Net Zero advocates propose ticks to induce red meat allergy as climate solution

[MichSwampbuck]

Well convince yourself through your own research, minus the bias.

You have good advice on doing the homework as you have provided links that support your contentions in a previous post. However, as much as I appreciate that, the debate about the health aspects of consuming red meat, or any meat, IS OFF TOPIC.

The topic at hand is the ethics of this proposal, not the health issues of eating meats. That can be considered topic drift, another technique used to slide the thread into oblivion.

Now, I can see how an issue like this can possibly fit in with the overall ethical considerations of this proposal and others like it, but that requires a solid thesis statement supported by a number of points in paragraph form or as bullet points. I will not do that for you, but I could as I can see how that could work, as flawed as it may be in relation to the ethical treatment of people.

If I really thought it would be productive, I'd find the original article as published and go from there, but it is obvious how wrong this really is. That would be one way for someone to prove all these side issues have merit. Unfortunately, I doubt that anyone here would go to that length to prove your points for you.

[UltraBudgie]

If I really thought it would be productive, I'd find the original article as published

it is not that difficult to find

The bite of the lone star tick spreads alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), a condition whose only effect is the creation of a severe but nonfatal red meat allergy. Public health departments warn against lone star ticks and AGS, and scientists are working to develop an inoculation to AGS. Herein, we argue that if eating meat is morally impermissible, then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne AGS are also morally impermissible. After explaining the symptoms of AGS and how they are transmitted via ticks, we argue that tickborne AGS is a moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat. We then defend what we call the Convergence Argument: If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly pro tanto obligatory; promoting tickborne AGS satisfies each of these conditions. Therefore, promoting tickborne AGS is strongly pro tanto obligatory. It is presently feasible to genetically edit the disease-carrying capacity of ticks. If this practice can be applied to ticks carrying AGS, then promoting the proliferation of tickborne AGS is morally obligatory.

https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.70015

the abstract ethical argument: "If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly [to that extent] obligatory".

the application of that principle to the tick seems to assume that retaining particular self-desired digestive capability is not a right, which seems, as ethicists say, "sus".

the paper's paywalled so i can't see how they danced to justify that one.

hey look, maybe they've gone ahead and released this anyway, haha, figuring the vineyard's liberal enough that they won't complain too loudly:

Last year, out of 1,254 tests for the allergy, 523 came back positive, according to laboratory data from Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. This was a stunningly fast rise from 2020, when only two out of nine tests were positive.

“Alpha-gal cases are skyrocketing across the island,” said Patrick Roden-Reynolds, a state-funded biologist who leads the tick safety programs on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. He has spent much of the past few summers counting ticks in yards and teaching people to cut down on the risk of bites by, for instance, wearing clothing treated with repellent.

Residents have told him that worries about alpha-gal syndrome keep them from hiking, gardening and going to the beach. A few said they were moving off the island entirely, and while ticks aren’t the only reason, they are definitely in the mix.

“There are a lot of angry people, a lot of stressed-out people and a lot of fearful people,” Mr. Roden-Reynolds said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/dinin...bites.html

[MichSwampbuck]

Ah, here is the crux of this argument, "if eating meat is morally impermissible then efforts to prevent the spread of tickborne AGS are also morally impermissible."

This is in addition to the scientific sounding, "If x-ing prevents the world from becoming a significantly worse place, doesn't violate anyone's rights, and promotes virtuous action or character, then x-ing is strongly [to that extent] obligatory". All that is a lot to prove before any arguments can be made.

Ok, first off they have to prove that "eating meat is morally impermissible", and I am willing to guess that history, genetics, and evolution can dispute this. Also, from what position is this moral edict coming from? With moral relativity, this can only be judged from within a particular cultural perspective, so it must be determined who's culture or subculture finds eating meat "morally impermissible".

I never saw one of Moses's laws stating that eating meat is impermissible, just some kinds of meat, like the Muslims and their Halal foods.  "Hindu scriptures promote a vegetarian dietary ideal based on the concept of ahimsa —non-violence and compassion towards all beings." - Wikipedia. So is this based on Hindu religion? We need a frame of reference to determine if meat consumption is amoral or not.

If I were to profess a Satanic world view, eating any meat wouldn't be a problem, even human flesh. In some "primitive" cultures, eating someone's flesh bestows that person's characteristics upon the person consuming them. Some of these "ethics" professors may even consider anthropophagy the ultimate form of respect for the dead.

If there is no objective moral reality, as it is merely a concept of the human mind, and all moral codes are relative to cultural ethics, then there is no universal moral basis to determine the big "IF" they are talking about. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" - Aleister Crowley

[BeyondKnowledge]

The question is, is it ethical to use biological warfare to stop an unproven threat? 

This takes any individual preference out of the decision to not eat meat. That means rights will be violated.

They seem to be giving up on persuasion as that is not working for them. Now they are considering spreading infections by insects. 

Once again, they are not able to see their own evil ways.

[UltraBudgie]

Once again, they are not able to see their own evil ways.

Methinks the author of that paper is engaging in a little devil's advocacy, to make a contrary moral point, and perhaps point to some things happening in the world. Here's some of his other papers:

The Epistemology of Moral Bioenhancement

Moral bioenhancement is the potential practice of manipulating individuals’ moral behaviors by biological means in order to help resolve pressing moral issues such as climate change and terrorism. This practice has obvious ethical implications, and these implications have been and continue to be discussed in the bioethics literature. What have not been discussed are the epistemological implications of moral bioenhancement. This article details some of these implications of engaging in moral bioenhancement. The argument begins by making the distinction between moral bioenhancement that manipulates the contents of mental states (e.g. beliefs) and that which manipulates other, non-representational states (e.g. motivations). Either way, I argue, the enhanced moral psychology will fail to conform to epistemic norms, and the only way to resolve this failure and allow the moral bioenhancement to be effective in addressing the targeted moral issues is to make the moral bioenhancement covert.

Abolishing morality in biomedical ethics

In biomedical ethics, there is widespread acceptance of moral realism, the view that moral claims express a proposition and that at least some of these propositions are true. Biomedical ethics is also in the business of attributing moral obligations, such as “S should do X.” The problem, as we argue, is that against the background of moral realism, most of these attributions are erroneous or inaccurate. The typical obligation attribution issued by a biomedical ethicist fails to truly capture the person's actual obligations. We offer a novel argument for rife error in obligation attribution. The argument starts with the idea of an epistemic burden. Epistemic burdens are all of those epistemic obstacles one must surmount in order to achieve some aim. Epistemic burdens shape decision-making such that given two otherwise equal options, a person will choose the option that has the lesser of epistemic burdens. Epistemic burdens determine one's potential obligations and, conversely, their non-obligations. The problem for biomedical ethics is that ethicists have little to no access to others' epistemic burdens. Given this lack of access and the fact that epistemic burdens determine potential obligations, biomedical ethicists often can only attribute accurate obligations out of luck. This suggests that the practice of attributing obligations in biomedical ethics is rife with error. To resolve this widespread error, we argue that this practice should be abolished from the discourse of biomedical ethics.

Or maybe not. Maybe he's just a monster.

[MichSwampbuck]

The question is, is it ethical to use biological warfare to stop an unproven threat? 

This takes any individual preference out of the decision to not eat meat. That means rights will be violated.

They seem to be giving up on persuasion as that is not working for them. Now they are considering spreading infections by insects. 

Once again, they are not able to see their own evil ways.

This is the question they refuse to address, ". . . is it ethical to use biological warfare to stop an unproven threat?" The obvious answer is none of what they propose is either ethical or moral and is based on unproven assertions.

From their proposal, "If x-ing . . . doesn't violate anyone's rights", this isn't an "if" question because this idea certainly violates people's rights.

I bet they got paid to come up with some absurd claims in support of some progressive liberal cause or it may be a hack paper that got published in haste because of a deadline. How the editor of a publication called, "Bioethics" could let this slide is pretty suspicious too.

[MichSwampbuck]

Methinks the author of that paper is engaging in a little devil's advocacy, to make a contrary moral point, and perhaps point to some things happening in the world. Here's some of his other papers:



Or maybe not. Maybe he's just a monster.

The reasoning is flawed. Climate is a natural system with no moral issues that need to be resolved. Humans have as much control over climate as these academics have over other people's bodies. As for terrorism, it isn't a moral issue for Islam and other extreme cultural beliefs, maybe that's why they have become terrorists themselves. They will never justify this by spinning up some ethical theories from their college level courses to make it seem like the right thing to do when it is totally the opposite.

I'd like to see what they would say if they became infected and suffered from this malady. I bet their tune would change after the symptoms began to set in. Even if they thought that they made an error along the way, it won't be an error in their twisted ethics.