Glider

Heheh...yeah...strange blokes sloping around in huge Lional's and corduroy jackets with leather patches, saying "just call me Steve" and expecting to be taken seriously.

Exactly, and in this case, reward is inherent in the learning process.

Depends on how you look at it I 'spose. Threre really isn't any difference between conditioning and learning apart from volition. Classical and operant conditioning are just different forms of learning. They both require the laying down of associations (in these cases between stimulus > response or action > outcome, respectively). Scholarly learning also requires the laying down of associations (traces), in this case between new information and previously learned information. It also requires a degree of abstraction, which the parrot may or may not have (I don't really know), though it seems unlikely. I've seen it argued that scholastic learning can be seen as a form of operant conditioning, where study is the action and good grades are positive reinforcement, bad grades are punishment and increased understanding (particularly when confronted with exams) is negative reinforcement. Of course, I think this argument depends on the student giving a toss in the first place.

What he said :bravo:

That's true, and it's a bit of a problem too, especially for the students, and particularly when they later enter a field where there are many "wrong" answers and where they are expected to express themselves in a way that means the same to every reader. I don't really think schools are doing their students any favours by teaching them that.

Yeah!...that's him!...that's the one wot done it!

...except for the structures influenced by by neural plasticity.

Unfortunately, this is a possibility. The problem here though is that the two aren't mutually exclusive. To make it legal and perform it under controlled and regulated conditions, doesn't necessarily mean it won't be performed elsewhere under less controlled or regulated conditions. It would most likely simply degenerate into a race to copyright the first sucessful technique (full speed ahead and damn the consequences!). I think that to make it legal would also undermine your ability to prosecute those who screwed it up, as the argument wouldn't be simply that they broke the law by doing it, but would revolve around procedural issues (e.g. "We're not saying you shouldn't have done it, we're saying you did it wrong!" countered by "As it's not against the law to do it, who are you to say HOW it should be done, particularly as you haven't got it right yet either?".) This would get nowhere and serve only to keep lawers rich for decades . At least if it was illegal those who did it could be penalised under law, and all said and done, it would be extremely difficult for them to keep their activities secret, especially if they ever succeeded. In light of this, I believe that making it illegal would act as an effective deterrent, because I can't imagine that anybody would want to invest the unbelievable amounts of man-hours, money and resources into attempting to develop something they knew they could never reveal and from which they would never benefit (or even recover their initial investment). Bear in mind that (as has been pointed out) ethics are subjective and fluid. I'm not saying reproductive cloning is and will always be wrong. I am saying that at this point in time, we do not have a rationale for reproductive cloning beyond "it can be done" (and even that is not strictly true), and as I've said before, that argument justifies nothing. We have no compelling reason to clone, therefore any suffering by anybody resulting from it would be for nothing. My argument is (and always has been) that before going down that road, we need a rationale that at least counters (and prefereably outweighs) any negative impacts of reproductive cloning and the (many) reasons for not doing it.

He never said 'good scientists are unbiased'. He said Which is quite true. Whilst it is equally true that all people have biases, good scientists remain objective in their practice. Moreover, as they are aware that being people, they have biases, most research active scientists will adhere strictly to established research methodology to ensure objective research practice. Research methodology has developed (partially) to ensure that research remains unaffected by individual bias. A good example is the double-blind design. Moreover, at the end of the day, they all realise that their research will be reviewed by non-interested colleagues and peers. So whilst the scientist as an individual will surely have biases, the scientist as a 'good scientist' will remain objective. There are, of course, many exceptions, but then it is arguable whether or not these are 'good scientists'.

This is a good point. If the data are available and may be of benefit and possibly help to save lives, then I think it should be used. It's a tricky (and very sensitive) question though. It's possible that some may see using the data as in some way condoning that research, but wouldn't throwing it away be ensuring that those people died for nothing?

You shouldn't be afraid to say what you mean. Just say 'Killed'. There is some debate concerning the existence of heaven, but it is certain that any attempt to send somebody there would involve killing them. So you mean "...some people just need to be killed. How would you go about this? (I hear Cyclon-B is very effective). I agree, this seems to be a selfish attitude. It's almost self-contradictory that someone can want a child so badly that they don't care how much harm that child has to suffer so they can 'posess' it. There's something wrong there somewhere. The word 'retard' is a transitive verb. It means 'to slow down', 'to delay', 'to inhibit development', so whilst it would be correct to say that "You are retarded" it wouldn't be correct to say "You are a retard". This seems plausable. It might be the case that people who can't reproduce together may have mutually incompatible genes. If this is the case, then there is an issue there that needs to be addressed.

He does, but I'm not 100% certain he had Kleifelter's, there are a few condition that can lead to similar states. One of the results of Kleinfelter's is testicular atrophy, so sterility would be expected, but I'm not sure. I don't really know enough about it. It may be a qustion of degree or severity of the condition. Is that the book by James Kalat? Good book that. As for how sexually ambiguous infants should be raised, Radical Edward has a point. Masculinisation (or not) of certain centres of the brain will direct the child to orient themselves to one sex or another, so I'd say it's probably better to wait until they 'decide' for themselves (i.e. begin to display characteristic male/female orientation) rather than deciding for them and risking surgically forcing them into a category they ultimately don't feel they belong to.

That's it! (thanks for that, it was driving me nuts!). Keinfelter's syndrome (XXY) genotype which results in varying degrees of hermaphoditism.

I'm not really sure why time is an issue. If there are an extremely high number of possible chemical combinations, and only one that would lead to life, then we might expect it to take a long time to occur. However, if the combinations are occurring randomly, then each combination (including repetitions) has an equal chance of occurring at each trial. Therefore, the probability of the 'viable' combination occurring first, is the same as it occurring last (or at any other point in the series). This assumes the combinations are occurring in series. If we assume that these combinations are occurring in parallel (i.e. as many 'trials' at once as there are possible combinations, as seems likely), then we might expect the time required to produce a viable combination to be significantly reduced, even taking into account repetition of inviable combinations. This principle would apply to each step in the many that would have been required to result in the first 'proto-cell'. By this reasoning, there is no particular reason to expect it to have taken billions of years, whether it actually did or not; we have just as much reason to ask "why did it take so long?" as "why did it happen so quicky?". As soon as a particular combination occurred that, through some peculiarity of it conformation, had a propensity for self-replication, randomness would be reduced as the process is now limited to a much narrower set of possibilities and each trial would result in an exact (or close) duplicate of that first combination and we now have a 'driving force' (the chemical attraction to the specific molecules required for replication, plus the odd replication error, some of which would have been, by chance, advantagious) and we may reasonably expect the process to accelerate as all the previous possible but 'irrelevant' combinations would be eliminated from that particular set. It's only a thought. I've heard of the 'seeding' idea which suggests that organic life may have come to Earth in cometary detritus or in a metiorite, but that still leaves a problem, in that it must still have originated somewhere.

...'because women have tongues'...heeheehee :haha: That's true about the androgen sensitivity (I can't remember the name of the syndrome), but it's a continuum and there are (apparently) degrees of insensitivity to androgens, which result in different degrees of masculinisation. I knew a male who although definitely male (married with kids), had structural (skeletal) attributes of a female; wide pelvis, hyperextensive elbows and abducting knee joints. He also had little body hair and a high pitched voice. On the masculine side, he had broad shoulders and was over six feet tall.

The 'default setting' for an embryo is female. It takes testosterone to masculinise the embryo so that it forms into a male foetus. Nonetheless, all the anatomical bits are universal and so each sex has all bits and the equivalent of any bit can be found in both sexes in some form (either under developed, fully developed or developed differently). It's more efficient to start with a universal template and then develop (or not) the appropriate bits. So, Battlefield Earth...not worth a look then?

True...you have a point there.

I think 1st Title, second sub title. For what it's worth, they just seemed to read more easilyand together, give a fair insight into the subject matter.

Then I apologise. I had no way of knowing you only wanted to argue with the ignorant. More than likely yes, essentially. Hardly definitive, is it? Would these people be the 'ignorant' to whom you refer? Oh, well that's ok then. However, the statement by the AMA never suggested the pressure would come from the parents. it said "Human cloning risks limiting, at least psychologically, the seemingly unlimited potential of new Human Beings and thus creating enormous pressures on the clone-child to live up to expectations based on (italics added) the life of the clone-parent". Then again I must apologise, though I can't think how this news hasn't reached the American Medical Association yet. I think somebody should tell them. Sure it can. But will it? Business can be conducted without fraud, but is it? People can live together without prejudice, but do they? Eugenics is not a separate issue. Not strictly true, because: a) It was stated that: "The risk of major structural abnormailities occurring would be high (italics added) in surviving embryos". This translates as a 'high probability' and high probability is not chance level. b) We can avoid it altogether. As any harm or suffering resulting from cloning would be our responsibility, 'reduce' is not acceptable. Reach 'eliminate' and I'll be listening. You missed the point concerning possible damage to the gene pool "...human cloning could alter irreversably the gene pool and exacerbate genetic problems that arise from deleterious genetic mutations, resulting in harms to future generations." (AMA code of ethics). Quite right. If I couldn't see the hypocrisy in other people's arguments, then I would be a cretin. I say! Surely this threat is in violation of some policy or other? Ahhh...I see...and you wanted to argue only with those who couldn't elucidate this difference. It's becoming clearer now. Well once again I find I must apologize. I must have been asleep when it was taught that: "It is the duty of the reader to make clear buried or obscure meanings from ambiguous or ambivalent text" AHA! There's the policy thingy. So I'll just assume the 'cretin', 'fool' and 'moron' things were expressed 'with all due respect' then, shall I? ...'digressed'...teeheehee. If you'd read the text you'd see you weren't called an idiot. It said "if you can't tell that there is a significant difference between reproductive cloning and invitro fertilisation or MZ twins with respect to both procedure and implications then you are an idiot". I.e. only if you fulfill the former criterion does the second apply. This is an example of the weakest of all arguments; the 'Emperor's new clothes'. It translates as "If you don't agree with me, you are in some way flawed" and carries as much weight in debate as "If you think... ...then you are a hypocrite". I have noticed (from this and other posts) that the word 'idiot', when you feel it has been applied to you, really seems burn you up. However, I have also noticed that you seem to apply it (and related terms) quite freely to other people (and there was you, wondering if I could see the hypocrisy in other people's arguments. )This seems to me to be the application of double standards (i.e "it's ok for me to do it to others, but not for others to do it to me"). It is this type of reasoning which leads me to question your ethics. I mean this as an observation, not a value judgement, but you do appear to have trouble recognising the ethical/moral issues inherent in some debates (cloning, war etc..) and frequently sidestep them. Whether this stems from an unwillingness or an inability to adress them, I have no way of knowing. Nonetheless, if you are unwilling/unable to recognise/address ethical issues inherent to a given situation, then the opinion that you shouldn't be allowed within a country mile of people who are sick, vulnerable or have their ability to make informed choices/provide infomed consent concerning their treatment impaired in any way is perfectly reasonable. Where, then, is the disrespect? I'm not exactly certain of the precise definition of 'flame war', but under the circumstances I suppose it must be some testosterone driven term for long-distance name calling. In which case, I'll try not to lose too much sleep over it. But I regress... Aww for for the love of..... Infanticide is not only unethical, it is illegal on this planet.

No, I smoke too. I tried to quit once but the cravings were really bad. It didn't help that we had to attend as witnesses in a murder trial shortly after I stopped. I started smoking again then. I'll quite one day though.

This may be true, and in any event, you certainly have the right to see yourself and other people that way. However, acting on that opinion could be problematic, as a fundamental flaw in your assertion that Human Beings are merely "organic machines" is that Human Beings are capable of suffering. Many people do not see themselves or others as merely "organic machines", and you have to acknowledge that you don't have the right to impose your beliefs concerning the nature of Human Beings on others, against their will and without their consent. This is precisely what you would be doing to a clone by treating it as a "machine" to be "altered, duplicated and manipulated" on your whim. By your own admission, you are nothing more than an organic machine that can be altered, duplicated and manipulated. By this definition, it should be perfectly acceptable to you if somebody were to take you off the street and remove one of your kidneys for grafting into someone in end-stage renal failure (and there are many who would gladly take that opportunity). After all, they'd only be taking a spare part to fix a broken machine, and you can function perfectly well on one, as long as you restrict and strictly control your diet, avoid all alcohol and drinks containing caffine, restrict your levels of physical activity and accept a significant reduction in your life-expectancy, but hey, what the hell...you're only a machine. Is it possible that your definition of Human Beings applies only to others, and not to yourself?

Ok, but let's be sure we all know what that term means. Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) is known as therapeutic cloning and is used in the production of stem cells for research. The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) supports on-going research into SCNT and has endorsed legislation that would allow such research to flourish. Reproductive cloning, on the other hand, is intended to create human beings by cloning human embryos. There is a clear and distinct difference between the two procedures, and the AAMC and the National Academy of Sciences recommends a legally enforceable ban on all forms of this type of cloning. I can't help but note you have carefully avoided most of the salient arguments against reproductive cloning and substituted them with simplistic, invalid (and easily rebutted) blanket statements. "The National Academy of Sciences, Research!America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, Association of American Medical Colleges, Association of American Universities, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, and 40 Nobel Laureates all have called for continued exploration of the scientific and medical promise of stem cell research and somatic cell nuclear transfer. All of these groups also have called for a ban on human reproductive cloning." (See here). These institutions and individuals have valid reasons for opposing reproductive cloning. They don't include your 'arguments against' 1 & 2a. With respect to point 2b: "Embryos are destroyed in research". The key is in the statement There is a clear and important distinction between losing embryos and destroying them. similar to the distinction between 'losing' a patient and 'destroying' him. With respect to points 3 & 4: "Clones would be outcasts in society. Clones would have no identity." Nobody said clones would be "outcasts in society" or that they would have "no identity". Among the points that have been raised are: The potential for psychosocial harms introduced by cloning. - These include "violations of privacy and autonomy. Human cloning risks limiting, at least psychologically, the seemingly unlimited potential of new human beings and thus creating enormous pressures on the clone-child to live up to expectations based on the life of the clone-parent" (American Medical Association Code of Ethics E-2. 147). The possible impact on familial and social relations. - "The family unit may be altered with the introduction of cloning, and more thought is required on a societal level regarding how to construct societal relations." (AMA Code of Ethics). The commercialisation of Human Beings. - In that it has been proposed that "The 'industrial production' mentality in which human life is used for its tissues is dangerous, reducing the tiniest and most vulnerable members of the human family to mere 'products'. Human beings should not beome a commodity and commercial interest in cloning should be withstood. If human cloning is permitted for any purpose, no matter how specific, there will be pressure on IVF clinics to produce more 'spare embryos', and on women to donate eggs and to offer their wombs as incubators. There is a serious potential for coersion." (Piercy, 1999. Scientific, ethical and regulatory Considerations relevant to Cloning of Human Beings. Submitted to the Australian House of Representitives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs). Eugenics - "Like other interventions that can change individual's reproductive patterns and the resulting genetic characteristics of a population, human cloning has the potential to be used in a eugenic or discriminatory fashion -- practices that are incompatible with the ethical norms of medical practice" (AMA Code of Ethics). "Philosphically, pre-implantaion screening is a modern form of eugenics and is therefore to be shunned" (Piercy, 1999). With respect to point 5a: "Cloned babies would be deformed" It's not just about the babies. The 'Dolly the sheep' clone was the result of 277 failed attempts. "Since animal cloning experiments thus far have been fraught with many mishaps and failures, it would be unjustifiable to subject human emryos to such research. The risk of major structural abnormailities occurring would be high in surviving embryos. This would lead to further loss of the lives of embryos, and physical and psychological risk to mothers if induced abortions were then procured" (Piercy, 1999). You state that "By the time any organization got approval to work with humans, the birth defect frequency would be no higher than natural births". The problem here is one of responsibility. Where defects occur in natural births due to happenstance, to (attempt to) remove the element of chance by cloning means that we will be responsible for any and all defects that may from the cloning process. With respect to point 5b: "We couldn't predict long-term problems". You are right, this is absolutely correct. However, most of us realise that we have a responsibility to avoid creating them. Moreover, the problems we created may not be restricted to the clone itself. "...human cloning could alter irreversably the gene pool and exacerbate genetic problems that arise from deleterious genetic mutations, resulting in harms to future generations." (AMA Code of Ethics). Whilst environmental factors may at some point result in the same, the question is once again one of responsibility. It is one thing to have environmental factors exerting random forces (however potentially harmful), but it is completely different to cause such problems ourselves, especially when the negative effects of such probelems would be suffered by others. ...and if you can't tell that there is a fundamental difference between reproductive cloning and invitro fertilisation or MZ twins with respect to both procedure and implications then you are an idiot, and a potentially dangerous one. Your (apparent) lack of ethics and ethical reasoning ability provide some cause for concern in light of your previously expressed aim to graduate as a medical doctor. I take (some) comfort in the fact that should you ever achieve that aim, you will be obliged to abide by the AMA Code of Ethics (See here), whether you agree with them or not. My personal opinion however, is that if this isn't a wind-up, and this really is the height of your ethical reasoning, then you shouldn't be allowed within a country mile of a patient.

If you really want to know about pain, you might need to. This might have something to do with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The anterior ACC is associated with emotional (affective) processing and the posterior ACC is associated with cognitive processing. Reciprocal suppression of the cognitive subdivision during intense emotional states has been observed. Individuals with severe depression and normal subjects anticipating pain and experiencing experimentally induced emotion all showed deactivation of the cognitive subdivision (Bush et al., 2000). People in pain are known to show impairment in their cognitive abilities. As this supression effect is reciprocal, there is no reason to suppose that certain qualities or quantities of activity in the cognitive subdivision could not suppress activity in the affective subdivision, resulting in the supression of pain. Indeed, it might be a part of the central pain control mechanism. It is probably better to think of the brain as a 'system' as opposed to a collection of discrete parts. Rather than there being parts which work this, and other parts which work that, any effect of brain function (walking, picking up a pencil, talking etc., etc.) is the result of the function of a system; a circuit if you like, which involves many different areas each exerting a different influence (addative/subtractive/modulatory) to produce the end result. Having said all that, you might want to reconsider the wisdom of inflicting pain on yourself to see if you can still do maths. Most of your observations have already been shown in controlled experiments and reported in the literature. I would suggest that reading up on the subject is likely to be significantly less hazardous. That appears to be a possibility, though it is a long way from being realized. Tricky question. If you ask "which part of the CNS first processes pain (nociceptive signals)" then that would probably be the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. There is evidence that the a degree of (low level) primary processing occurs in the laminae of the substantia gelatinosa in the dorsal horn. If, on the other hand, you ask "which part of the brain analyses pain (i.e. the experience), then that would have to be the limbic system (from the reticular formation in the brainstem upwards). But again, this is a system composed of many different 'parts' as opposed to 'a part'. Morover, as I said above, there is a central pain control mechanism which involves decending fibres from the limbic system and the periaqueductal grey matter to the raphe nucleus in the brainstem and from there down via raphe-spinal fibres which terminate around the primary spinothalamic synapses in the laminae of the dorsal horn. So nociceptive signals recieved by the limbic system, will already have been modulated to a degree by activity in the limbic system. References: Bush, G., Luu, P., & Posner, M. I. (2000). Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4 (6), 215-222.

By providing nicotine. The patches, gum and inhalers all deliver doses of nicotine in order to reduce the cravings which gives the individual the chance to deal with the behavioural/habitual side of smoking. The nicorette substitutes provide reduced doses of nicotine, just to take the nagging away, but importantly they are free of collateral substances; tar and all the other toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke (of which there are at least 60 I believe). It's a bit like putting heroin addicts on methodone; it's a weaning process.

Ok, controlled analgesics then. You say kids take these before playing football? No apology required. Slightly inaccurate is no problem...wildly inaccurate just makes it a lot harder for you to make your point. Afferent (sensory) nerves will fire whenever they are exposed to their stimulus. We have no control over this at all (unless you include topical and local anaesthetics). Your description of the event involves nothing to indicate the boy was suffering; no screaming or writhing or attempts to escape. Given that pain is entirely subjective, and can only be measured in another by observation of behaviours, on what do you base the assumption that he felt pain? The problem here is that there isn't any one part of the brain that 'makes us respond to pain', so which bit of his 'conscious brain' would this boy have 'shut down'? Pain is a function of circuitry. The basic elements of the circuit have been isolated and are known collectively as the pain matrix. This involves the lateral (sensory-discriminative) system, including the lateral thalamus and somatosensory cortices I & II, and the medial (affective-motivational) pain system involving the medial thalamus, the anterior cingulate gyrus, prefrontal and frontal cortex, the insula and the periaqueductal grey area (PAG). I look forward to it.