[ExI] Pistorius

[Stefano Vaj]

On 2 August 2012 19:31, Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

> No, the line would be that a man-made replacement for a body part is a
> prosthetic. I don't know what the rules should be for prosthetics, but
> fairness   requires that they not confer an advantage. The rule could be
> that runners with prosthetic legs can't compete against runners without
> prosthetic legs.
>

Biological enhanced legs grown on site would man-made, but as already
discussed the shoes supplementing-replacing-improving the
friction/protection function of foot soles and toes on the ground are so
much more so...

Why don't we demand athletes to run 100mt barefoot?

 What about an athlete with a heart transplant?
>>
> Not a prosthesis, a natural replacement. I don't see a problem with that.
>

Besides the fact that it might be artificial, that even a biological one is
hardly a "natural" replacement, and that it might well be better than the
original heart, so conferring an advantage, why a hear could be
transplanted but not a pair of legs? What the rationale could be of such a
rule?

I guess it would depend upon *how* you enhanced and grew these legs, but if
> they're genetically human they'd be natural in that the biochemical
> processes that created and run them are the same as those that occur in
> natural human legs.
>

Not necessarily "exactly" the same. Moreover, I could grow "ideal" legs
that would not exist in any "natural" human being...


>  ``"Natural" for an engine'' makes no sense. Cars are completely man-made,
> so the rules governing them will have to be somewhat arbitrary.
>

Hey, my point is that we are already *man-made" ourselves. If anything,
because of selective breeding depending on culturally-governed social
environments. Should black athletes be prevented from run competition
because the lifestyle of their recent past "unnaturally selected
performance in this area rather than in other ones? But of course, if we
are speaking of Olympic athletes, their phenotypes has also been modified
from the first youth with all means known to science...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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