bores me now, which is why I am enjoying playing with the logical and semantic conundrums. I think it illustrates how the differences in perception and the shades of meaning get used as obstacles by both sides.

So you didn't answer...a zygote, just prior to its first division, is single celled...practically the mother (or father) of all stem cells. Do you not consider it an organism anymore? Or how about the cell that breaks off at the 4 cell division and will go on to become a twin...is it not an organism simply because it is a single cell for a short time?
 
jallman said:
Eukaryotes can be single celled organisms. What disqualifies a stem cell from being an organism? Nothing that anyone else has uncovered unless talloullou wants to impress us again with her sleuthing skills...;)

Remember, an zygote is single celled initially...do you not consider it an organism anymore?
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stem cells are believed to have the ability to divide without limit and to give rise to daughter cells that can form specialized cells. These cells can be categorized as pluripotent, which are capable of specializing into many but not necessarily all tissues of an organism, or totipotent, which have unlimited ability to differentiate into extraembryonic membranes, the embryo, and all postembryonic tissues and organs. Reports published in 1998 by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University on the successful isolation and culture of pluripotent human stem cells have created the prospect of developing an entire array of new cellular therapies. Stem cell research holds the promise of helping us better understand the most fundamental processes of cellular specialization and human development.

However, the discoveries have also raised a number of ethical and legal issues. Under language included in the annual Labor-HHS Appropriations bill since 1996, the federal government is prohibited from funding research involving human embryos. In January 1999, the General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services determined that the federal government was not prohibited from funding research utilizing human pluripotent stem cells based on the scientific determination that stem cells are not "organisms" and therefore cannot be considered human embryos.
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AAMC : Stem Cell Research

If the stem cells are totipotent they're organisms. If the stem cells are pluripotent they're not.
 
jallman said:
I did 4 years worth of the research as an undergrad. It bored me then and it bores me now, which is why I am enjoying playing with the logical and semantic conundrums. I think it illustrates how the differences in perception and the shades of meaning get used as obstacles by both sides.
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well...boredom is a lousy excuse for being lazy...especially when you're the one who led us all down this rosey path. And--you're kinda admitting to the insencerity that talloulou took issue with.

So you didn't answer...a zygote, just prior to its first division, is single celled...practically the mother (or father) of all stem cells. Do you not consider it an organism anymore? Or how about the cell that breaks off at the 4 cell division and will go on to become a twin...is it not an organism simply because it is a single cell for a short time?
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I don't know what your point is...every human being was a single celled organism at one point--or as your twin example--originated from a single cell organism.
 
Felicity said:
well...boredom is a lousy excuse for being lazy...especially when you're the one who led us all down this rosey path.

I don't know what your point is...every human being was a single celled organism at one point--or as your twin example--originated from a single cell organism.
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So then why don't you consider a stem cell an organism?
 
jallman said:
So then why don't you consider a stem cell an organism?
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Talloulou already stated the difference. Totipotency.


Stem Cells
The only totipotent cells are the fertilized egg and the first 4 or so cells produced by its cleavage (as shown by the ability of mammals to produce identical twins, triplets, etc.).




If I didn't like you so much I'd think that was another attempt at equivocation.:mrgreen:
 
Felicity said:
Talloulou already stated the difference. Totipotency.


Stem Cells
The only totipotent cells are the fertilized egg and the first 4 or so cells produced by its cleavage (as shown by the ability of mammals to produce identical twins, triplets, etc.).
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Are those first 4 cells not stem cells then. If you consider them organisms, and stem cells can't be organisms, then the first four divisions can't be stem cells.

Conundrums...they are almost as fascinating as watching people lose their marbles over them...tee-hee.
 
Felicity said:
If I didn't like you so much I'd think that was another attempt at equivocation.:mrgreen:
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It isn't an attempt at equivocation, but it is an illustration of how a conversation can go wildly out of control ever a bit of minutia that everyone pretty much agrees on anyway. It is also leading back to an earlier question from whence the conversation broke down into an intellectual brawl.
 
jallman said:
Are those first 4 cells not stem cells then. If you consider them organisms, and stem cells can't be organisms, then the first four divisions can't be stem cells.

Conundrums...they are almost as fascinating as watching people lose their marbles over them...tee-hee.
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Explain further please. I'm not sure what you are claiming I asserted.
 
Felicity said:
Explain further please. I'm not sure what you are claiming I asserted.
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Okay...so if you state that a stem cell is not an organism. But an organism can be composed on one stem cell...you have created a verbal paradox. It's not a real paradox or even a virtual paradox...it's just a verbal conundrum. If you separate the two statements, both are true. But you can't follow either statement with the other without making one of them false. But we know both of them to be true if taken separately. Yet, one is a debunking of the other...

See what I am getting at? We both know logically that you have to take each statement in context...much like the words baby and fetus.

Moral of the story: Do I really believe a colon cell is an organism? No. A loud, resounding no. Can I show that a colon cell acts like an organism? Definitely, and I did.

Is an undeveloped fetus the equivalent of a baby sleeping in its mother's arms? No. Can you show a difference in a baby and a fetus at the cellular level? No.
 
Felicity said:
Explain further please. I'm not sure what you are claiming I asserted.
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Is it post 719? I was thinking along the lines of most other stem cells and was not viewing the zygote in terms of a stem cell. you understand, that I don't consider the zygote a "stem cell" but rather a human being, right?
 
Felicity said:
Is it post 719? I was thinking along the lines of most other stem cells and was not viewing the zygote in terms of a stem cell. you understand, that I don't consider the zygote a "stem cell" but rather a human being, right?
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I understand that...but I don't agree with you. So when I say a zygote isn't a human being, I am coming from the perception that it is a cell. Granted, a very important cell, but a cell nonetheless.
 
jallman said:
Pro lifers do not care. There is no point in discussing women's rights. They do not care that women are punished in our society, still, for exerting their independence. They don't care that they are valuable members of our society who deserve respect and equality and control over her bodily functions. They just want to inundate you with moral disapproval and exert their misogynist dogma because when you get down to the heart of it, they believe it's okay to strip women of rights. Talloullou will assert that an embryo carries the same worth as a fully developed baby when she knows, in fact, that it doesn't. Jerry will thank her posts and together they will dismiss or bar logic and reasoning from the conversation except when it conveniences them. It's all just gymnastics. Anything to drive you into suppression. The truth is finally sinking in for me that it is not about saving a baby, it's about oppressing women and punishing them for being independent and sexually assertive. It's not that they are misguided or not aware of fetal development, its that at the end of the day they just don't care. They just don't freakin care. My biggest fear is that science and biology are being halted and polluted with this anti-progressive agenda as well as stopping any chance to advance in other, life saving technologies like stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. The fact that people die of genetic diseases that these technologies could eradicate is something else that they just don't care about. They really just do not care. It's a complete lack of respect for human life and generations have been raised on it.
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Beautiful post, Jall.
 
Felicity said:
So I see your moral....what's your point?
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That I see a zygote as a cell (which it is) and you see it as a human being (which it is). It's a differing value placement on the same clump of genetic material. I value it only for what it is and you value it for what it is going to become.
 
jallman said:
Granted, a very important cell, but a cell nonetheless.
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A totally individual and unique cell that is the first biological moments of a totally unique and individual human life.
 
Jerry said:
....I also shear in your taste in firearms.....
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Your *creative* spelling of the word "share" makes a lot of your statements sound really creepy, Jer.
Like, especially that time you said that conjoined twins shear organs.
You're a strange one, alright.
 
jallman said:
That I see a zygote as a cell (which it is) and you see it as a human being (which it is). It's a differing value placement on the same clump of genetic material. I value it only for what it is and you value it for what it is going to become.
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So in that you are saying that you do not value the lives of some human beings.
 
1069 said:
Your *creative* spelling of the word "share" makes a lot of your statements sound really creepy, Jer.
Like, especially that time you said that conjoined twins shear organs.
You're a strange one, alright.
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Every time I see one of Jerry's posts, I am reminded of this poem by Janet Minor:

I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It plainly marks four my revueMistakes
I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it
I'm shore your please to no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
 
Okay, so lets try this moral contortion.

You value a stem cell that is totipotent because it is a human life. Say that totipotent cell is mine, for instance, and I die and the totipotent cell is left in a lab. It is viable.

Does that totipotent stem cell have a right to life at this point?
 
jallman said:
Every time I see one of Jerry's posts, I am reminded of this poem by Janet Minor:

I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It plainly marks four my revueMistakes
I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it
I'm shore your please to no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.
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But of coarse, my deer .... :mrgreen:
 
jallman said:
I am saying I don't value cells and masses of cells above human beings already among us.
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See now, jallman...this doesn't work. All human beings are "masses of cells" and the value judgement that you place upon the "mass of cells" is arbitrary based upon your opinion of what makes an individual human valuable. By agreeing that a zygote is a totipotent cell, you acknowledge that a zygote is an individual biological entity. Your judgement that it is merely "cells" is based upon nothing but a desire to "de-humanize" this distinct human entity. What is your explanation for the biologically individual human entity that is a totipotent cell being of less value than other biologically individual human entities? In other words--why are you a bigot?:mrgreen:
 
jallman said:
Okay, so lets try this moral contortion.

You value a stem cell that is totipotent because it is a human life. Say that totipotent cell is mine, for instance, and I die and the totipotent cell is left in a lab. It is viable.

Does that totipotent stem cell have a right to life at this point?
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A totipotent cell can't be your's as it would be a different organism, ie. another. If you die the organism that is you is dead. Any totipotent cells would be from "another."
 
Although right now embryos are seen and treated as "property" despite their individual biological status.
 
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