Thom
>
> On Sun, 20 Jul 1997 17:44:09 +0000
> Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
> >In the Weekend Australian newspaper for 19/20 July, 1997 (which also
> >contained a story entitled - ahem - `The Spike Man Cometh', with a drawing
> >of my winged brain apparently escaping from the top of my photographed
> >head), I find a one-paragraph report on p. 16. Japanese scientists `have
> >delivered infant goats from an artificial womb... human babies may be born
> >the same way in 10 years time'.
> >
> >What bliss to be alive at such a time! What astounding, crippling
> >stupidity in the world that this was not the lead story with screamer
> >headlines on the front page. (Well, maybe they're being cautious and
> >details are scant or dubious; fair enough. Still.)
> >
> Actually I would be *very* cautious about this. What worries me is this
> : there's a lot of evidence to suggest that infants are a bundle of
> expectations - possibilities waiting to be fulfilled by events in the
> world. This is how nature and nurture interact, in the broad sense.
> Artificial wombs would have many positive benefits, for sure, but I
> worry that infants raised in them might be mentally disturbed by the
> lack of typical womb-like sounds and sensations, and also the responsiveness
> and 'feedback' or 'communication' between mother and child in-womb (e.g.
> infant shifts position, mother shifts position, stuff like that).
>
> If the artificial womb makers are aware of this possibility, and make an
> effort to duplicate as much as possible the 'feel' of a true womb (at
> least to a degree above the threshold of the infants ability to
> discriminate), then no problem. But otherwise, it's a worry.
>
> Guru George