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Blending Mice and Men
An anonymous reader sends in this piece about chimeras - not the ones with a THAC0 of 11, but a more general term meaning any multi-creature hybrid. A comprehensive look at the moral and scientific issues surrounding this area of biotech.
THAC0 was the one where the lower your score was the better is. Counter-intuitive? Armor Class forever! Long live d20!
No offence, but that's simply nonsense. "Speach", as you define it, requires a human vocal arraignment. This means we need a dedicated section of the brain, highly specialized vocal chords, and a trachea/esophagus system that allows us to use it for speach. None of these features are in any way related to intelligence. We could engineer a creature or artificial intelligence that possessed greater cognitive capabilities than a typical human, yet lacked the ability to speak. How would you deal with a chimp granted supernormal intelligence by splicing it's brain tissue with the genetic material required for a human neocortex? It can't speak (chimps can learn sign language btw, but cannot physically speak), but it's mute becasue it lacks sophisticated vocal chords or a speach center. Conversely, programmers have written programs capable of simulating complex conversations with users, which, according to your narrow definition of personhood, should qualify as people provided they are equipped with audio.
Personhood presently is defined as humanity. If we find or create intelligence that is not human, then we will need a new definition. I would much rather that criteria be based on something substantial, like complex independant reasoning, rather than something as specific and unrelated as speach. Yet that won't happen for some time, since we do not yet have an example of such intelligence, and when we get there, doubtlessly people will cling to the old human definition, and resist change on the basis of emotion or religion.
As a side note, primates and cetacians (dolphins etc) have been shown to have language. In fact, there is a considerable body of evidence supporting the conclusion that dolphins "speak', using their sonar system. Chimps, as I've already mentioned, have shown that they can learn and intelligently use sign language. Defining speech as language, and using your definition of personhood, whould higher mammals such as these qualify? They can speak in a way, and they have demonstrable intellect. If we set a threshold for personhood based on speach, dolphins would qualify, at least. If we used a definiton based on human level intelligence, they would not (but neither would fetuses or the severly mentally disabled, which opens up a major political can of worms, not to mention an ethical debate of huge proportions). There is a valid ethical question here, and genetic engineering is only going to complicate it further. To quote someone whose name I've forgotton "For every complex question there is an answer that is simple, elegant and wrong."
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
And then there's the whole issue of mitochondria/chlorplasts. Those were originally single celled organisms that got absorbed by another single cell organism, but then reproduced rather than being consumed.
The resulting Chimera passes down both the "host" organism plus the mitochondria/chloroplasts with their own unique DNA from the cell proper.
End result: Now these two once foreign cells are essentially the powerhouse of modern life. Chloroplasts are where plants actually convert light energy into chemical energy (stored as sugar) and mitochondria are where plants and animals (and most other assorted organisms as well) then convert sugars into readilly available energy, ATP (Adenosine TriPhosphate.)
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
A well known example of natural chimeras are male cats with the "tortoiseshell" coat color. These are either XXY cats - usually sterile - or most often chimeras, i.e. two different XY embryos that fused. (well, could be an XX and an XY.) This is known from DNA analysis of the red/cream and black/blue patches. The red/cream color is sex-linked on the X chromosome, which is why most red-and-black cats are female - two X chromosomes.
:-)
Hah - finally a post to fit my nick