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Blending Mice and Men

Posted by michael on from the need-a-brain-for-my-master dept.

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.

2 of 387 comments (clear)

  1. Re:it's a new age by tasidar · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The implications of a "humanzee" is enough to keep philosophers and religious thinkers busy for quite a while. Does a humanzee really have a soul? Should they be granted "human rights"? Can we use them to test drugs or clean out clogged sewer lines? Really quite interesting. Just another humbling experience for those who think humans are something special apart from the rest of creation.

    More likely we'll just revert to the definition of humanity that our ancestors used...
    The fact that humanity must be earned (ie, creatures that look human may not necessarily be human)

    Hopefully, we'll used enlightened definition of humanity, but the more likely possibility is that we will create slaves.

  2. Re:it's a new age by Camel+Pilot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Speaking is just a mechanisim to communicate. It just so happens that we "evolved" a way of communicating by modulating and receiving gas pressure waves. What's so special about that.

    Whales and dolphins do the same except they use the ocean instead of the atmosphere as a transport media.

    In the field I have seen coyotes communication via vocalizations - does that give them soul status?