You couldn’t just clone a single organ. You would have to clone basically all of them to know for certain, including the brain. Having them be separate isn’t any better, it could actually be worse. You’re trying to do things we not only don’t have the technology for, but would be very morally questionable.
Testing on animals is morally questionable! Although I’m talking about cloning full systems, so they could still all be kept separate rather than just being a whole cloned body. You’d have one model that’s a clone of the entire digestive system, another that’s a clone of the nervous system, another that’s a clone of the circulatory system, and they’d be connected or disconnected from each other as needed.
Also, yeah, I’m very aware this isn’t something we can do yet! That’s why I called it the next Human Genome project.
Animal testing, beyond just being wrong, is a crutch and it’s holding us back.
All they need is oxygen, water, nutrients, and disposal for CO2/waste. If we can clone entire systems, we could keep them alive too.
As for the brain, I find the ethical minefield of brain death is a helpful topic for understanding a possible path towards ethical testing environment. If the technology exists to grow cloned organs and keep them alive outside the body, growing cloned brains should also be possible. From there, growing a vegetative brain that can never wake up (because there was never any ‘there’ there to wake up) would open up many possibilities for testing on the brain. Imagine if we could test on human brains without needing to translate from animal models. It’d be a huge leap forward.
And no one has to get hurt anymore.
This could at least be a goal, even if you want to keep hurting animals in the meantime and aren’t willing to halt all animal testing. Do you really think we’ll be forced to test on animals forever? In a thousand years will we be testing new drugs on mice? I doubt it.
You couldn’t just clone a single organ. You would have to clone basically all of them to know for certain, including the brain. Having them be separate isn’t any better, it could actually be worse. You’re trying to do things we not only don’t have the technology for, but would be very morally questionable.
Testing on animals is morally questionable! Although I’m talking about cloning full systems, so they could still all be kept separate rather than just being a whole cloned body. You’d have one model that’s a clone of the entire digestive system, another that’s a clone of the nervous system, another that’s a clone of the circulatory system, and they’d be connected or disconnected from each other as needed.
Also, yeah, I’m very aware this isn’t something we can do yet! That’s why I called it the next Human Genome project.
Animal testing, beyond just being wrong, is a crutch and it’s holding us back.
How exactly are you going to keep any of those alive without the others? I don’t think you’ve actually thought this through to be honest.
Also how do you morally do tests on a human brain?
All they need is oxygen, water, nutrients, and disposal for CO2/waste. If we can clone entire systems, we could keep them alive too.
As for the brain, I find the ethical minefield of brain death is a helpful topic for understanding a possible path towards ethical testing environment. If the technology exists to grow cloned organs and keep them alive outside the body, growing cloned brains should also be possible. From there, growing a vegetative brain that can never wake up (because there was never any ‘there’ there to wake up) would open up many possibilities for testing on the brain. Imagine if we could test on human brains without needing to translate from animal models. It’d be a huge leap forward.
And no one has to get hurt anymore.
This could at least be a goal, even if you want to keep hurting animals in the meantime and aren’t willing to halt all animal testing. Do you really think we’ll be forced to test on animals forever? In a thousand years will we be testing new drugs on mice? I doubt it.