Cyborg Cockroach Sparks Ethics Debate 512
sciencehabit writes "A do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment that allows students to create their own 'cyborg' insects is sparking controversy amongst scienitsts and ethicists. RoboRoach #12 is a real cockroach that a company called BackyardBrains ships to school students. The students fit the insect with a tiny backpack, which contains electrodes that feed into its antennae and receive signals by remote control — via the Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones. A simple swipe of an iPhone can turn the insect left or right. Though some scientists say the small cyborg is a good educational tool, others say it's turning kids into psychopaths."
Fitting the backpack requires poking a hole in the roach's thorax and clipping its antennae to insert electrodes.
Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who have never killed a roach in their life are free to throw the first stone.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't see a difference between killing it and doing this?
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You don't see a difference between killing it and doing this?
This does seem a great deal more educational... If you need a humanities tie-in, you can always read "I have no mouth but I must scream" as you navigate your cockroach around, the pitiless god of its very sensory inputs!!!! Um, I mean, to learn about the invertebrate nervous system....
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
This does seem a great deal more educational.
Exactly. This teaches that living creatures, and one would hope by extension other humans, are properly controlled at our whim.
As I'm teaching my boys, the point of life is to get other people to do stuff that is against their interests and in yours. All this talk of dignity, human rights, liberty &c. is, as Nietzsche pointed out, merely the pathetic cry of the weak, whom it is the right of my offspring to manipulate and exploit. I wonder where I can get this for them -given the great educational value.
And they call me a sociopath ...
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What scares me most about this post is your +5 mod. I bet lots of those points came from folks who actually believe that.
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As I'm teaching my boys, the point of life is to get other people to do stuff that is against their interests and in yours. All this talk of dignity, human rights, liberty &c. is, as Nietzsche pointed out, merely the pathetic cry of the weak, whom it is the right of my offspring to manipulate and exploit.
And they call me a sociopath ...
With good reason. [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't see a difference between killing it and doing this?
I first took that to imply that killing it is obviously worse, then read Gort65's reply and realized the anonymous GP was probably implying that zapping the antennae of a roach is worse than smashing it to bits (which, if you have done often, you would know that parts of it keep moving for quite a while unles you keep smashing and grinding all of it).
So, my answer: yes, there is a big difference. IMO, this is more humane than smashing it.
If one were to attempt to stretch this analogy to testing things on animals, especially primates, not only would I find that silly (much too far a stretch), but I would also argue that the same comparison be made: what's worse: smashing a monkey with a large object repeatedly until all bits stop moving, or putting some electrodes on his head?
Please note, I'm not making a right or wrong judgement here, but the first post made a good point.
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I think this is a false comparison. What do you think happens to the cockroach after the experiment? It is set out to freedom?
The real comparison is killing something living vs. torturing something living and then killing it.
Additionally, I think it's arrogant to think that humans have rights to torture animals (needlessly). Of course, it's a whole different debate whether we have the right to torture animals to save humans (drug testing etc.).
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
You've missed the point. No one cares about what's best for the roach. The roach is a insect without much of any brain and no conscious.
What makes it worse is the attitude it fosters within the child.
I'm not convinced it'll turn anyone into a psychopaths, but studies suggest this is how psychopaths start out; torturing insects and small animals. So this is one small step away from pulling wings off bees. Except this has educational approval!
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Never killed one, we don't have them in Edmonton (Score:4, Informative)
Well, with the exception of the big indoor mall water park, since the ultra-rich owners of the mall greased things to get the palm trees in without inspections . . . which meant that nobody checked for cockroaches. So the only cockroaches in all of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada are in the West Edmonton Mall waterpark.
Best part, by the time the owners finally admitted they needed to do something about them, it was too late, because you know what exterminators use to kill cockroaches? Yup, you guessed it, chlorine-based insecticides. So at this point after so many generations living around chlorinated water and then a few attempts at extermination these are basically unkillable cockroaches. With the exception that the winters here are cold enough that they've never gotten out of the mall.
In retrospect, thank god the LRT (ie. subway or "underground", basically, although it is mostly above ground) never ended up going to WEM.
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Dammit! Until I read this, I had been proud of the inch-long cockroach corpse that had been lying on the ground near my desk for months. Biggest damn roach I'd ever seen in San Francisco, and I squashed it running right across the carpet. Only it didn't take much damage, other than dying; there it lay, legs folded up in death, antenna and all. But just now I turned around and it's GONE! Some bastard has stolen my gigantic dead cockroach, and I want answers.
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Inch long? I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for a century one year. Four inch long cockroaches that fly. I stomped on one, twisted my foot around to ensure that it was mush, picked up my foot and the bastard ran away. My apartment was in a 50 year-old wood building, there was no way to get rid of them. The locals pretend that they're not cockroaches and call them 'Palmetto Bugs', but everyone knows what they really are. One of many, many reasons not to live in Florida.
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What is described in TFS is quite a bit different ethically than killing a creature in protection of onesself or one's den. I'm curious why you see no ethical difference.
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So roaches live everywhere on Earth except suburban London? Interesting.
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Ask people who live in Greenland. Short of the docks where ships bring them there are NO roaches.
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Funny)
So roaches live everywhere on Earth except suburban London? Interesting.
Even cockroaches have standards.
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Bullshit. 30 years living in Alaska, I can assure you there are places that have plenty of roaches.
I remember this one ugly blue hotel in Nome... Slept with the lights on.
They probably came in via the congregated cardboard box, they can live on the glue alone for years.
Further roaches survive light freezing, not too long, not too cold.
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree. While I doubt this turns kids into psychopaths, I disapprove because it reinforces the notion that every other creature on the planet was put there to be our playthings and slaves.
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There's plenty of grey area to go around, I guess-- would I feel the same about building a treehouse? Probably not.
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
" but living creatures of any kind are not toys. "
and you base your stellar argument on..what, exactly?
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Jumping beans are not toys? The things that produce honey are not toys, we shouldn't control them to make our delicious honey? I believe that there is no physical or psychological reason that you should value the life of an animal above a human (for a value of human that you wish to define). If it took dog-brain extract to keep a person alive, it's too bad for the dog.
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
You are mentally ill if you believe that torture is the same thing as gathering honey, which requires almost no interaction with the bees and does not cause them any harm.
I'm not a PETA member, and eat meat. I would not eat meat if I found the producer advocating or allowing inhumane treatment however. To believe that you must have one to get the other is idiocy. So I think you are a troll.
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Never tie a string to a fly's leg and watch him go round in circles? I was often bored as a seven year old. It works on beetles too.
Humans attack humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Because when a cat is "playing" with something smaller than itself, it's typically a bird, mouse, lizard, or small bug, etc. When a human adult is torturing something smaller than himself, it's often another human.
The leap from cockroach vivisection to psychopathy is a bit of a leap, but there kids out there that already lean that direction. It isn't a matter of whether we are going to encourage the average child to be a psychopath (a ridiculous notion), or be a bit more callous (perhaps worth discussing). But could this be a tiny step toward psychopathy for someone already headed in that direction? Probably.
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Actually some cats will bring these things directly to their owners. I know not if they are making gifts or bragging or what but clearly they want their owner to see this.
Not all do this, but some do. I have a cat that does this with toys, and I assume would do it with mice if he had the chance. He will scream and find a human to show what he has done. If we avoid him, he will find us to show us this.
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Agree. While I doubt this turns kids into psychopaths, I disapprove because it reinforces the notion that every other creature on the planet was put there to be our playthings and slaves.
Ah, on the contrary! If every other creature on the planet was put there to be our playthings and slaves, we wouldn't need to learn all this 'science' and 'electronics' nonsense in order to bend them to our will. This is a valuable lesson in why you should bother learning: because it gives you hitherto-undreampt-of power over those who do not. A life lesson, no?
Re:Cockroach rights? (Score:4, Funny)
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Simple - commitment to non-violence is a choice to avoid conscious killing. Microorganisms killed in the course of normal bodily functions is not conscious activity.
Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone is worried about these slight actions turning kids into psychopaths, they would be AGHAST at what kids normally do with insects when they catch or find them...
Fire, pliers, rocks, etc. All are involved.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Informative)
I remember when I was 5, I used to make paper balloons and stick as many crickets as I could find in them, and then I would set it on fire just to watch the hoppy action.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Funny)
Just saying...
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What about cruelty to vegetables?
Not acceptable, even during visiting hours.
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My brothers and I used to love to use a magnifying glass on ants on my parents' patio. I don't think you would classify any of us as psychopaths 50 years later. Fortunately, we don't have any roaches where I live now, but I remember them in the apartment I first rented when I got married...took a month or so to exterminate them all.
I wouldn't buy anything that used roaches, not out of concern for roaches, but out of dislike for roaches.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a little kid and pulled the legs off a daddy longlegs, my scoutmaster told me not to do that, that it was cruel. Now we're encouraging kids to inflict pain on animals for their own amusement. Can you really not see a problem with that?
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Now we're encouraging kids to inflict pain on animals for their own amusement.
You're overstating your case, given that their intent is presumably to educate, not to amuse, and there is a long precedent for harming animals in the interests of educating humans, continuing to the present day.
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You're overstating your case, given that their intent is presumably to educate, not to amuse, and there is a long precedent for harming animals in the interests of educating humans, continuing to the present day.
Killing and dissecting for educational purposes yes, performing harmful experiments on living creatures? Not so much.
I can see the value, using technology to control the behaviour of a cockroach is cool and teaches you about how the creature works, I think this could be a valuable tool in a biology class. But take it outside the class and you're turning a living creature into a toy.
I think it overstates things to say it's turning kids into psychopaths, but you can't deny it isn't a bit creepy.
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It depended on the purpose of such a remote-control cat. For example, such an animal might be used to develop technology by which a quadriplegic could occasionally command a helper monkey's brain directly, so to perform complex tasks that the animal normally wouldn't be able to do (like, say, opening a safe, or changing the time on a clock). Or say you could train someone to play the violin by actually moving his fingers for him (assuming he allowed it). If they started selling the relevant equipment at pet
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So it's okay to torture cockroaches? What about other bugs?
Is it okay to torture fish? Lizards? Mice? Dogs?
What about people?
Where do you draw the line? On what basis did you make that determination?
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Vertebrates would seem to be a sensible line.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
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Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Roaches have survived billions of years, and would survive the nuclear zombie apocalypse. They have enough survival abilities.
Do you know what happens in nature? Every nasty bit of stuff eats these things, live without anesthetizing them. Sometimes they go down live and just get digested. Nature is cruel. And it hates you, and me, and roaches.
Should we be doing this in schools? That's the question here.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
We kill 9 billion animals for food each year, in the USA alone. We still somehow manage to remember that killing humans is bad.
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Is it okay to torture fish?
I don't think so but millions seem to think catch & release is fine.
Lizards? Mice? Dogs?
I'd personally rather not But I also don't see any problems eating any of those things. Do you?
I don't really see that lizards and mice warrant much care about actions taken with them, just given how they fare in nature. If we aren't doing anything crueler to them than they would otherwise experience then I am OK in the abstract with someone doing something with a creature.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Insightful)
You scoutmaster was a douche. Did he care to explain why it was cruel? oh right, no.
Are you asking if my scoutmaster gave my ten year old self a lecture on consciousness and solipsism and morality?
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10 years old is plenty old enough to ask children to think about those issues. We expect far too little from kids.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:5, Informative)
And fair enough: if you think humans are bad, 'parasitoids' are a class of organisms that would leave you crying for mommy. A class of organisms that a fair few wasp species belong to.
Oh how very subtle they are: the ones that parasitize caterpillars inject a venom that includes a specialized virus (found nowhere else but the wasp's oviduct, it's more part of the wasps' DNA than a free-living organism) that suppresses the caterpillar's immune response and increase the protein concentration in the hemolymph, perfect for the larvae.
Or the fascinating ones that prey on cockroaches. Those are too heavy to transport after paralysis, so they have specialized sensory capabilities on the tip of their stinger, ideally suited to locating the part of the cockroach brain to disable in order to halt voluntary movement, while leaving the victim otherwise functional and ready to be steered by its antennae back to the burrow where it will be devoured alive by wasp larvae.
And, finally, the ones that prey on spiders, the hunted become the hunter, using their impressive reflexes and even more impressive venom to paralyze spiders (nonlethally, to preserve freshness) so that their larvae can devour them, leaving the vital organs for last (again, to preserve freshness, the victim must live as long as possible while being eaten alive) and then emerge to hunt spiders for their own young.
Parasitoid wasps are badass motherfuckers. Not quite as badass as Cordyceps fungi (not that I'm biased); but pretty fucking badass.
Re:Missing the reality of what kids do to insects (Score:4, Informative)
See number 6:
http://www.cracked.com/article_17199_the-7-most-horrifying-parasites-planet.html [cracked.com]
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In the mammalian world... (Score:2)
...we have cats and Toxoplasma gondii, which alters the behavior of rodents to make them easier prey.
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It's a fucking cockroach (Score:2, Insightful)
If you live anywhere cockroaches run rampant, you know the score. Kill them, or be infested.
Cruel (Score:5, Funny)
I completely agree. It's completely unacceptable to force innocent students to used something as restricted and crippled as iOS. For once could someone actually think of the children.
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Re:Cruel (Score:5, Funny)
Forget psychopaths. It might turn them into... hipsters.
Re:Cruel (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree. It's completely unacceptable to force innocent students to used something as restricted and crippled as iOS. For once could someone actually think of the children.
In version 2, the system will prevent the cockroach from having thoughts that aren't cryptographically signed by Apple. True Facts.
Makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
IPhones have been turning humans into mindless drones for years, now its the insects turn.
Imagine (Score:4, Insightful)
A beowulf cluster of those!
Kill Glorious kill (Score:2)
But do you actually get to kill the cockroach at the end of the experiment?
Would be such a waste not too. Brouhaha!!!
Too buggy (Score:5, Funny)
I tried the app, but it was too buggy.
In a low tech way, (Score:3, Informative)
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I think it's okay to kill a pig or cow to eat it. I also think that intensive livestock farming is cruel to the animal, and therefore morally wrong.
Where I live, if a university scientist wanted to cyborgify a cockroach as part of a legitimate research project, it would require ethics approval.
Re:I certainly hope those protesting are vegetaria (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing a pig or a cow to eat is very different from killing a pig or cow for pleasure -- and very different from mutilating them while they're alive for our amusement.
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I thought that this was about education/research rather than amusement
Re:I certainly hope those protesting are vegetaria (Score:5, Interesting)
SENDING them a cockroach? (Score:2)
Have they ever been to a school? I'm sure any school in the country has a surplus of cockroaches they can send back to the company.
others say it's turning kids into psychopaths." (Score:2)
and by others they mane people who ahe no clue what a psychopath is?
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Maybe we could use it as part of a psych screening programme?
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and by others they mane people who ahe no clue what a psychopath is?
Is there even any consensus on whether you can manufacture psychopaths?
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Probably a combination of initial biology and environment, as always.
(e.g. 'Made not Born' [medicaldaily.com], and 'nature and nurture' [psychologytoday.com])
What does this have to do with science? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What does this have to do with science? (Score:5, Interesting)
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What's the point of dissecting a frog? We already know what's in the frog....
I think that there is a lot more to be learned from actually doing a dissection than there is from looking at photographs of a dissection, because of the poking and exploring that can only be performed during a real dissection. In contrast, this particular project provides a visual illustration of a phenomena - i.e. that cockroaches movement is driven by electrical input in the nerves which run through the antennae - but I don't think is has the same degree of exploratory value.
That said, I think this quest
Some psychopath... (Score:3)
... stabbed me earlier today and fitted me with bluetooth. A couple of hours practice, however, and I am spoofing his to keyboard connection.
Pwned by Roach 2.0...
Bwwahahaha!!!!
Wow! (Score:3)
So cyborg cockroaches are smart enough to start up an ethics debate? These suckers are advanced!
Gokiburi Gijinka Manga (Score:5, Insightful)
FYI: If you've ever doubted the ability of Japanese manga artists to make anything cute, take a look at Gokiburi Gijinka [mangaupdates.com], which features the adventures of adorable little Gokicha-chan and her misunderstood struggle to make friends with humans -- who for some inexplicable reason she can't understand -- keep trying to squash her.
No way, totally wrong (Score:5, Funny)
It's not ethical to force an animal to move left and right by attaching electrodes to its head. Not at all. The ethical way is to put a metal bar in its mouth and pull on THAT to force it to move left and right.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_(horse) [wikipedia.org]
5th Element (Score:4, Funny)
After reading this thread... (Score:4, Insightful)
...and reading all the faux outrage (because it is) over the poor cockroaches...
I'm gonna go boil up some lobsters - just to piss you guys off - and I will savor every butter-dipped bite.
--
BMO
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Fine, just don't jam electrodes into it and drive it around the kitchen first.
Not killing is not the same as killing (Score:5, Insightful)
First, because it should be obvious - doing something to an animal without killing it is not the same as killing it. For example, shooting a rabbit and thus killing it is not the same as breaking its legs kicking it around a football field. Thus, it could be argued that punching a hole in a cockroach thorax and clipping the antennae is not the same as stomping on the roach. So we should probably write off the "if you've ever killed or would ever kill a cockroach, then you have must accept this as ethical" arguments.
Second, just because kids burn ants with a magnifying glass doesn't mean we should be encouraging kids to burn ants with a magnifying glass. As artor3 posted in a previous comment:
When I was a little kid and pulled the legs off a daddy longlegs, my scoutmaster told me not to do that, that it was cruel. Now we're encouraging kids to inflict pain on animals for their own amusement. Can you really not see a problem with that?
That isn't to say that installing this on a cockroach is equivalent to burning ants; simply that just because children do do something doesn't mean they should be encouraged to do it.
Even if people do conclude this is ethical - and I'm not saying it is or is not - then the subsequent question is how you ensure children understand that while cutting half off the antennae of a cockroach is ethically acceptable, cutting half off the ears of a mouse is not. That is, assuming we consider that unethical.
There is also the question of when it becomes unethical, in terms of animals used. It wouldn't be too challenging to build a kit to allow mid-teenagers to install a similar device in a mouse (assuming they had a steady hand), including sterile implements and gloves, adhesive, etc. Would that be ethically acceptable?
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I'd forgotten that the alternative to having kids cutting the antennae of a cockroach in half is getting them to empathise with the cockroach. I'll not have children in schools being taught to empathise with insects! Quick, cut those antennae! Cut those thorax-holes!
Wait. What if epidemic of crazy cat lady and crazy dog men is the result of broader social problems, not the result of teaching people to empathise with animals?
Utilitarianism (Score:2)
Wait...outrage over this?!? (Score:2)
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In med school they dissect humans. Granted, none of those are living material, but I fail see the problem with shoving electrodes into a live human's brain and remote controlling him as a learning tool.
The "granted, none of it was living material" is a quite relevant part.
And no, I'm not comparing humans to cockroaches - I'm just pointing out the absurdity of ignoring the difference between a corpse and a living creature when it comes to how it's acceptable to treat it.
I agree. (Score:4, Funny)
They should stop experiment on cockroaches, and start experimenting on lower life forms instead....
Members of Congress come to mind as a possibility...
Re:I agree. (Score:4, Funny)
They should stop experiment on cockroaches, and start experimenting on lower life forms instead....
Members of Congress come to mind as a possibility...
They tried.
They opened up the politician and found they lacked both a spine and a brain. Unable to find anywhere to attach the electrodes they gave up and moved onto roaches.
Clearly unhealthy (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that this is psychopathic. I can see how this is very harmful for children to be involved in this. One of the warning signs of psychopathy is to abuse animals in a grotesque manner. That we would actually teach children to do this and to adopt red-flag behaviours of a psychopath is nuts. This is not swatting a roach on the floor, which kills it instantly and as quickly as possible, which we have all done. This is torturing and messing with a living thing for long periods of time. They are not the same thing.
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They mimic the neural signals that a roach experiences when it's antenna touch an obstacle. This is arguably much more humane than using a bit in a horses mouth. This is not intended to hurt the roach and has been engineered to match its nerve signals. You should learn about it if you're concerned. Look up their "spiker box". I've done the same with a different device and electrodes to force muscle control in my arm. It doesn't hurt, just feels weird. Super fun.
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Re:Libertarians (Score:4)
It's simple: animals don't have rights. Forcing animals to do something and forcing humans to do something are two fundamentally different things. If you disagree, fine. Howevere, it is strange that you draw a line at implanting animals with technology for purposes of education, rather than, you know, slaughtering them by the billions each year, or using them as slave labor etc.
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