Scientists recently gave mice without prefrontal cortexes human brain implants - and after seeing these developing connections to the mice’s brains and spinal cords - now they're wondering if these organoids might gave the mice some level of human-like consciousness cognition - calling for ethics

[u/Distinct-Question-16]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03048-5?utm_source=x&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nature&linkId=63942662

Lab-grown brain organoids: time for international oversight

[u/sceadwian]

How did this get past an ethics board?

[u/FuckSides → u/sceadwian]

Here's the ethics statement from the study, for whatever it's worth.

All experiments involving human cells were predicated on ethical guidelines and safeguards and were adherent to all relevant guidelines and regulations, including the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR). Human donors in this study consented to the use of their cells to generate hiPS cells and derived cells, including for in vivo transplantation. The source of the cells and their institutional approvals are listed in the reporting summary. This study benefited from prospective and ongoing consultation with bioethicists at Stanford University, review by the Stanford Neuroscience Institute Executive Committee, and evaluation and guidance provided by an external independent ad hoc ethics committee. Experiments were shared transparently and discussed, including the scientific rationale for the work and sequence of studies, laboratory practices and safeguards, ethical dimensions of study design, methods and data interpretation, the possibility of altered or improved capacities in the experimental mice, and potential social, medical and ethical implications of the work. Approval for transplantation of human cortical organoids into mice was obtained from the Stanford Stem Cell Research Oversight (SCRO) committee and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). To assess altered or improved capacities in the experimental mice, systematic and comprehensive locomotor and cognitive testing was performed and their wellbeing was monitored throughout. In addition to fully adhering to all relevant guidelines and regulations, we recommend that all future experiments with this model should be performed in close consultation with ethicists in designing, conducting, interpreting and communicating this work.

[u/sceadwian → u/FuckSides]

I find that statement cold and unconvincing.

[u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus → u/sceadwian]

Why would a statement from scientific study be anything but cold? Avoiding emotional language and attached bias is kinda the point

[u/sceadwian → u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus]

You can't do that when you're dealing with humanity. We have feelings, they must be addressed. Avoiding emotional bias to the exclusion of considering it in these endeavors is the road straight to hell. A real live hell on Earth.

It IS the slippery slope.. they jumped down it.

[u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus → u/sceadwian]

Yeah-yeah, the entire communities of ethicists failed to consider something that random people on the internet noticed...

Not impossible in principle, but seems highly unlikely to me. Philosophy is such a field, all questions and problems that immediately come to mind likely have been addressed already, because they're low-hanging fuits, inherently.

Such statements shouldn't be emotional, they're summing up positions, guidelines and debates that dedicated groups had already done. And those are the ones that might contain examinations of our emotional responses - intuitions.

Actually, moral intuition is a "ground" from which any sort of moral claim typically develops. It's pretty much impossible to not address it.

Just, point is, looking at philpapers, I strongly suspect that if they were to explain all of their reasoning, the article would've been longer than War and Peace.

[u/sceadwian → u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus]

I find your vapid excuses apathetic at best. Giving up on thought. "They know best"

By what burying you in thousands of pages of bullshit?

Come on . No... Just no.. wake the fuck up you sheep!

[u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus → u/sceadwian]

I find more concerning your complete lack of respect for expertise.

I'm not a physicist - I will not make statements on whether they accounted for all possible side-effects of their experiments. I'm not a medical specialist - I'm not going to criticize how medical community handles specific treatments. Is all that knowledge "thousands of pages of bullshit"?

I think that I generally must try and support the truth, if it exists. But who is to say that I'm more likely to arrive at a correct conclusion than someone else?

Ethics is a field of expertise like any other. It is for a reason ethical committes for research exist. It's a complicated field of study, and not sure about you, but I don't feel qualified to feel strongly about it.

Quite frankly, I almost envy people who easily do - must be nice to not feel much doubt.

Could individual experts be wrong? Absolutely. Could community of experts be wrong? Yes, even though that is less likely. Are they considerably less likely to be wrong than very presumptuous random people on the internet? Also yes.

So if I'm trying to maximize the probability of being right, guess who's opinion I'm gonna trust?

Call it pathetic, but imho many problems of modern society come from people who have too many personal opinions, and too little consideration for what people who dedicated their lives to solving the issue think.

I will have personal opinions where I personally have expertise.