This strikes me as something that could be revolutionary. Specifically, it stirs up memories of sci-fi novels and movies where advanced races have given up sex and sexual reproduction because it's "Too messy."
Being able to reproduce without needing functional male/female sex organs, using only skin cells and technology, is an interesting step. It could theoretically apply to same-sex couples, the elderly, children, or people with various disabilities, injuries, or other forms of infertility.
The same-sex focus of this article (specifically, the "OMG this totally defeats an objection to gay marriage" bit in the intro) is an unnecessary politicizing of an otherwise technologically/biologically interesting concept.
Very good point, I wasn't saying it totally defeats all objections to gay marriage, just the specific reproductive argument against it. But I agree, politics does tend to detract from science.
A lot of trouble for very little? If its absolutely important for your children to be statistically correlated to you, beyond the 99.9% that all humans are ALREADY correleated? It's been said that adoptive children are sometimes loved too.
It seems a very conscious act to go to the trouble to modify your genome in the lab. Leaving little room for evolutionary impulse to be the guiding factor.
15 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 40.0 ms ] threadThe same fundies whose infertile wives undergo medical treatment to enable them to conceive.
The same-sex focus of this article (specifically, the "OMG this totally defeats an objection to gay marriage" bit in the intro) is an unnecessary politicizing of an otherwise technologically/biologically interesting concept.
(bottom line - the "sperm" created for iPS don't really work as such)
It's still probably coming eventually. And why stop there? Polyamorous n-tuples could have a kid who was a mix of varying proportions of the parents.