# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**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 14, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/41 "2014-08-14T17:02:14Z")
> [@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. Pulling off time travel first isn’t that hard, though. Just go back in time to before the guy who actually did it first, and do it before him. (OK, there is one obvious problem with this plan. I’m still working on that.) ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/42 "2014-08-14T21:52:40Z")
> [@Shakes](#): > > Being scared alters one’s sperm? I am not aware of this science. You roll a two hundred million sided die every time you attempt to get someone pregnant (and it may disappear or something and you have to roll again). Changing _anything_ about the run up to impregnation is sure to change the outcome of which sperm wins the race, including which group of sperm happens to be racing in this particular heat. Chances are, if you change the past at all, even thousands of miles from your parents, or years before you were conceived, you’ll prevent yourself from being born. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/43 "2014-08-14T21:59:49Z")
> [@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. Maybe not for paleontologists, but certainly there’s value in knowing what happens to bodies after millions of years? Biologists and geologists alike would be interested in the process of fossilization. Not to mention, unless time machines are dirt cheap, identifying geological strata via embedded fossils should always be useful. Plus, rocks with ancient hardened animals in them are just cool. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/44 "2014-08-14T23:18:57Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > You roll a two hundred million sided die every time you attempt to get someone pregnant (and it may disappear or something and you have to roll again). Changing _anything_ about the run up to impregnation is sure to change the outcome of which sperm wins the race, including which group of sperm happens to be racing in this particular heat. Chances are, if you change the past at all, even thousands of miles from your parents, or years before you were conceived, you’ll prevent yourself from being born. It’s probably not fair to say that all 200 million sperm have a chance of making it. Most of them are defective in some way so that they’ll still trail the pack. But at the final stage of one sperm getting through the outer layer of the egg, there are hundreds of sperm still left at that stage and they’re all equal contenders. So it might be better to say it’s a thousand-sided die. ---
**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, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/45 "2014-08-14T23:35:42Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Pulling off time travel first isn’t that hard, though. Just go back in time to before the guy who actually did it first, and do it before him. > > (OK, there is one obvious problem with this plan. I’m still working on that.) My favorite quote on this topic is from Douglas Adams: “_One rationalization of the problem of how Time Travel was actually invented states that time travel was simultaneously discovered at all periods throughout history…_” ---
**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 15, 2014, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/46 "2014-08-15T00:12:22Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > My favorite quote on this topic is from Douglas Adams: “_One rationalization of the problem of how Time Travel was actually invented states that time travel was simultaneously discovered at all periods throughout history…_” Oh, crap. _My_ plan is to invent it, and go back in time and take the plans to myself. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2014, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341/47 "2014-08-15T14:05:11Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > It’s probably not fair to say that all 200 million sperm have a chance of making it. Most of them are defective in some way so that they’ll still trail the pack. > > But at the final stage of one sperm getting through the outer layer of the egg, there are hundreds of sperm still left at that stage and they’re all equal contenders. So it might be better to say it’s a thousand-sided die. But sperm aren’t like eggs, where you make a fixed amount at puberty and sit on them your whole life. Sperms are made on demand. So if your time travel antics make your dad wait even an extra minute to get busy with your mom, a whole other set of sperm will be created. So it might be more like rolling an infinity sided die. Either way, I’d say chances are you wouldn’t be here if the past were even slightly different. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-ethics-saving-the-turkana-boy/695341.md?page=2)