Before and after the father's day, which is not so popular with businesses, all media uploaded the news that scientists had made male mice pregnant and gave birth to children, which immediately became a hot topic on the Internet. The news is surrounded by different groups, which has produced multiple imagination, even reminiscent of the fact that the science and technology anti utopian novel "beautiful new world" is coming into reality. Although the mice and humans are totally different species, people also realize that the artificial reproduction technology studied in this experiment will eventually be used in human beings. Therefore, in people's minds and words, mice and people, male rats and boys become interchangeable symbols, and inevitably lead to various confusion and confusion.

The value dispute and association caused by male mouse breeding experiment

As soon as the news comes out, many boys feel that this means that with the further development of disruptive technology, they will also bear the burden of childbearing? Really, in the future those fathers who bear the burden of bearing will not also live a warm and warm mother's day? Next, it was largely seen that male rats were less excited by castration and estrogen supplementation.

And the girls with sharp eyes soon found that the birth was actually done in a community of sexes. The uterus of the mice was transplanted from the female mice. The female hormone environment was given by the female mice which were connected with the male mice. Plus, hundreds of eggs were also from the female mice. At best, the male mice only provided the breeding site and nutrients, but they were the supporting roles of some physical work.

Therefore, in the view of animal protectionists and advocates of equal rights for men and women, it is meaningless to make so many female rats sacrifice for the sake of a male rat surrogacy, and the success rate is not high. Of course, they have different starting points. The former thought that this experiment made mice pay too much unnecessary pain; The latter emphasizes that artificial uterus should be studied for male fertility, not transplanted uterus. People who advocate respect and awe for nature point out that this experiment violates the natural law, which makes both sexes hurt, and both men and women have to sacrifice, which is fundamentally impossible.

In these discussions, from rat to human, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to male rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat, from male rat to female rat. Through these conscious and unconscious analogical thinking, people's ideas and imagination about the future of science and technology are reflected. Whether scientists or the general public, people's cognition of the significance of scientific research and technological innovation is mostly based on their imagination of science, nature and society and their ideas behind them. Although these ideas and imaginations have different opinions, they give different meanings to science and technology, and make people have different feelings and attitudes towards research and innovation.

From the collision of concept and imagination to the consideration of science and technology ethics

Human beings have entered the era of deep science and technology. Some subversive technologies are being formed in the fields of life science, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, which may bring unprecedented deep changes to human life, intelligence and cognition. When some disruptive research and innovation shows signs, the intuition of risk aversion will make the public hot on it. In particular, the research that may change the natural and life processes will quickly become a hot topic. The focus of the discussion is: are the controversial studies scientific? Is its preset values desirable? Can they be accepted ethically and emotionally? In view of these problems, it is inevitable for different groups to collide at the level of concept and imagination, which will undoubtedly help to promote the scientific and technological ethics and governance of such research.

In the view of scientists, curiosity driven discovery seems to be the proper meaning of scientific research. According to media reports, the male and female community experiment design made by the researchers in this male rat breeding experiment was inspired by the pregnancy of male hippocampus. Although the hippocampus is an egg animal strictly speaking, the male hippocampus does not only hatch without pregnancy, but it can be explained that the researchers have a strong curiosity about breaking through the normal natural life process. But the controversy raised by the study suggests that researchers may need to respond to the questions they may be challenged in research ethics and scientific and technological ethics. Among them, research ethics mainly involves the research integrity, the protection of research objects, the responsible research and practice in the process of scientific research; The ethics of science and technology refers to the ethical problems of specific scientific and technological activities (such as life science and technology, information technology, etc.) in life, human, subject and society. Specifically, this male mouse breeding experiment needs to respond in the following two aspects.

First, whether the study has made necessary consideration on research ethics such as experimental animal protection. From the view of nature and attitude towards life, the experiment is inevitably criticized by animal conservationists. They argue that people should fully imagine the suffering of experimental animals, and have empathy and compassion for animals. Many years ago, when I was visiting Oxford University, I saw demonstrations and propaganda activities by activists, who chanted "say no to Oxford laboratory!", The pictures of laboratory animals are distributed everywhere, which makes the entrance control of biology, biochemistry and other departments have to be strictly separated. But in fact, whether it is advocating the perception of animal pain or reverence for nature, it is difficult to absolutize its position and reach a consensus on relatively acceptable standards. In view of the fact that it is impossible not to use experimental animals in scientific experiments, research ethics generally regulates the protection of experimental animals by optimizing experimental design, simplifying the number of experimental animals, reducing the pain of experimental animals and strengthening the welfare of experimental animals. Therefore, from the research ethics, the research on male mouse pregnancy may respond to whether the design and implementation of the experiment consider the protection and welfare of mice.

The second is whether the implementation and consequences of the study have caused serious bioethics and other ethical issues. Although people unconsciously change their imagination between mice and humans, this hot topic is not the main concern of bioethics, such as human embryo and human reproduction. From the perspective of ethics of science and technology, we can ask the value orientation of this kind of research from the perspective of bioethics, and discuss whether it should be extended to human beings. But from the perspective of scientific and technological ethics governance, although people can associate people with rats, mice are not human after all, and we can not draw moral judgment from the analogy of imagination.

At present, the research ethics of experimental animal protection can be regulated and managed. However, the related bioethics and other scientific and technological ethics issues need further academic research and practical exploration, and cannot be dealt with in practice. On the one hand, the existing biomedical ethics committees generally do not have the knowledge and ability to discuss related issues; On the other hand, even if we try to discuss the ethical issues of science and technology related to such research, the results are likely to be either inconclusive or incongruous.

The participation of scientists and the challenge of ethical realism

It is worth noting that in the discussion of bioethics and other ethics of science and technology, scientists' active participation is especially needed, because the discussion of ethics of science and technology has actually become an internal link in the process of scientific and technological innovation from 0 to 1. For example, in the face of the intuitive doubt that the experiment violates the natural law, researchers can defend it scientifically, that is, they actually try to verify the general reproductive mechanism of animal embryos revealed by life science by using this special experimental design. Facing the position of the people who advocate equal rights between men and women, they can point out that scientific research can not be done in one step. Although the experiment is preliminary, it is possible to master the mechanism of embryo reproduction and finally to the artificial regulation of reproduction process by iterating along the direction of this research. Is this not the artificial uterus that the people who advocate equal rights of men and women? Through these positive interactions and creative dialogues, it is undoubtedly helpful to clarify the relevant ethical disputes, and find the development direction for scientific and technological innovation that can not only benefit mankind, but also avoid ethical risks.

However, most scientists have not taken this step in the real-world scientific and technological activities. This makes many subversive technology bring about value ethics disputes only after the event or become a hot spot. Therefore, it is urgent to think further whether this kind of ethical argument after the event will be in the future compared with the scientific experiments of the facts? Although the ethical review can be introduced in response to some controversial studies, how much effect can this play in the division of the ethical boundaries of science and technology? According to this post event roadmap of science and technology ethics, does it mean that we can not avoid the emergence of serious moral, emotional and common reasons vicious events that can be regarded as shock bombs of science and technology ethics?

The cold reality that must be faced is that, under the influence of the risk culture of scientific and technological innovation, there is actually an ethical realism in the frontier science and technology fields such as life science and technology. In the practical practice of science and technology, although ethics can be put forward in principle, if there is no uncompromising value base point in a specific scientific and technological cultural atmosphere, the realistic ethical choice is often to make a choice in the possibility that science and technology has already presented, rather than to make a choice on the possibility of science and technology itself. In this male mouse breeding experiment, male mice play the role of living artificial reproductive machines, which shows the possibility of the whole artificial reproductive machine finally. If there is no consensus strong life value, especially the idea that can strengthen people's feelings about life morality and emotion - for example, if people think of such experiments can feel meat pain, the scientific and technological ethical choice can only be the balance between risk and benefit. In other words, the content of ethical choice is only what artificial reproduction is ethically acceptable, not whether artificial reproduction itself should have.

In a word, in the face of controversial scientific experiments and research, the realistic ethical choice of science and technology is ultimately a social and cultural choice. Of course, no matter what the reality is, everyone can still ask and question the value of various black technologies: is this the future of deep technology that you and I want?