# Time travel ethics: Saving the Turkana boy. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 12, 2014, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341 "2014-08-12T01:28:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/21 "2014-08-12T21:32:01Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Stun the bird and bring it back to the future. What the heck kind of bird of prey can kill an 8 year old boy safely? Well, [Haast’s eagle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle), the largest eagle known to have existed, apparently used to snack on Maori now and then. So that’s one example. > [@](#): > > It is believed that these birds are described in many legends of the Māori, under the names Pouakai, Hokioi, or Hakawai. […] In some Māori legends, Pouakai kill humans, which scientists believe could have been possible if the name relates to the eagle, given the massive size and strength of the bird. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/22 "2014-08-12T22:29:31Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > This is hilarious, but I’m not sure if its for the same reason you intended! 😃 If you explain why _you_ think it’s funny, then it might explain a Simpson’s joke that I’ve never gotten. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/23 "2014-08-12T22:59:33Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Cite? I heard about the hunter years ago, but can’t find a cite on it now because the keywords are all getting buried by the more recent incident in suburban Chicago, where the wife is suing the owner of a lake, for the death of her husband murdered by the swans. But this is not the first one. There’s even a YouTube video, but it might be a fake, I haven’t checked it out. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtEQPhGZCQM) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/24 "2014-08-12T23:09:32Z")
[jackass] I’m a Novikov self-consistency principle kind of guy. The integrity of the time stream is self-policing; it is impossible to create a result through time travel that is inconsistent with history. Either what you do is what actually happened in the “first” place, or something will prevent you from altering previous events. No way around it. Therefore you – no, let’s say I – therefore I will do whatever my gut says to do, without worrying about Marty McFly silliness. Assuming the Turkana boy looked sufficiently similar to a modern human boy to trip my sympathy button, I’m gonna save him. If not, I’ll ignore it. Phaser power packs are expensive. [/jackass] ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/25 "2014-08-13T01:26:56Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Never kill the butterfly guys. Thing is, if a butterfly’s wingflap in Japan caused a hurrican in the Atlantic, there’d be a shitload more hurricanes. The biggest effect of the overwhelming (probably 100%) majority of butterfly wingflaps is that the butterfly jerks a little bit higher in the air. I’m gonna save the boy, because he’s a boy. I wouldn’t murder a boy for science, nor would I stand by and watch a modern boy be mauled by a predator for the sake of science, so I don’t see why I’d do so in the past, either. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/26 "2014-08-13T01:54:44Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Say you scare a bird, which causes its sperm to be slightly jostled such that it produces a different offspring, . Being scared alters one’s sperm? I am not aware of this science. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/27 "2014-08-13T02:09:11Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > [jackass] > > I’m a Novikov self-consistency principle kind of guy. The integrity of the time stream is self-policing; it is impossible to create a result through time travel that is inconsistent with history. Either what you do is what actually happened in the “first” place, or something will prevent you from altering previous events. No way around it. Therefore you – no, let’s say I – therefore I will do whatever my gut says to do, without worrying about Marty McFly silliness. Assuming the Turkana boy looked sufficiently similar to a modern human boy to trip my sympathy button, I’m gonna save him. If not, I’ll ignore it. Phaser power packs are expensive. > > [/jackass] [Here’s the chap](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Turkana_boy_-_steps_of_forensic_facial_reconstruction.jpg) in various stages of facial reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/28 "2014-08-13T13:02:32Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > [Here’s the chap](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Turkana_boy_-_steps_of_forensic_facial_reconstruction.jpg) in various stages of facial reconstruction. Are you kidding me? I went out with her once…not so much of a mustache, though. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/29 "2014-08-13T15:25:25Z")
Not going to do anything. Not because of any concerns about time paradoxes. And I’m not a fatalist or anything like that. I just don’t see the need to save a juvenile non-_sapiens_ who [likely wasn’t long for the world](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkana_Boy#Disease)in any case. Circle of life and all that. Bringing him to my time is right out. Don’t people read[the classics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_Little_Boy)anymore? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/30 "2014-08-13T15:28:33Z")
> [@Folly](#): > > If you explain why _you_ think it’s funny, then it might explain a Simpson’s joke that I’ve never gotten. I spent nearly a year there long ago, and although Brazilians are very friendly and nice, they have a proclivity to over exaggerate their roll on the World Stage. For example: They invented the Airplane! (No, they didn’t) They invented the Automobile! (No, they didn’t) They invented Coke and Levi’s! (No, they didn’t) They invented Electricity! (No, they didn’t) They invented Football (Soccer)! Well, maybe. They were awfully good at it. My All-Time-Favorite: They won World War Two! (No, they didn’t) To me, the joke is that it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to hear them claim they somehow pulled off Time Travel. And _First_, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/31 "2014-08-13T16:01:08Z")
Nope, sorry, the kid’s gotta die. Let’s say I do save the kid, now instead of a happy full eagle digesting his meal we have a hungry eagle flying around killing my great grandparents. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/32 "2014-08-13T16:34:14Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > [Here’s the chap](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Turkana_boy_-_steps_of_forensic_facial_reconstruction.jpg) in various stages of facial reconstruction. [speciesist!skald] Sympathy meter tripped. [/speciesist] ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/33 "2014-08-13T21:36:59Z")
I’d do something else. I’d let the bird attack the boy and then stun both of them and bring both to the present and let science have the boy to study and then sell the bird to science for millions of dollars, then retire and then spend the rest of me days time traveling around. Stopping back into the present now and again to resupply and rest. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/34 "2014-08-13T22:12:35Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > To me, the joke is that it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to hear them claim they somehow pulled off Time Travel. And _First_, of course. Thanks! (still don’t get Simpsons joke) ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/35 "2014-08-14T00:16:35Z")
[quote=“jtur88, post:23, topic:695341”] I heard about the hunter years ago, but can’t find a cite on it now because the keywords are all getting buried by the more recent incident in suburban Chicago, where the wife is suing the owner of a lake, for the death of her husband murdered by the swans. But this is not the first one. There’s even a YouTube video, but it might be a fake, I haven’t checked it out. [/QUOTE] Looks like a goose to me. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/36 "2014-08-14T01:03:50Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > If you leave him to die, he becomes one of the oldest intact skeleton discovered so his death is not in vain. Would fossils still be particularly valuable to researchers in a world with time travel, though? I’m no expert on anthropology, but I’d guess that even a brief trip back to the Pleistocene would allow paleoanthropologists to learn more about _Homo ergaster_ than they could ever hope to figure out from examining the Turkana boy skeleton. ETA: > [@Folly](#): > > Thanks! (still don’t get Simpsons joke) I don’t think there’s anything to get about the Brazilian time-traveler joke – it’s just supposed to be funny because it’s such an odd thing for Homer to say. I know some people have tried to connect it to the movie _[Brazil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_%281985_film%29)_, but since there’s no time travel in that movie, it’s not actually set in Brazil, and none of the characters are Brazilian, that seems like a reach. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/37 "2014-08-14T12:47:15Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > I don’t think there’s anything to get about the Brazilian time-traveler joke – it’s just supposed to be funny because it’s such an odd thing for Homer to say. Yes, that’s the official line, AFAIK - it’s a “non-reference invented for the show”, like “the dreaded Rear Admiral” maneuver mentioned by Milhouse in the same sentence as “wedgies” and “wet willies” as a risk of turning around to face away from Bart Simpson. And Lisa’s sarcastic suggestion of “reverse vampires” when the kids observed that many adults were beginning to only come out during the day. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/38 "2014-08-14T12:49:31Z")
As to the OP: I save the life of the boy, of course. For timeline causality purposes, I may even bring him forward to our time for study (since he’s supposed to be “dead to the world”), if he was attacked while alone - if his mother were there or something, I don’t think I’d have it in me to separate them. Now tell me that bird starved to death and all sorts of ripple effects cascaded because of that, ha! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/39 "2014-08-14T12:54:27Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > I’d do something else. I’d let the bird attack the boy and then stun both of them and bring both to the present and let science have the boy to study and then sell the bird to science for millions of dollars, then retire and then spend the rest of me days time traveling around. Stopping back into the present now and again to resupply and rest. After they’re done with him, why not put him back, so the skeletal version will also still be found? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/40 "2014-08-14T12:56:45Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Would fossils still be particularly valuable to researchers in a world with time travel, though? I’m no expert on anthropology, but I’d guess that even a brief trip back to the Pleistocene would allow paleoanthropologists to learn more about _Homo ergaster_ than they could ever hope to figure out from examining the Turkana boy skeleton. We can’t just go handing out DeLoreans to any Tom Dick or Harry, y’know! Incidentally it’s possible that they were capable of [speech](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster#Linguistic_use). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341.md?page=3)