Being able to reproduce without needing functional male/female sex organs, using only skin cells and technology, is an interesting step. It could theoretically apply to same-sex couples, the elderly, children, or people with various disabilities, injuries, or other forms of infertility.

The same-sex focus of this article (specifically, the "OMG this totally defeats an objection to gay marriage" bit in the intro) is an unnecessary politicizing of an otherwise technologically/biologically interesting concept.

Very good point, I wasn't saying it totally defeats all objections to gay marriage, just the specific reproductive argument against it. But I agree, politics does tend to detract from science.

In general, I think people who make the "reproductive" argument mean "natural biological reproduction".

It's a little tougher than this article makes it sound. iPS cannot do everything that embryonic stem cells can do, and he cited a paper that has been retracted: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/07/journal-ed...

(bottom line - the "sperm" created for iPS don't really work as such)

It's still probably coming eventually. And why stop there? Polyamorous n-tuples could have a kid who was a mix of varying proportions of the parents.

A lot of trouble for very little? If its absolutely important for your children to be statistically correlated to you, beyond the 99.9% that all humans are ALREADY correleated? It's been said that adoptive children are sometimes loved too.

Four billion years of evolution have tended to make us prefer our own children to those of others.

Which probably doesn't relate much to laboratory modification of your genome.

It relates to your previous comment.

It seems a very conscious act to go to the trouble to modify your genome in the lab. Leaving little room for evolutionary impulse to be the guiding factor.

Women could actually outgrow their "need" for men in reproducing. Its kind of scary.

Luckily for us evolution won't catch up any time soon :) They still have the same hormones the same brains, etc.

This strikes me as something that could be revolutionary. Specifically, it stirs up memories of sci-fi novels and movies where advanced races have given up sex and sexual reproduction because it's "Too messy."

Whereas some enjoy it for that very reason.

Can't wait for fundies to decry this as science overturning the will of god.

The same fundies whose infertile wives undergo medical treatment to enable them to conceive.