Glider

Originally posted by fafalone

Reaction times, vary; this is a direct illustration of synaptic rather than cognitive speed; since reflex tests use the reflex arc rather than the central nervous system.But it's quite clear that people can think faster than others.

Not necessarily. The reflex arc is a self contained functional unit connecting the afferent (dorsal horn) and efferent (ventral horn) via interneurons within the spinal cord. This responds to extreme stimuli (e.g. touching a hot-plate) and causes a withdrawal reflex.

Reaction time tests are different; often testing people's reaction to a visual or auditory stimulus. This involves a system much more complicated than the reflex arc. For example, it involves signal transduction and perceptual systems (to detect the stimulus), cognitive systems, to recognise the stimulus and differenciate it from other environmental stimuli, and also to select the appropriate response (this involves areas of the anterior cingulate gyrus), and then motor areas of the cortex and cerebellum to effect the response. Given all this, it's quite amazing that it all takes place in around 500ms.

I don't personally know how one could measure the speed of thought. Whilst it may be apparent that 'some people think faster than others' this is usually a function of memory and recall. The stronger the association between a cue and the information required, the faster the recall. However, this is a function of learning, not the velocity of neural volleys.

Originally posted by blike

Glider, I take it your a medical student over there in the UK? or already graduated?

 

Either way, how do you become a doctor over there? I'm just interested in comparing how you get into medicine there and how you do it here.

No, I'm not a medic. I'm just coming up to my Viva as a Psychologist.

How do you become a doctor here? More or less as follows:

From school you need good 'A'-levels in maths, chemistry, physics, English and biology to get into medical school. It can be helpful to do a pre-medschool degree in health or clinically related sciences.

As an undergraduate medical student you do five years academic training, after which you graduate to become a junior house officer (the start of two years clinical training). You do the rounds, working on different wards (disciplines) for a year gaining general clinical experience for a year as a member of a group of JHOs working under the supervision of a registrar. After that you become a senior house officer and will work in more specialised and acute units (Renal transplant for example...juniors do not work on that unit). Once you are a senior house officer you can apply to take the RCP exams to become FRCP (Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians). You complete your year as a seniour house officer to become a registrar. Then you are a fully qualified doctor. (so, 7 years in all).

I am in a bar, and I see a nice looking woman. I move next to her and I stare at her. She turns and looks at me, and I just keep staring.

In such a situation, it's reasonable to suppose that the physical stimulus (my proximity and my staring at her) will cause her a degree of discomfort which (if she were asked), I'm sure she would describe as unacceptable.

Is she in pain?

As in a whole being? No. What purpose would it serve. There are 6 billion people on the planet, of what possible benefit would another one of me be? Moreover, the clone would only look like me. It wouldn't be me, it would be a completely different person and an individual in his own right.

As in a spare kidney or pancreas? Yes. I think cloning one's own stem cells for organs is possibly the only, and certainly the best way of overcoming problems associated with rejection. Moreover, it would put a halt to the disturbing increase in the organs black market.

Originally posted by blike

It could be said that everything we do is to benefit ourselves in some way or another, whether it be emotional, physical, or psychological satisfaction. Try and come up with something that does not benefit us personally.

Tricky one. Are we talking about altruism? If so, I think an awful lot hinges on your definition of 'benefit'. We engage in many behaviours which are of no benefit to ouselves individually (and many which are detrimental), but then these are not altruistic behaviours.

So, is your argument that ALL behaviour is ultimately self-serving? In which case, as noted, there are many example of self detrimental/harmful behaviours. Or is it that altruistic behaviours (or behaviours that could be regarded as such by an observer) are not in fact driven by altruism, but by some other, ultimately self-serving motivation? In which case, you may have a point.

Originally posted by fafalone

acute = severe

I don't want to be too picky, but as I am genuinely interested in your opinions concerning pain, lets clarify terms of reference:

Severe = severe (extreme or intense)

Acute = acute (rapid onset, short duration)

Originally posted by Adam

Screw doctors, I can take the pain.

Interesting attitude. I wonder how it would hold up in the face of say, renal cholic or a renal stone. I have watched people turn white, throw up and pass out due to this.

It's nice to know there's at least one person who won't be wasting the A+E staff's time anyway.

Just out of interest (a kind of unofficial survey), can anyone give me a definition of pain? I don't mean emotional distress, I mean 'physical' pain.

I'm interested in your opinions, not what the books say. What is pain? How would you define it?

Originally posted by Skye

I'm not a history buff but I don't think female leaders in the past have shied away from war. I don't really think women are less inclined towards conflict, but theres the physical aspect which can be intimidating in a woman-man scenario, and the cultural aspect with either woman-man or woman-woman. In a all women world neither of these would have much effect.

You have a point: Boudica, Jean D'Arc, Queens Elizabeth I and Victoria, and Margeret Thatcher are all examples of women who did not shy away from war (although of these five, only the first two took an active part).

I think in general, females are less inclines towards aggression, but are not averse to violence. I know that doesn't seem to make sense, but it's a different drive. and requires that a different set of 'buttons' be pushed.

Originally posted by Ami

awhile back, i read a book that suggested a theory to end war... it was pretty detailed, woman could take sperm sample of men and then kill them.....

...which would take a war, which women may or may not win, but in any event would have to start (which seems to undermine the argument somewhat).

Nonetheless, this war, in principle, would be a war to end all wars.

Funny, that sounds familiar to me. Haven't we already had one or two of those?

Originally posted by Radical Edward

why bother vaccinating when your immune system can just be upgraded to cope, and then have that improvement handed automatically to your offspring?

An 'upgrade' is only possible when the precise mechanism that it responsible for the difference is understood. It may be a single point mutation responsible for a difference in a single antibody protein binding site, or it may be a string of non-related gene differences which have an interactive effect, of which the difference in immunological function is merely a byproduct.

Originally posted by fafalone

Furhtermore, perfection is also subjective. Not all people would want the same modifications. This would also promote variance.

This is my point. People would want different modifications, but as any manipulation has to be performed at the egg stage, these people would be deciding what characteristics they want somebody else to have. No chance of choice, or informed consent, just "this is how YOU will be because this is what WE want. You can't see a problem with that?

Super-soldiers?...Perfect army? What is a super-soldier? Lets take as givens strength, stamina, fitness, good hearing and eyesight. Is that all it takes? What about intelligence? With intelligence (arguably) comes increased reasoning abilty, but these individuals would need to want to be soldiers and willing to fight. How do you acheive this through genetic manipulation?

The most worrying thing here discussion of the 'breeding of super-soldiers' suggests a perception that human clones would not be humen beings. They would not have the same rights as non-clones (e.g. the right not to be a soldier). Imagine on your second or third birthday "happy birthday son...by the way, you're a marine".

People would generate a class of human beings that have no choice, no say in their own lives and who would have provided no consent for what has been done to them. You can't see a problem with any of this?

As an aside, genetic varience is as important as ever. There may not be predators in the traditional sense, nonetheless, the greater the varience, the more likely we are (as a species) to survive significant environmental changes. HIV for example. This disease is pandemic. However, a very small number of people have been found, who appear to be immune to the virus. An incredibly small difference in their immune system means that the virus cannot apparently get a hold on them. From these people, it is possible that vaccines may be created that would serve to immunise the rest of us.

Originally posted by blike

Note to all future doctors(including myself): Respect nurses. They work very hard, and get mistreated all the time for doing their job (calling the doctor when something is wrong).

Excellent point, well made!

Newly qualified doctors will find life initially a lot easier if they trust the nurses too. I have seen ward sisters pull house officers out of the crap so many times!

Fafalone, you make a good point about malpractice insurance. It's starting to get that way over here in the UK too. There was a recent complaint against an obstetrician. The infant being born had become stuck, and his airway was constricted. The midwife called the doctor, who managed to sort the problem quickly and efficiently, saving the infant's life (with no invasive surgical intervention).

He walked away from the incident feeling (in his own words) that this was one of those times when he had really made a difference. However, a few days later, he was called by an administrator to answer a complaint that the patient had made against him. He had to forget his leave and go through the whole process of formally answering the complaint (as did his team).

The nature of the complaint? That "he had sweated too much whilst delivering the baby" (I swear this is absolutely true!).

The increase in cases like this, people making spurious baseless complaints in the hope of winning a few quid with the help of parasitic "no win-no fee" lawyers really pisses me off.

As you say, it's becoming too expensive to be a doctor now. Because of the increase in these greedy self-serving individuals, it will soon not be worth anyone's time and effort to become doctors. THEN these bastards will have something to bitch about and it will be their own damn fault!

Nurses in the UK have been working for pathetic pay for years. However, although they do protest (usually in their own time at hospital gates), they have never walked off and left patients who needed them. This is one of the reasons that nurses are heros of mine. The government, in an extremely cynical fashion, rely on this and continue to insult the nurses with paltry pay offers. The upshot is, of course, that now there is a severe shortage, because nobody wants to be a nurse now, so recruitment has dropped off to next to nothing.

In my own opinion (and those of most nurses I know), it would be indefensible to walk off a ward leaving patients without care. Nobody I know would do it.

The bloody govenment had better wake up soon though. We are running out of nurses fast.

Originally posted by fafalone

Believe me, we'd learn to limit it. Resources would run out and a large number of people would die; and the future generations would realize the importance. Since most people wouldn't want to live forever, suicide would be an option. Also, time would allow those in undesirable positions to improve their skills and move up.

Starvation and suicide. A utopian vision indeed. Something to look forward to Remind me, why is it that immortality wouldn't be catastrophic again?

Time would allow those in undesirable positions to move up....to where? The people occupying the desirable positions are likely to be those who can best afford the last of the dwindling resources, be the least discontented and therefore the least likely to suicide. Would they step aside if asked nicely? And if those in the least desirable jobs do, by some chance, move up, who does the job they were doing?

An unfortunate reality seems to be that the least desirable jobs are often the most necessary (this is not a meritocracy...shame). Remove all sanitation workers and remove all lawyers...let's see where the biggest problems occur...."I have cholera, diphtheria and amoebic dysentary, but I really feel a need to sue somebody?"

Originally posted by fafalone

Why is it acceptable to make ourselves better at all then? If I don't like having blonde hair, why is it acceptable to dye it, but not acceptable to have my genes treated to change it? We're not always born the way we want. But who wants to be born with a low iq and no athletic ability?

You make a very good point, and you are right. You may wish to dye your hair if you don't wish to be blonde (and it is entirely your right to do so). I would also say that if the technology were available, you have the right to change your hair colour through genetic manipulation. However, my points are that a) you keep using the term 'better'. Why is not blonde 'better' than blonde? and b) in light of the previous point, can you honestly state that you have an equal right to decide hair colour for somebody else?

Unfortunately, it seems that very few people are born exactly the way they want (another good point). But I ask, if the objective is to be happy with the way we are, is genetic (or surgical for that matter) manipulation the only way? It seems to me that there are often two approaches; one is to 'cut and paste' ourselves into what we think we should be. The other is to learn to appreciate ourselves for what we are.

In light of the current prevalence of non-medical cosmetic surgery, eating disorders (especially the growing prevalence amongst children) and so-on, I suggest that the most pertinent question is not 'how do we force ourselves into the mould of perfection?' but 'why are so many people unhappy with who they are? It just seems to me a better plan in the long term, to address the underlying problem, than to find genetic and surgical interventions for the symptoms.

Whilst you are absolutely right in saying that nobody wants to be born with a low IQ and no athletic ability, it is the nature of a population that these attributes are normally distributed; it is a function of genetic variance within a healthy population (this is not to say that IQ and athletic ability are necessarily genetically determined). What would be the result of genetically manipulating the population into a massive negative skew by forcing everybody to the upper tail of the distribution? In the long term, it would make for a very shallow gene pool I think.

It is fortunate that a) whilst there may be an herditory component to IQ, no particular gene for intelligence has been isolated. The same goes for athletic ability, therfore b) very few (actual pathology notwithstanding) are born with a significant disadvantage in either. Environmental influences can account for so much!

Whilst I admire your faith in humanity, I do not share it. "We would have the sense to limit the birth rate"? To whom? who chooses who is allowed children and who isn't? Is it likely that those denied the right to children would simply accept it? Have you seen what happens to thousands of 'illegal' births (usually female) in China? How could it be done, that anybody could issue a directive denying huge sections of the population the right to have children? What would happen if your government tried to do that?

There are over six-billion people on the planet now. Throughout history, how many geniuses have there been? Comparatively few. I wonder though, if they were still alive, in what way could they help us cope with the reality of immortality?

To achieve true immortality, we would have to eliminate ageing. In effect, the population would have to enter a kind of 'social stasis' (a posh term for stagnation). For example. those in less desirable occupations could expect to be doing them for ever. Those in more desirable occupations could reasonable expect to become the targets of ever increasing levels of resentment. I would expect social breakdown to occur relatively quickly. Civil unrest and ultimately, violence. We may eliminate ageing and disease, but I think it may be quite difficult to find a cure for multiple gun-shot wounds.

Why not ameliorate ourselves? Because, as I said, I doubt our ability to make valid judgements concerning what constitutes an ameliorative change. The dictionary holds amelioration to mean "make or become better". Better is a value judgement and highly subjective. Whilst it can be argued that eliminating hereditary conditions such as Huntingdon's chorea makes us better, I would suggest that there is a significant qualitative difference between the elimination of an hereditory pathology, which has the same effect and outcome for all sufferers, and the pre-natal 'amelioration' of a person, which may or may not have the desired result as far as that person is concerned.

The problem is that in attempting to do so, we would in effect be second guessing the wants of a third party, i.e. manipulating the genotype of a 'potential person' (as it were) in order to effect a change that WE think is better. Consider the money made by the cosmetics industry. This is made from (e.g.) people with straight hair who want curly hair, people with curly hair who want straight hair, brunettes who want to be blond, blondes who want to be red-heads, those with large busts who want smaller busts (and visa versa)....ad nauseum. Can we presume to know what another person would wish to look like, before they are born?

With respect to the genetic involvement in alcoholism or obesity I would say that where a direct causative link can be clearly established (and it hasn't, in either case as far as I'm aware though there appears to be an hereditory component in each, which is different), then manipulation in order to alleviate or remove a condition which is known to have a negative effect is entirely acceptable. If one of the disease causing genes is a part of a polygenic trait, manipulation of which may result in a cosmetic change, then I would suggest caution. One would have to be absolutely certain of possible outcomes (e.g. a cute button nose Vs no nose at all). Given the actual function of an individual gene, predicting the possible outcomes of manipulating many would be extremely difficult.

I think in most cases, it is not the act which is the crime, rather, it is the intent. Why do we want to clone? Whilst cloning body parts would certainly ease the problem of the shortage of donor organs, and therefore have medical application in an already ethically acceptable realm (organ transplant), what would be the intent behind cloning human beings? What purpose would it serve? If, for example, a family lost a child, and had their dead child cloned what purpose would be served? Do you think the clone would be the same person? A new individual created to replace a lost loved one would most likely be forced to live their formative years in the shadow of the original child, driven to behave in certain ways by the expectancies of the parents. Nonetheless, this would be a completely different person (appearance aside). Perhaps not the best upbringing; to be valued for who you look like and not who you are.

As to genetic enhancement, this smells strongly of eugenics. Moreover, in my humble opinion, I don't think we are sufficiently qualified to make valid decisions concerning what constitues an 'enhancement'. Big muscles? Blonde hair? blue eyes?...what exactly? And Who decides?

I do agree with the point above. Genetic enhancement would, by definition be devisive. Aren't there sufficient bases for developing in-group/out-group mentalities? Colour, religion, nationality, political affilliation and now genetic modification? Maybe we should try to deal with what we are, before thinking about making radical changes.

Just a thought.

Originally posted by kenel

Playing God is terrible, when you're supposed to die, you die...other people are not supposed to make that decision for you.

And yet we provide heart/lung transplants, liver transplants, dialysis for those with renal failure. We ventilate those who cannot breathe unaided and transfuse those who have lost too much blood to live. Isn't this interfering with the principle "when you're supposed to die, you die"?

The basic tenet of medicine is "First, do no harm" (an adaptation of one of the writings of Hippocrates). However, in many ways, I think medicine has lost its way, and has conceptualised death as 'the enemy'. This is foolish. Death is inevitable. Moreover, it is necessary. Consider the situation if we ever managed to defeat it...immortality would be catastrophic! If we could prevent death in all cases, we would also have to prevent birth!

No. Death is not the enemy. The true enemy is suffering. In cases of severe and intractable suffering, especially as a result of a terminal condition, isn't denying that person an easy and dignified death causing harm? Do we have the right to say "no...I'm sorry you are suffering so badly, but you must live with it, because it's against our principles to help you"?