These aren't retouched.
Posted on 07/13/2005 5:48:00 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
In H. G. Wells’s classic novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, the sole survivor of a shipwreck lands on an island filled with human-animal hybrids, like “Leopard-Man” and “Swine-Folk.” There he discovers Dr. Moreau, a notorious medical researcher who was run out of London for his experiments. Though it was science-fiction in 1896, Wells’s novel is frighteningly close to science today.
Whereas Moreau used dissection and surgery to create his hybrids, today researchers are using in vitro manipulation. Embryonic cells from one species, like goats, are inserted into the blastocyst of another, such as sheep. The result is a creature, the “geep,” possessing characteristics of both species.
Researchers call these man-made combinations “chimeras,” after the mythological creature that was part lion, goat, and serpent. And experiments are not limited to dumb animals. Researchers have created pigs with “partly human livers” in hopes of solving organ transplant shortages. Mice with human cells, including brain cells, are used in testing drugs and in Parkinson’s research.
These successes have prompted researchers to think about something involving a species closer to humans: chimpanzees. The genetic similarities between humans and chimpanzees make the temptation to create such a human-chimp chimera almost irresistible. As with cloning and embryonic stem-cell research, advocates promise medical miracles if they’re allowed to proceed without interference.
The President’s Council on Bioethics disagrees. At its March meeting, it discussed the “reasonable boundaries” between “acceptable” research and the kind that would amount to “high-tech bestiality.”
In Congress, Senator Sam Brownback (R) of Kansas has introduced a bill that would “ban the production of human-animal chimeras.” If passed, the United States would join Canada in prohibiting this kind of research.
Even the magazine Scientific American says that some human-animal chimeras “disquietingly blur the line between species.” It notes that “no one knows what the consequences will be as the proportion of human cells in an animal increases.”
One possible consequence is that this “intermingling of tissues could . . . make it easier for infectious animal diseases to move into humans. . . . This hopping of species barriers can be particularly devastating because the [human] immune systems . . . are so unprepared for them.” The list of pandemics thought to have originated in such “hopping” includes the 1918 flu pandemic that killed at least 40 million people, and HIV/AIDS.
But even if the research were safe, we ought to be opposed it. The embryonic stem-cells needed to produce a chimera can come about only by destroying a human life. And the assault on the dignity of life will not stop there. What would be the moral status, for example, of the human-animal chimera? Would it be human or an animal? The temptation would be animal, of course. And as in Wells’s novel, man’s proclivity to view his fellow creatures as a means to his own ends is well-documented.
The time to stop this travesty is now. Otherwise, something much more precious than a ship will be lost: that is, our appreciation of what it means to be human.
BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my Chuck Colson/BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
"Are we not men...?"
"Swine Folk?" Was it a Muslim island?
These aren't retouched.
"What would be the moral status, for example, of the human-animal chimera?"
It's hard to believe this Sci Fi nightmare is really happening.
I remember the Island of Doctor Moreau--quite powerful and revolting. Everyone should read it, because it is really relevant now. I won't however. I am already sick enough about this.
I trust this will not happen in the US. Even if we convinced countries like S. Korea not to do it, however, I am certain the Russians and Chinese will do it in secret.
Except I forgot. That nice man Putin is in charge of Russia now---all bad communists gone away. I notice he just put his latest leading potential political rival in jail, or started an investigation.
Sarcasm aside, it is a known fact the Russians had extensive biological research going on, and the facilities are still there and apparently operating. I don't think they ever even denied that they continue biowarfare research.
Another tower of Babel attempt my man.....
my=by
Hillery! Clinton, part man, part woman, all animal!
Blurs the line between demonists and commucrats.
Bites the heads off journalists with a single swipe of
her razorsharp teeth.
Science will not be satisfied until "it" replaces God's creations with its own. There is NO logical or rational justification for tampering with human life. You can't improve on perfection.
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
These Boston-based scientists -- Eric Lander, James J. Collins, and Douglas A. Melton -- are at the vanguard of upheaval in life sciences as biologists become increasingly systematic in figuring out what makes people sick or healthy. Armed with a complete readout of human genes and increasing ability to make cells do what they want, they say scientists are only years away from once unthinkable goals such as cataloguing all the genes that cause cancer and learning to create all forms of human tissue in a petri dish....But Melton, a Harvard embryologist who works with stem cells from human embryos, said the new world of biology will raise challenging ethical questions as scientists get better at manipulating life. He said researchers already have crossed a sheep with a goat and he predicted it would be only a matter of time before human-animal hybrids are created.
He envisioned a day when, after transplanting human stem cells into a monkey's brain, "you walk into a lab in 2090 and the monkey says, 'Good morning.' " Would such a creature be a human or a monkey, and what rights should it have, he asked. (emphasis added)
Welcome to the Brave New World of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
You know I havent really completely formed my opinion on this yet, but that part about the chimpanzees made me think about Planet of the Apes :) We make em smarter and we might be the animals! EEK!
I feel like collapsing on a beach now yelling at a partially buried Statue of Liberty.
Its getting to the point a guy can't have any fun anymore.
Mercifully, I'll be dead before that happens.
Do you ever listen to late night AM radio - "coast to coast am" with George Noury? (he's a maronite 'in name only'). One discussion the other night on time travel, had him saying that he would like to go back to the time of Christ to see what 'magic' he used to perform the 'purported' miracles.
One tolerates this nonsense to a finite limit, at which point it often becomes necessary to turn off the radio, close the newspaper, click of the tv and begin praying for these lost souls. There is great beauty in the "sounds of silence". That is where God speaks to man.
Not retouched?
No,it may not be "retouched. But you said nothing about "photoshopped" did you?
Aw crap, I already only speak English, if He messes with the languages again I might not be able to read the ingredients on my groceries anymore!
So...uh...this hermaphrodite wolfman...you wouldn't have her number, would you?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.