board77

Poll and debate. Have at.

Explain and then we'll debate

What exactly do you mean by this question?

Can one point at an entity, and through empirical observation and logical deduction therefrom alone, say conclusively whether that entity is a living human?

Or (conversely) does such a declaration require a non-empirical component, which by definition cannot be conclusive, as it requires postulating unfalsifiable assumptions or results?

Is even more perplexed.

Do you need a religion to define what is and isn't human life, or can you get there via science alone?

Now There's a straight answer (see my scientific rant thread for more thoughts on speech)...

Just for the sake of discussion (and spam), is there anything about human life science can't deal with?

I *think* there is, but it's not necessarily defined by religion.
I like to call it synergy. A human being is more than the sum of its (her/his) parts.

Yes, certainly, if you take the full range of empirical methodologies into account.

More important, though: There might be an unobservable, unfalsifiable spiritual dimension to humanity, but if you can confirm that someone is human independent of that dimension, then it's existence does not have to be empirically verifiable for human-ness to be empirically verifiable.

And since we have no way of verifying spirituality empirically, we don't know if it is exclusively human, in which case it could not be used as a definitive determination of human-ness.

Just ... putting the answer in its simplest form ... membership in the species Homo sapiens sapiens can be confirmed by DNA test. If there is some other definition of being human, I don't know what it is.

Jn

Hmmm....

if I am understanding correctly...

DNA analysis can confirm whether one is part of Homo sapiens, like Jny stated...

yet

if you are asking whether science alone can in a foolproof way define "life" or what it means to be alive for any organism, there is a bit of an iffy area.

Biology theory teaches that living things must possess certain characteristics to be considered alive.
This is sort of iffy too though.. Ive seen the list vary a little form book to book...also, researchers agree that strange pathogenic "organisms" like prions or even viruses (virtually genetic material packed in a protein capsule with an injectable needle...and nothing but) do not seem to fully jibe with these "characteristics of life".
Works for most organisms though.

The only area that you are implying that seems to me to exemplify the inability of science alone to decide whether something is or is not human life, is the question of the developing zygote/embryo/fetus.
Since this appears to be a spiritual judgement...at least from those who take a moralist Christian perspective, it is something that cannot be logically argued. Belief that a conglomerate of cells from conception constitutes a human being by God's right is a belief based on "truths" that cannot be proven. So in this one case, I suppose science alone cannot determine this... its a value judgment... at least most of those whom Ive debated with on this have argued that it simply IS a human being because God says so...
I have replied with what I thought were science-based counter-arguments... but mine probably have some humanistic thinking and a particular understanding of things in them too... so yes... whenever I have these debates, they do not seem to hold to a solely scientific ground... if any scientific principles at all...

So what then are the empirical markers of being human? The prenatal issues aside for the moment, would any collection of cells bearing human DNA and looking roughly like other human beings be human?

In "Dune" the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother tested Paul Atreides to see if he was "human".

She held a poisoned needle to his neck, and made him stick his hand in a pain box and told him that if he removed his hand, she'd kill him.

She then increased the pain to where he thought his hand was completely destroyed, but he still didn't try to remove it.

He passed.

How's that for a "human" test? Test to see if self control can over-ride instincts.

Ah, the old gom jabbar test. Good one.

I'd say any answer we'd have to come up with is objective...and I don't see how a cluster of grown cells that have as their blueprints human DNA could fail to be a human.

Here's the thing...I can't remember exactly how to speak of it in sufficient and necessary terms, but I'd imagine that any aspect of humanity which cannot be studied with science will Always follow along the aspects that can be studied, i.e. DNA. I'd say DNA and science is a sufficient condition for humanness, but it is not the only necessary condition.

But they grow body parts for people nowadays! My husband's friend's spouse got burned really badly, and they were going to grow some more of his own skin for him somewhere in Colorado and ship it in to him. He died before they could implement the plan, though.

That skin would certainly be alive, and test positive for the DNA. But, until installed on a human- it certainly is NOT human.

DNA test alone doesn't cut it.

Ahh, but that wasn't a whole human. That's what I'm saying...a full extension of the human DNA Has to be a human...and it may, at that point, automatically have other aspects show up.

You can do a DNA test on a dead human and confirm they are human. Which is useful, but would you really wan't a dead person at your party?

Not sure science can do anything more than tick the box that says, yup, biologically this pile of stuff is a human. It cannot however say what it is to be human, or what being human entails.

Religion however can explain what is human. All you need do is decide yourself what is human, persuade everybody else that it is true, and Hey Presto! You have a clear deffinition of human without quasi psudomagical scientific mumbo jumbo to confuse the issue.

:mrgreen:

Can you really say that religion explains what being human is? I've never seen a good attempt at it...enlighten me.

So far, I think science is in the running...since even they can tell when a body is alive or dead. The question is what is the difference between a dead human and a living one. Anyone want to go at it?

Ax, did you know you were starting up a materialist/dualist debate when you opened this thing?

Pretty much. Along with some other issues. For example: are human-appearing beings with DNA slightly off from other humans (genetic abnormalities, extra or missing chromosomes) human? How slightly is OK? Bonobos are 98.5% or so identical genetically...

On the flip side, can one have human DNA, be functionally alive, and yet not be human? Are the brain dead still human? Are anacephalics?

There's a difference between being human by definition and having the rights accorded to a human.

That's why I mentioned the full spectrum of empirical methods above ... if you say a living human, then science can certainly confirm whether a human organism is alive or dead, whether it is a whole human or just a mass of tissue or a body part.

But determining where rights begin and end is a different matter, and not something upon which science can comment because science is positive, not normative; though we can contribute information to the decision process.

In the case of a fetus, yes from the moment of conception it is definitionally human - it won't develop into something else - but at what point does it possess human rights, pass from potential into actuality? Science can tell you how many soma exist and when the brain stem forms and when the fetus can survive outside the womb, but it can't tell you which of those parameters should be used for social judgment. At some point people have to step in wearing their Civics Hat and make a decision based on social sensibility.

Does religion have to be taken into account in that decision? There is no abstract requirement that it must, but if the society as a whole wants to incorporate religious sentiment into its social decisions, there is no reason to say that it must not.

Should a bonobo be granted human rights because it shares so much genetic material with us? Again, that's a social decision ... yes to the bonobo, no to the chimp? What percentage of genetic correspondence should be used as the parameter? Science can tell you what the various percentages are but it cannot tell you what percentage to use as parameter.

Jn

The question should be, why do humans get special rights?