Is it an adaptation to see to the welfare of your kin at any cost?

This is making a presupposition that all moral decisions are based in an evolutionary context which is a patently false assertion. While it might be nice to think that humans have the right to do anything they want to preserve their genes(and those of their kin), there are laws, societal norms, and other factors in place. I think it is already pretty apparent that human beings usually do go to great lengths to preserve the lives of their children, even when they find the means to that end reprehensible. Every situation and every person is different, and the extent to which one's genetic profile's survival and replication is concerned, some are overwhelmed by the societal consequences and conflicts with one's personal ethics while others make decisions by giving more weight to the emotional(perhaps genetic) side of themselves.

That being said, of course I would let the doctor proceed.

I would let the doctor do it. I don't think it's immoral to let the doctor operate, in my opinion it'd be more immoral to let the child die when the solution is at hand.

Ted Bundy worked for a while on a suicide hotline, apparantly, he was quite good...

John Wayne Gacy entertained children as a clown, and was photographed with the First lady...

Hitler himself could accurately be described as a non-smoking, non-drinking vegitarian, a decorated war hero, and reputedly never once cheated on his wife.

The current Pope was a member of the Nazi Party...

LC >;-}>

Well since Hitler was only married 2 days before he commited suicide this isn't a very big feat.

Two points:  I think you mean an environmental scientist.  An environmentalist doesn't necessarily know jack shit about science.  And have you ever noticed that the only time you want Chick Fil-A is on a Sunday?

I'm almost embarrassed by how often I agree with you, though I go for the Buffalo fingers myself.  I always know the hangover's nearly gone when I feel the shooting pains in my left arm.

They're called thought experiments, and they don't have to be plausible in order to do the jobs they're required to do, one of which is illustrate how people think.

The drummer in my band is the Godson of the late Dr. Harold Shipman who for those who don't know was one of the most notorious serial killers in British criminal history. He murdered hundreds of elderly patients in his care for financial gain. My drummer told me that he wouldn't actually be alive if it weren't for Dr Shipman. I guess it's similar in a way.

George Bush who values human life so much at all stages, that he values the lives of discarded embryos over  living, breathing children, grandparents, mothers, fathers, etc. 

Bomb first ask questions later George Bush.  Sounds about right doesn't it?

Sorry I can't help myself bitching about GWB.

But justin, you fail to see how your objection fails to have any relevance whatsoever.  A thought experiment is a drastic situation designed to illustrate a principle about a normal situation.  Suppose I ask you to imagine that someone offers you a billion dollars to simply pull the plug on an infant born prematurely.  If you pull the plug, the day old infant will certainly die.  You can be assured that nobody but your donor will ever find out what you have done.

This will obviously never happen, but it illustrates a point -- namely, when there is enough advantage and few enough penalties, people will do things they find morally objectionable.  You know that this happens all the time in real life, just with much tamer circumstances.

So, the fact that this thought experiment seems implausible to you does not really address anything relevant, only that you don't think this exact situation will ever occur.  Incidentally, I can pretty easily imagine a snowstorm that locked a doctor and a few people into a house with no hope of rescue for 24 hours.  Mission accomplished. 

But, that's just not the point.  The question asked by the experiment is: "Are there situations where people suspend sanctions on people they consider highly immoral, for essentially selfish reasons?"  Clearly, the answer is yes.  (Ask yourself, do you think everyone in the White House loves W, or do you think some of them kiss his ass so they can keep their high powered job?)

Well sure, people act in ways counter to what they thought they believed when they are pushed to new boundaries, but I guess (among other things) I was expressing my distaste for thought experiments.  For the most part I find them to be pretty worthless.  You can sometimes use them to gauge where your moral boundaries might be, but you can never know these boundaries until you're actually put in a bad position. 

I personally don't think I would take an innocent life for any amount of money, because I'm one of those weird folks who values life over money or possessions - though this is of course all in theory, as I've never been put in such a position.  I can think about what I would do if someone offered me a billion dollars to kill a newborn baby, but I'll never truly know what I would do until after someone really asks me. 

But back to my original post:  I think it adequately addressed Louis's points, in that Bundy wasn't the only available suicide counselor, and Gacy wasn't the only available child entertainer.  Even if they were, they both performed these duties before they were known as serial killers, and I think it's pretty safe to say that a known serial killer will never be one's only option for any type of service, let alone suicide counseling and child entertainment.  Thus there will never be a time when someone is forced to choose between accepting service from a known serial killer or performing the service on their own.  Knowledge of Bundy's and Gacy's status as serial killers was hindsight to those involved.  And although Gacy's clown routine was inexorably tied to his murder spree, Bundy may have been a wonderful suicide counselor - serial killers typically don't want all people to die in general, but rather target a select group of people in order to satisfy a very complex obsession.  Had Bundy used his status as a suicide counselor to lure vulnerable people into a trap for the purpose of killing them, then he could be compared to Gacy, but still not to the original Nazi doctor thought experiment. 

Serial murder is a crime, whereas Nazi ideology is not, at least not apart from acting out said ideology.  You can be a neo-Nazi in theory, but you're not a criminal until they act violently toward a non-Aryan.  Thus, equating a serial killer with a Nazi doesn't really work.

But in the end, not all people find that they are bad when put in potentially extenuating circumstances.  Have you read any Viktor Frankl?  I know that holocaust examples have probably been permanently banned from internet discussion, but he witnessed quite the opposite during his imprisonment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.  He saw people give their food to others who were going to be executed the next day.  Above all he saw people love for no other reason than fondness for the person to whom the love was shown.  That's not something Frankl could have approached with a thought experiment.