Cockroach Backpack Controversy Or How Bleeding Hearts Want To Set Science Back.

 So I woke up to one of my computer science major friends, posting about something called a "Cockroach Backpack", going on about how people are saying it's controversial, and how people were overreacting. After clicking the link then discovering the disappointing fact that the "Cockroach Backpack" was not a backpack made of live cockroaches, I did discover it was an impulse manipulating device you place on the back of a cockroach and control with a phone app. That is possibly the coolest thing ever. Cockroaches are gross, overpopulated (thanks to our filth and expansion), and overall some of the most interesting creatures to do research on.
 What's the problem here? Well, like everything awesome, the bleeding hearts of the world have some ridiculous ethical problem with it. The company that makes the device wants to target it toward science projects and as a teaching aide, with Animal Behavior Scientist Jonathan Balcombe to being quoted as saying,
"If it was discovered that a teacher was having students use magnifying glasses to burn ants and then look at their tissue, how would people react?"

 The difference between playing around with electrical impulse control and burning ants with a magnifying glass is, burning ants with a magnifying glass is entirely pointless. It would be like comparing boiling noodles on a stove, to using babies as fuel for cars, one has a reason while the other doesn't. I know as a kid in school I loved science and being able to see how something works like the electrical impulses on a body would have been beyond cool!
 

 To anyone saying the science has no use I do have to point out that electrical impulse technology has successfully been used to stimulate nerve damaged limbs, heal brain damage from Alzheimer's, and to restart hearts. Getting kids interested in this stuff could cause one of this generation to be the doctor or scientist who figures out how to get a quadriplegic to walk again. The science has a solid and fundamental use, plus a cool factor kids will be drawn to.
Now there are a certain group of people who I don't even know if I should acknowledge just, because they are that insane, though I think I have to. There are the people who seriously think this will lead to "Mind control". These people are also the ones who probably thought that the CERN Hadron Collider was going to end the world, or that nuclear discoveries are bad because they can be turned into weapons. If we fear all scientific advancement, because something can be used in a bad way, we'll never advance as a species. Especially when something can do so much good, with such a harmless impact.

Links:
To buy or learn more about the "RoboRoach": https://backyardbrains.com/products/roboroach
To read the original BBC article I read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24455141