Chinese scientist He Jiankui defends 'world's first gene-edited babies'

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Nietzsche (Goverment) = Ubermensch (Eugenics)
Nietzsche kills god, creates Ubermensch, Ubermensch proclaims itself god

I see this happening before our eyes, today we see traditional Christian values attacked everyday in the news! Remove the faith, not only have you conquered man, his soul was also conquered ....thus Ubermensch brought hope to the conquered man.

Hell, maybe I'm just paranoid ;)
 
Maverick said:
Nietzsche (Goverment) = Ubermensch (Eugenics)
Nietzsche kills god, creates Ubermensch, Ubermensch proclaims itself god

I see this happening before our eyes, today we see traditional Christian values attacked everyday in the news! Remove the faith, not only have you conquered man, his soul was also conquered ....thus Ubermensch brought hope to the conquered man.

Hell, maybe I'm just paranoid ;)
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I am an agnostic and I don't think you are paranoid. Almost all men need faith to push forward in life. As stated, the government wants to be the replacement for mans belief in god.
 
Urbanprep said:
Human nature being what it is, I cannot trust to a good outcome. When scientist learned to split the atom, what was the first thing they built with this knowledge, a super bomb. Major innovation is funded by two groups ---- the government and corporations. Does anybody believe these two groups have humanities best interests at heart? Nope, didn't think so. The scientist might want to prevent diseases but the government is going to want super soldiers. The corporations are going to build in eternal life, that has to be renewed every ten years or so. The equality of life will just get even worse. Think about that my liberal friends. If you think pharmaceuticals are greedy and do price gouging, what do you think will happen when they can offer extended life, or offer almost eternal youth or any number of health benefits? Now if you can live 500 years, what kind of fortune could you amass? How about living 1000 years? The rich and powerful will just get richer and more powerful. Only old age or medical conditions have stopped many tyrants, think about Stalin living for a few hundred years. How about Gingberg sitting on the Supreme Court for a few hundred years? Take off the rose colored glasses and look at both sides. Those with the gold (or force of arms) make the rules. Let's not help them become eternal.
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UP, now I'm going to have nightmares about RBG living more than 2 years...

Brent S said:
You know, for a person that professes to be a Christian, I never hear anything positive or compassionate from you. Sure some social programs are crap, and probably all have too much waste. Let’s face it, all government programs have too much waste and inefficiency. Take something like food stamps. Do you really believe we should just stop it? Yes, we would save huge amounts of money, but at at cost? Could you live with watching children starving because their parents are non functional? The whole point of being a Christian is to be Christ like. Do you really think Christ would turn away the poor coldly, or cut programs that had good intent originally to help others? We are a rich country, shouldn’t we be concerned with the welfare of other human beings? I’m not being naive and singing Kum by yah or anything here as I realize we can’t save everyone on the planet, but having some compassion is something Jesus taught. I just don’t think hatred and indifference towards others is a good example of how to be Christ like.
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Brent, UP said it well but I'll say in my own words. You seem to think gov't is the only source of charity. I've said this before, there is genuine charity and there is force 'charity' (also known as theft). I am a huge fan of genuine charity. When someone contributes their own time, talent and treasure to help others. Just Tuesday I spent about $50 of my own $ and about 3 hours of my time to help someone in need. I didn't need a gov't program to do this.

Brent, let's go back in time. For the first 150 years in this country, starvation wasn't much of a problem, no more than today. And there was zero forced charity (gov't theft/redistribution) in effect. How do you explain that? Please tell me why we need these gov't programs, any of them.

100 years ago there were people in need and there were a few freeloaders (but very few). Churches and charities took care of the first group. In fact better than every gov't program combined today does. There were very few freeloaders because small individual charities were careful, identified it, and cut those people off. Freeloaders learned that they had to take care of themselves, and eventually did. I believe that is far more compassionate than what we have today.

Brent, a second question. Why do you insist on stealing from individuals and have gov't decide who to redistribute that wealth? It encourages freeloading and abuse. How is that good for anyone? I think my method is far more compassionate than anything you're supporting.
 
It wasn’t that long ago I would have said ya’ll are out of your fxxken minds, accusing ya’ll of being on some type of sci-fi acid trip

Just goes to show I know nothing of the future but what I do know of today scares the **** out of me regarding the future! I guess sci-fi and sci-re (science reality) are truly co-dependency.

Stephen Hawking once said science fiction is useful both for stimulating the imagination and for defusing fear of the future. He may be right for the majority of people but not all the people, for me it doesn’t defuse the fears, science reality emulates science fiction and if that is true, I’ve seen some really creeped out sci-fi’s. So ya’ll can buy into this ‘science working for humanity’ crap, I don’t!
 
I was always puzzled by Hawkings' fear of aliens.

In numerous specials, he's on record saying our calling cards were huge mistakes. I beg to differ. To me, logically, any species capable of interstellar travel would not be warlike.

War here, is always for one reason....control of resources. Sure, you can argue religion, etc. but those were simply justifications to the populace for the real goal of resource control.

An interstellar species has basically unlimited resources at their disposal from all the worlds they can get to. So there's simply no motivation for war. Indeed, it would be counterproductive to wage it, when you could go elsewhere and get it with no contest.
 
Gazrok said:
I was always puzzled by Hawkings' fear of aliens.

In numerous specials, he's on record saying our calling cards were huge mistakes. I beg to differ. To me, logically, any species capable of interstellar travel would not be warlike.

War here, is always for one reason....control of resources. Sure, you can argue religion, etc. but those were simply justifications to the populace for the real goal of resource control.

An interstellar species has basically unlimited resources at their disposal from all the worlds they can get to. So there's simply no motivation for war. Indeed, it would be counterproductive to wage it, when you could go elsewhere and get it with no contest.
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Playing devil's advocate. Why farm a planet with your own people, when you have an entire planer full of slaves to do the digging? You take the resources where you can find them and if there are available slaves to do the work, so much the better. Would we consider or worry about a colony of ants sitting atop a gold mine? Just because you have developed superior technology does not mean you have developed a warm fuzzy outlook on less developed critters.
 
Arcticdude said:
I see nothing wrong with using this technology to eliminate disease and defects in the unborn, for those who can afford it. Who wouldn't?
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AD, 3 words: unintended side effects. I sure wouldn't touch this.
 
Gazrok said:
I was always puzzled by Hawkings' fear of aliens.

In numerous specials, he's on record saying our calling cards were huge mistakes. I beg to differ. To me, logically, any species capable of interstellar travel would not be warlike.

War here, is always for one reason....control of resources. Sure, you can argue religion, etc. but those were simply justifications to the populace for the real goal of resource control.

An interstellar species has basically unlimited resources at their disposal from all the worlds they can get to. So there's simply no motivation for war. Indeed, it would be counterproductive to wage it, when you could go elsewhere and get it with no contest.
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I hope your right and they don’t show up to replenish their food reserves with us!
There is some logic that a species that advanced would be past the aggressive behavior of primitive species. Let’s just hope so.
 
Who to say a higher intelligence wouldn’t toy with us, see us as pets or treat us as a cockroach that’s infesting the resources they seek... I’m not willing to take that chance.

I rather take my chance with an earthly man not some super being that has the technology to go on some galactic drive visiting humans that can't even perfect a car that don’t fly. Come on people really think they would come in peace, we would be a diseased organic matter that needs destroying before we spread to the universe ;)
 
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This discussion is so entertaining! To think alien lifeform exists just cracks me up.

And some of you are getting worked up over a figment of your imagination. No different that the monster in your closet when you were 4 years old.

Hawkings had a good reason to fear, but it wasn't alien life. But he now knows the error of his ways. Too bad, there are so many brilliant people who are so stupid.
 
I do not fear aliens, except the ones trying to cross our borders with every disease know to mankind. The outer space kind are just subjects for conjecture. I just like debating why anybody should assume they would be more beneficial or kinder than our species. Just because they developed space travel, does not automatically anoint them with either good or bad intentions. We were able to cir-cum navigate the oceans and how has that worked out for so many indigenous peoples? Just fun to discuss TexasFreedom.
 
As a science fiction writer (and a lot of my published work deals with alien first contact . . . although I treat the subject with humor), I'm on the fence.

On one hand, I believe a truly advanced intelligence would be advanced enough to be enlightened about violence and genocide.

And yet I wonder if this is wishful thinking on my part, as I believe that any advanced species would understand the value of long term investments and the importance of being concerned with the future.

This means that it may be in their interest to wipe us out mercilessly, with the idea that we may be a threat in the future after our technology advances just a little more.

After all, we don't care about each other . . . so why would we give two shits about intelligent green insects with five genders and 28 eyes?

I believe that this is a real possibility because if the speed of light is an ultimate speed limit in this Universe . . . then it seems like a no-brainer that the only intelligences that would engage in interstellar travel are beings who take the long view and are preoccupied with the future.

We might wish that they are kind and benevolent, and this may be true . . . but perhaps only toward those beings who deserve it.

I don't particularly see humanity as kind and benevolent, and, therefore, perhaps undeserving of kindness and benevolence.

Of course I could be wrong, but I do believe that a part of us knows this about ourselves if we look inside our souls, so I will make a scientific prediction: very soon after the ships appear in the sky, there will be a record-breaking number of mass suicides.
 
@Kevin L
There will be those that die from fear and those that die from what they fear. The rest will wait and prepare for an open hand in friendship or a closed fist and a thrown down gauntlet. It is fun to conjecture on what it will be, since none of us has a clue or any proof, on it, way or the other.
 
There is no doubt in my mind there is life out there. It it happened here it has happened millions or billions of times out there. It’s a big place we live in. It is pretty self absorbed to believe that we are all there is. Just what, 1200 yrs ago, you would be jailed by the church for suggesting that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe. About a hundred years ago we didn’t know there were other galaxies. Now we know there are billions of them. Our place in the big scheme of thing keeps getting smaller.
 
jontte said:
naturally we are alone in this universe,we are SUPERIOR to all other lifeforms,who could even belive there would
be other species out there...really??????????????????????????????????
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Yes. DNA was the final nail in the coffin that evolution is impossible. That's not my opinion, that's the conclusion as science is defined. Without evolution, how else do you get life? We've already had this discussion time and time again. Don't argue with me, argue with how science is defined.
 
TexasFreedom said:
Yes. DNA was the final nail in the coffin that evolution is impossible. That's not my opinion, that's the conclusion as science is defined. Without evolution, how else do you get life? We've already had this discussion time and time again. Don't argue with me, argue with how science is defined.
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Your narrow focus of evidence is based on less than 1% of data and scientific consensus. The vast majority of evidence and opinions of scientists show evolution was real and is documented well. I will admit that science is not perfect, but when you have overwhelming evidence of something then it’s foolish to disregard it. I won’t even go into the discussion of wether your god is real or not, but have you ever considered that if he is, then could he have set up the Big Bang and started all of the evolutionary process? Your bible says the world was created in 7 days. It also said people in Moses’s time lived extraordinarily long lives. Neither is true, and is agreed upon by the smartest minds on the planet. Could you consider that when the individual stories were written, by men, in tribes about three thousand years ago could be wrong on the timeline? Or could you consider that when King James re wrote those same stories, again by man, was wrong in his interpretation of the timeline? I know I will never change your close minded opinion on religion, and don’t wish to even try, but all I am saying is don’t close your eyes to physical evidence that shows overwhelmingly different outcomes. Remember, when these stories were written, it was by tribes living in tents with no electricity, no telescopes,no idea that the world wasn’t flat or even that there was a world bigger than the Middle East.
 
King James didn't write it. He assembled the best team of scholars he could find and they did a remarkably good job. Not perfect, but amazing given what they had to work with.

I don't believe it's necessary or even logical to interpret "days" as 24 hours. In fact, even if it did mean solar days, how do we know that a solar day was 24 hours at that time? The earth has shifted its axis and probably been hit by massive asteroids. For all we know a solar day could have been 10,000 years. But I don't think it's necessary even to interpret it as a solar day.

I believe God created, but I don't want to put any limitations on HOW he created. That's why evolutionary science is not frightening to me at all. I'll follow the evidence wherever it leads. That's how I am able to find the huge gaping holes in much of "evolutionary science."

BTW for those that worship at the feet of Charles Darwin...Darwin's theories are no longer current evolutionary theories. Darwin had only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity, and did not know anything about things like genetic drift for example.

But high school science teachers are where most people get their ideas about evolution, and evolutionary scientists THEY AIN'T!

Just like with climate science, there is far more psuedo-scientific gobbledygook bandied about in the "Name of Science" than real science involved.
 
DrHenley said:
King James didn't write it. He assembled the best team of scholars he could find and they did a remarkably good job. Not perfect, but amazing given what they had to work with.

I don't believe it's necessary or even logical to interpret "days" as 24 hours. In fact, even if it did mean solar days, how do we know that a solar day was 24 hours at that time? The earth has shifted its axis and probably been hit by massive asteroids. For all we know a solar day could have been 10,000 years. But I don't think it's necessary even to interpret it as a solar day.

I believe God created, but I don't want to put any limitations on HOW he created. That's why evolutionary science is not frightening to me at all. I'll follow the evidence wherever it leads. That's how I am able to find the huge gaping holes in much of "evolutionary science."

BTW for those that worship at the feet of Charles Darwin...Darwin's theories are no longer current evolutionary theories. Darwin had only a vague and inaccurate understanding of heredity, and did not know anything about things like genetic drift for example.

But high school science teachers are where most people get their ideas about evolution, and evolutionary scientists THEY AIN'T!

Just like with climate science, there is far more psuedo-scientific gobbledygook bandied about in the "Name of Science" than real science involved.
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I was aware that king James didn’t write it, but had amassed the team that did, so most give him credit for it. And I agree they were considered the best minds of the time and did a good job taking all the old scrolls available and condensing them into the modern bible. They threw out a lot of the texts that didn’t corolate with the overall consensus of the majority. The point I was really making was basically that man did write these books/texts. Most of the original stories were told around campfires for generations before being written into the old scrolls that the Bible was based on. Mans memory is far from perfect. Ever play the game where a story is whispered into another’s ear and repeated around the room? The story changes a lot by the time it goes through just a few people. There is also the way the Bible is written. Many people can read a passage and get different meanings from it. A lot of it is kind of vague and open to different interpretation. I’m not bashing the Bible here, just pointing out that it is a book that was written by men and isn’t perfect. I also agree that science isn’t perfect. Darwin was just one of the first to look at evolution and was on the right track I believe, but with further study and refinement more has been learned and revealed than just what he observed in his short lifetime. That’s why I base most judgements on science, it is constantly being updated as new information comes to light. Not perfect, but always getting better over time, and based on physical evidence. There is just too much physical evidence to show that man did evolve, and is still doing so. Life was around for millions of years before we even came along. Did god make it happen that way? That’s open to individual interpretation.
I don’t think the solar day is difficult to determine. We can calculate where the moon and the earth will be precisely in 10000 years. Just like the future location of them, we can look back to determine where they were in the biblical times, all through mathematics. (Luckily there are a lot smarter people than me in the world). The days were different by seconds, not much different though.
As far as climate change, again look at science overall. When the vast majority of educated people in fields of science all say we are changing our planet negatively by unchecked burning of fossil fuels, it’s probably smart to at least consider it. I am certain that we are polluting our planet. I’m also certain that there is a limited amount of clean breathable air on this planet. When you have an untold number of smoke stacks and engines burning 24/7, 365 days a year, I don’t need to be a physics expert to know it isn’t smart. One car running in a closed garage will kill you in a short amount of time. Why would we not expect millions of them running outside to not pollute the air we breathe? Climate change/global warming is just a term being thrown around. But they both refer to man made pollution that is both bad to breathe and puts particles in the atmosphere that do trap more heat. I don’t believe science is at the level yet to precisely predict the long term effects of what we are doing by all the polluting just now. I do know though that it is just common sense and in our best interests to try to come up cleaner ways to power our lifestyles. The old saying of don’t piss in the pool your swimming in comes to mind.
 
Brent, You really don't know much about the history of the Bible. You'd do better to do some research before writing things. For example the KJ translation did not delete 'lots of the text' from the Bible. I do agree many verses can be interpreted in different ways.

Stretching out time does not work if you believe Genesis. For example, plants were made before the Sun and stars. If you stretch out the 'day' to a million years, how do plants evolve without the sun? I guess you can say they had the light of the Son? But that sure doesn't make it easier to understand.

Jontte, even evolutionists agree that the likelihood of macro-evolution has impossible odds. Science defines 'impossible'. Do you have a reference to some math that shows how likely evolution was to happen? And let me be clear, I'm talking macro evolution. I am 100% good with believing micro-evolution happened and is still happening.
 
TexasFreedom said:
Brent, You really don't know much about the history of the Bible. You'd do better to do some research before writing things. For example the KJ translation did not delete 'lots of the text' from the Bible. I do agree many verses can be interpreted in different ways.

Stretching out time does not work if you believe Genesis. For example, plants were made before the Sun and stars. If you stretch out the 'day' to a million years, how do plants evolve without the sun? I guess you can say they had the light of the Son? But that sure doesn't make it easier to understand.

Jontte, even evolutionists agree that the likelihood of macro-evolution has impossible odds. Science defines 'impossible'. Do you have a reference to some math that shows how likely evolution was to happen? And let me be clear, I'm talking macro evolution. I am 100% good with believing micro-evolution happened and is still happening.
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As far as the history of the Bible, I don’t claim to be an expert, but being a preachers kid am better versed than most. What I said about leaving texts out of the finished bible was correct. When the group assigned by King James put together all the scrolls that were known at the time, they basically threw out or omitted many. The ones that made the Bible are what we know today, but there are lots that had different versions. One said Mary had married Jesus, and there were lots of other controversial versions. You can do some simple research on line to find many of them.
All macro evolution is is micro evolution on a much longer timeline. There are enough fossilized records to show evolution being real. Is it complete, no, but it is close enough to it that anyone using reasoning can see the progressive steps. I have a triolobite fossil that’s 500million years old. Ok, science isn’t perfect, maybe it’s off by 3or 4 million years, but there is no doubt that it was alive way before any humans ever walked the earth.
As far as if I believe in the book of genesis, I know there are plants and animals that live in the ocean depths without the help from sunlight. So I won’t say unequivocally that it is impossible for plants to live without the sun. However, science shows the age of our sun to be much older than our planet, so that pretty much negates the possibility of the plants being first. As far as evidence, your using some old texts found in scrolls in the desert, that were written by uneducated nomads. I’m basing the collective knowledge of the most educated people around the world.
 
Brent, that is news to me. Can you point to where the King James translation deleted something that said Jesus married Mary? In fact can you find a single document from 1-2k years ago that states that?

Regarding the age of the earth, we've had that discussion. When you can show me a way to guarantee the lead/uranium ratio being 0/100% in any rock when created? Do a little research into that, for example they've 'dated' rocks made when Mt St Helen erupted. Without knowing the beginning ratio, how does radioactive dating mean anything?

Let me give a fun example. You go out to the gun range & shot twice at a target already out there. How many holes are in the target? Or how many are from your two shots? That simply put is the problem with radioactive decay dating methods. Can you acknowledge that dating methods are seriously flawed?
 
TexasFreedom said:
Brent, that is news to me. Can you point to where the King James translation deleted something that said Jesus married Mary? In fact can you find a single document from 1-2k years ago that states that?

Regarding the age of the earth, we've had that discussion. When you can show me a way to guarantee the lead/uranium ratio being 0/100% in any rock when created? Do a little research into that, for example they've 'dated' rocks made when Mt St Helen erupted. Without knowing the beginning ratio, how does radioactive dating mean anything?

Let me give a fun example. You go out to the gun range & shot twice at a target already out there. How many holes are in the target? Or how many are from your two shots? That simply put is the problem with radioactive decay dating methods. Can you acknowledge that dating methods are seriously flawed?
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If you really believe in this stuff spend some time learning more about it. Don’t just go to some church and believe everything some preacher tells you. With the internet you can research just about everything. Also keep in mind to not just take one sites info about something, there are lots of different sites to get different opinions on things, and then make your own opinion about it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1650870/posts
This was just one site that looked like it had a fair representation to start with. There were scrolls found that were for both the old and New Testament that didn’t ‘make the cut’ to be included in the Bible. Most were written the same time as the books that made it into the Bible, but had different views or weren’t as appealing to be included. As far as Mary and Jesus, there were several scrolls that talked about them that weren’t included.
As far as the age of the earth, there are several ways to determine the age of things, not just one. I would agree that if there was just one then I would be more suspect of the accuracy too. But when you have four different ways to test something, and they all indicate near similar results, then I’m betting it is a good indication that it’s close at least.
 
http://mentalfloss.com/article/21623/10-methods-scientists-use-date-things
Here are some more ways to date the age of things. Again no one thing is a perfect system, but when you can apply several it kind of gives you an indication that your on to something.
One example was Blackbeard the pirate. He used math and a sextant to measure how far the sun was from the earth. Keep in mind this was around the 1600’s. He figured somewhere near 93million miles. Which was pretty darn close to exact. There are lots of ways to figure out things that we can’t see or touch. I bet most thought Einstein was nuts when he said two atoms, which couldn’t be seen, would produce an enormous amount of energy.
As I said earlier, I don’t want to even try to convince anyone that god isn’t real, as I don’t know if there is one or not. I do feel confident though that evolution was a 600million year process and it is backed up by a lot of physical evidence. I’m still open to the possibility that a god put it all in motion, just not in 7 days.
 
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