docile = retarded?
Science just published the Taurine Cattle genome <pdf>.
kotte.org quotes The Washington Post:
and adds the frustrating bit:
Am I the only one who is insulted by equating mentally disabled people with docile animals? This is actually an old argument in bioethics dealing with what exactly make a human a human. If it is acceptable to experiment on other primates, why is it not acceptable to experiment on humans? One answer is that humans have more advanced mental capabilities than other primates so we are "higher" (it pains me to write that) and other primates are subject to experimentation. The counter argument, then, is what about comatose or mentally disabled humans, they have the mental capabilities of a healthy primate, or sometimes even less, why not experiment on them? At the end the argument against human experiment rests on speciesism, an -ism in the sense of racism.
Also, those are the last two sentences of an article in the popular press. The words autism or mental retardation don't even appear in the paper! This is a perfect example of misrepresented scientific material. I can easily see how the "mentally retarded docile cows" could end up as small talk among colleagues and friends, a point of interest showing off your familiarity with genetics and health issues. But it's simply wrong and promoting it eventually leads to a "do you know that scientists think... scientists can use the cow genome to..." statements. This is exactly the kind of thinking which makes a scientifically aware public so difficult to achieve.
I see no point in equating docile and mentally disabled other than having a catchy closer (both kotte and the paper are guilty of it). Perhaps that is more sad than insulting.
A third point is that the etiology of autism and other mental disorders is amazingly complex. This is the abstract from a recent review in Nature (Copy-number variations associated with neuropsychiatric conditions) <pdf>:
kotte.org quotes The Washington Post:
In some breeds, specific variants of behavior-related genes are "fixed," or seen in essentially every animal. Curiously, some of those genes are in regions that in the human genome seem to be involved in autism, brain development and mental retardation."
and adds the frustrating bit:
So...by "docile", you really mean "mentally retarded"
Am I the only one who is insulted by equating mentally disabled people with docile animals? This is actually an old argument in bioethics dealing with what exactly make a human a human. If it is acceptable to experiment on other primates, why is it not acceptable to experiment on humans? One answer is that humans have more advanced mental capabilities than other primates so we are "higher" (it pains me to write that) and other primates are subject to experimentation. The counter argument, then, is what about comatose or mentally disabled humans, they have the mental capabilities of a healthy primate, or sometimes even less, why not experiment on them? At the end the argument against human experiment rests on speciesism, an -ism in the sense of racism.
Also, those are the last two sentences of an article in the popular press. The words autism or mental retardation don't even appear in the paper! This is a perfect example of misrepresented scientific material. I can easily see how the "mentally retarded docile cows" could end up as small talk among colleagues and friends, a point of interest showing off your familiarity with genetics and health issues. But it's simply wrong and promoting it eventually leads to a "do you know that scientists think... scientists can use the cow genome to..." statements. This is exactly the kind of thinking which makes a scientifically aware public so difficult to achieve.
I see no point in equating docile and mentally disabled other than having a catchy closer (both kotte and the paper are guilty of it). Perhaps that is more sad than insulting.
A third point is that the etiology of autism and other mental disorders is amazingly complex. This is the abstract from a recent review in Nature (Copy-number variations associated with neuropsychiatric conditions) <pdf>:
Neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism and schizophrenia have long been attributed to genetic alterations, but identifying the genes responsible has proved challenging. Microarray experiments have now revealed abundant copy-number variation — a type of variation in which stretches of DNA are duplicated, deleted and sometimes rearranged — in the human population. Genes affected by copy-number variation are good candidates for research into disease susceptibility. The complexity of neuropsychiatric genetics, however, dictates that assessment of the biomedical relevance of copy-number variants and the genes that they affect needs to be considered in an integrated context.That review highlights a form of genetic varition (copy number variation: CNVs) with a potentially very high mutation rate that seems to contribute to de novo cases of neuropsychaiatric conditions. On the same theme is this other review article in Pharmacogenomics which highlights just how little is known about autism specifically:
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a clinically heterogeneous developmental disorder with a strong genetic component. Rare genetic disorders and various chromosomal abnormalities are thought to account for approximately 10% of people with ASD. The etiology of the remaining cases remains unknown. Recent advances in array-based technology have increased the resolution in detecting submicroscopic deletions and duplications, referred to as copy-number variations. ASD-associated copy-number variations, which are considered to be present in individuals with ASD but not in unaffected individuals, have been extensively investigated. These data will provide us with an opportunity not only to search for genes causing or contributing to ASDs but also to understand the genetics of ASD.Those are much more intersting topics for the water cooler than "mentally retarded docile cows".
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