Are You a Man or a Mouse? (Chimeric experimentation produces Human-Animal Hybrids)

Guardian Unlimited ^ | 03/15/05 | Jeremy Rifkin

[mojito]

The implications of this are so profound and so unsettling that it is difficult to find the words to convey them adequately.

[mgc1122]

It does have serious ethical and moral questions. However, my first thought was insert "Pinky & The Brain" joke here.

[JenB]

Gah, I wanted to mention "Pinky and the Brain"...

"What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world!"

[RockinRight]

Weissman is considering a follow-up that would produce mice whose brains are 100% human

Why the hell would we want that??? This Weissman sounds like a mad scientist.

[mgc1122]

Pinky, are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking?

I think so, Brain, but if we didn't have ears, we'd look like weasels.

[Petronski]

Such experimentation is so ghastly and so unconscionable that it beggars the language.

[JenB]

But Brain, how are we going to get the rooster and the lederhosen into the zeppelin?

[nuke rocketeer]

"Weissman says that he would keep a tight rein on the mice, and if they showed any signs of humanness he would kill them."

Would that not be murder?

[mgc1122]

Pinky, Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Uh, I think so, Brain, but where will we find a duck and a hose at this hour?

[Lee Heggy]

There are some things that shouldn't be done just because we can do them.

This is one of them.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Already been done.

[RosieCotton]

How did I KNOW I was gonna encounter you here?

Seriesly, though...this is scary stuff.

[MEGoody]

Sick and evil.

[bigsigh]

I guess those people on the anti-gay marriage threads were right. LOL!

[ABN 505]

Remember when "The Island Of Dr. Moreau" was just a horror story? This is going beyound the bounds of decency and humanity.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Sounds like H.G. Wells was onto something..."The Island of Dr. Moreau"

MD

[GSlob]

"Why the hell would we want that??? "
Mice are common lab test animals. Imagine the advantages if a humanly speaking mouse could talk and tell all the symptoms of the treatment it is experiencing.

[JenB]

Can we say chimera? If it's possible, it shouldn't be done. Though you know, I think there's more to the human brain than its composition. Even if one did manage to make a mouse with a human-type brain, that wouldn't make it a human mouse. Just a mouse with a weird brain.

[Right Wing It]

These aren't creatures that are fully aware of everything that humans are. They can't talk, and that is not even the purpose of this man's experiment. This man is simply fooling with something that does not need fooling with.
Then the situation arrouses in which individuals begin to question the rights of these animals, stating that they are human, and thus have the rights that humans do. In other words, the ACLU would have a fit and ban any further testing on any such "tlaking mouse"

[Lloyd227]

"...and if they showed any signs of humanness he would kill them"

This just struck me as a rather odd position to intentionally place yourself in.