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Ronald Bailey looks at a Senate attempt to block human/animal chimeras and says No Spill Blood!
|6.30.06 @ 5:30PM|#
Why do you expect Congress to have a better grasp of biology than they do economics?
|6.30.06 @ 5:37PM|#
Why does Ronald Bailey insist on using logic and science to combat emotional, pandering congressional positions?
|6.30.06 @ 5:38PM|#
In any political debate, no mention of chimaeras should exclude
the chimaeric nature of limited government Republicans (and/or sane
Democrats).
And in any debate regarding genetic manipulation, one must remember
Khan Noonien Singh and the
Eugenics wars of the late twentieth century.
|6.30.06 @ 6:00PM|#
How will this affect the future of the Marvel / DC characters like Spiderman and Dolphin?
|6.30.06 @ 6:53PM|#
"Still one can imagine that adding a substantial number of
human neurons to fetal primates might end up producing a creature
that could be regarded as a diminished human being."
Resulting in a creature with cognitive abilities not unlike that of
your average senator.
|6.30.06 @ 6:56PM|#
NoStar, it's because the damn things are so deadly. One of the few magical beasts in J.K. Rowling's beastiary to be feared by everyone in wizardkind (so we Muggles should certainly fear them).
|6.30.06 @ 9:29PM|#
Already, Stanford University researcher Irving Weissman has
injected human neurons into mouse fetuses producing mice with
brains composed of 1 percent human neurons. Weissman next wants to
create a strain of mice with brains made almost entirely of human
neurons.
I take it that he's forgotten what happened with the rats of
NIMH.
|6.30.06 @ 10:47PM|#
I'd like to know the name of the painting used on the home page
next to the article.
Oh, and yeah, I agree with Ron.
|6.30.06 @ 10:51PM|#
Get real people; throw off the libertarian blinders , and imagine seeing down the street: a human being with horns and fangs; a creature as smart as a average human being but crawlng on all fours; a human/insect hybrid. Would you really want to see such a thing?
|7.1.06 @ 12:29AM|#
Get real people; throw off the libertarian blinders , and
imagine seeing down the street: a human being with horns and fangs;
a creature as smart as a average human being but crawlng on all
fours; a human/insect hybrid. Would you really want to see such a
thing?
Abso-fuckin-lutely!
|7.1.06 @ 5:23AM|#
"Would you really want to see such a thing?"
Sure, why not? People have been doing all sorts of freaky body
modification for centuries.
But honestly, I think the real entertainment value is to be had in
watching the reaction of uptight stiffs who would rail against that
sort of thing.
|7.1.06 @ 6:47AM|#
Mephesto: "It's thanks to the wonders of
genetic engineering that soon there will be an end to hunger,
disease, pollution, even war. I have created things that will
change the world for the better. For instance, here is a monkey
with four asses."
Sen. Brownback (R-Kansas): "Those better not be
human asses! Because that would be banned by the Human Chimera
Prohibition Act, and could be punishable by a fine of $1
million or ten years in prison or both."
Mephesto: "Sir, if making mutant animals spliced
with humans is crazy? then? uhhhhh? hmmm?oh, nevermind. I'm afraid
there's been a bit of an incident at the ranch."
|7.1.06 @ 9:02AM|#
I support well over 90 percent of libertarian positions. And I
support research that could help people with various diseases or
syndromes. Yet, theoretically at least, I do wonder if the line
should be drawn some where. Really, do we want chimeras, that would
be diminished human beings? Or beings that would give human beings
dangerous insect or savage mammalian features? Does such a scenario
not give more libertarians pause?
My guess is that very few people out there are going to support
research into Frankenstein like creations. Possibly a weak point in
the libertarian platform?
|7.1.06 @ 9:38AM|#
Frankenstein was not a chimera, he was 100% human.
I would want my kid to have a dinosaur penis. That would make sure
he got all the girls he wanted. I mean, really, who wouldn't do a
guy with a dinosaur penis? No-one. That's the point.
Man, it would be cool to have a dinosaur penis.
|7.1.06 @ 10:11AM|#
I didn't literally mean, "the Frankenstein" of the Mary Shelly novel. I meant man made creatures, tailored to our specifications - like a chimera of some sort. Made just for entertainment, not for research purposes for curing cancer or something like parkinson's. But the creation of a diminished human being - another mammal but with human neurons, for any purpose, strikes me as a scary scenario.
|7.1.06 @ 10:57AM|#
I have to admit, the far reaches of genetic experimentation does give me pause. But a little of that is admittedly just my own prejudices at work. Next thing you know, chimeras will be moving in next door, taking our jobs, drinking our water, having all those chimeric babies, speaking chimerian, etc.
Larry A|7.1.06 @ 11:26AM|#
So once again we have Representatives and Senators banning
something we can't do yet to solve problems we've only speculated
about in SciFi stories.
Too bad we can't get Congress interested in the many SciFi novels
about the dangers of overregulated nanny-states, and encourage
action to solve that problem.
|7.1.06 @ 12:09PM|#
The failure of many libertarians to take the boundaries of their positions seriously (should private citizens be allowed to own nuclear weapons, raise private armies, or one day in the future create man/beast monstrosities?) is one of the reasons libertarians are not taken seriously by the mainstream, and continue to just keep collecting less than 1 percent of the vote in elections.
|7.1.06 @ 12:57PM|#
There's a distinct difference between allowing for scientific
research for the purpose of curing diseases and science for the
purpose to make war on human nature itself, just as there's a
distinct difference between the right to defend oneself with a
handgun and the right to own a nuclear weapon.
When a difference in degree reaches a significant point it becomes
a difference in kind.
|7.1.06 @ 1:36PM|#
Get real people; throw off the libertarian blinders , and
imagine seeing down the street: a human being with horns and fangs;
a creature as smart as a average human being but crawlng on all
fours; a human/insect hybrid. Would you really want to see such a
thing?
That sounds fuckin' sweet!
Yet, theoretically at least, I do wonder if the line should be
drawn some where.
No... you don't wonder if the line should be drawn somewhere. The
line will ALWAYS be drawn. What you want is the government to draw
the line based on the reactionary and hysterical fears of an easily
frightened public... instead of voluntary moral and ethical
standards of the scientists involved.
The failure of many libertarians to take the boundaries of
their positions seriously (should private citizens be allowed to
own nuclear weapons, raise private armies, or one day in the future
create man/beast monstrosities?) is one of the reasons libertarians
are not taken seriously by the mainstream, and continue to just
keep collecting less than 1 percent of the vote in
elections.
Gee, and I thought it was because elections are gerimandered into
zones where one of the two major parties are garanteed control, the
members of the two parties control all the voting process, the
members of the two parties have a vast government funded propoganda
machine programing children from the age of 5, the the two parties
have total control of all political advertisments and public
political discourse through the FCC and campaign finance reform
laws, and in many places non-democrat and republican parties are
essentially banned outright.
Yet despite the Soviet style political system, the vast majority
say they would not vote Democrat or Republican if they thought the
other guy would actually have a chance of winning.
The fact that Libertarians are able to get 1 or 2 percent of the
vote is, in fact, a miracle.
|7.1.06 @ 3:40PM|#
"What you want is the government to draw the line based on the
reactionary and hysterical fears of an easily frightened public...
instead of voluntary moral and ethical standards of the scientists
involved."
Nice straw man. No, I think law should be based on basic human
rights, mostly negative rights to protect us against aggression,
fraud, nuisances, and externalities that infringe upon our own
rights to liberty.
My sense is that the scientific work being done now in genetics is
done morally and ethically. But what I'm saying is that there could
be potential work that could actually raise ethical concerns, to
threaten our liberty or the liberty or sense of dignity of future
beings. The creation of diminished human beings, perhaps one with
greatly enhanced and dangerous physical abilities but lacking the
mental or moral apparatus to control themselves, could be one such
threat to liberty and to the dignity of the creation itself. Even
if we are decades from such possibilities, the fact that it is a
possibility should at least raise a concern - just as someone else
pointed out that just because you have a right to protect yourself
with a handgun, should that extend to having the right to own a
nuclear weapon. Does that count as the right to 'bear arms'?
And P.S. Scientists, just like anyone else, can be used for
political purposes or have hidden agendas, just witness the global
warming debate.
|7.1.06 @ 3:43PM|#
Frankenstein was not a chimera, he was 100%
human.
Yes, Frankenstein was the doctor's name. Mary Shelly did not offer
a name for the doctor's creation.
According the movie, the chimera do get names in "The Island of Dr.
Moreau". I haven't read H.G. Wells' novel to confirm this, but it
has just jumped to the top of my reading list.
|7.1.06 @ 3:51PM|#
There are differences bewteen 1. using science to cure diseases; 2. a person volutnarily using technology to modify one's body, and 3. creating weird human/beast hybrids. I have no problem with the first two. As to the third option, and to those who wouldn't mind it, you are just posturing.
|7.1.06 @ 4:10PM|#
Is it always the fate of scientists to be crucified by know-nothing idiots who have a religious zealotry that precludes progress for generations because of their abject stupidity? This country should be in the forefront of genetic research to improve the human condition, not cowering at the feet of radical right religious phonies who don't know or understand science but feel qualified to tell real researchers what they can and can't research. What this country needs is a law that defines if a politician doesn't know anything about a subject he/she can't bitch about it or vote on it. Otherwise we will watch the research going on overseas and our lives will be marginalized in the future.
|7.1.06 @ 4:35PM|#
For a website supposedly devoted to 'reason' I find it curious
that there is an extreme lack therof in some of these posts.
Bones attacks a strawman. For one thing, I am not a religous
zealot. For another thing, the view that techonlogy may have some
bad consequences can be attacked based on argument, but calling
such people ignorant know-nothings is an illegitamate form of
argument. Some people around here ought to....reason better.
|7.1.06 @ 4:42PM|#
3. creating weird human/beast hybrids.
I think ron would be sending Mr. Ed to glue factory toot sweet.
|7.1.06 @ 5:02PM|#
I really like the idea of a right to "bear arms".
As for a diminished "human" with no moral sense and natural
weaponry... sort of like, a tiger? We know how to handle
tigers.
Anyway, it seems to me that there *are* potential dangers of
genetic engineering technology, but are there such terrible
consequences for waiting until we see the reality of it before we
write restrictive laws? If some monster is actually created, how
destructive could it be? So, aside from folks who object on
religious grounds, shouldn't we all agree that legislation on this
sort of thing is premature?
|7.1.06 @ 5:04PM|#
Ron, I think everyone would agree with you that humans shouldn't
be involutarily turned into retarded half-animals (I only think the
idea is cool if chimeras have 100% human intellect). But I think
the liklihood of that is smaller than that of a nuclear powered
spacecraft exploding and falling to earth during takeoff.
I think the overall libertarian position is that just because some
people will misuse a power doesn't necessarily mean that no one
should be allowed to have that power.
|7.1.06 @ 5:44PM|#
Mary Shelly did not offer a name for the doctor's
creation.
And the creation was also not a chimera, it was all-human.
Analogous to a transpalnt recipient, I think.
|7.1.06 @ 6:28PM|#
Sy,
I think it's kinda interesting (and off-topic)that Mary Shelly did
not name the 'monster'. Everyone names his dog. Some people name
their cars, airplanes, boats, and genitals. Give a child the
ugliest stuffed animal you can find and he/she will have a name for
it within 10 minutes. What's up with not giving the monster a name
?
Darned, I can't remember who. Part of a popular comedian's routine
was to make fun of the song "A Horse with no Name" by the group
America. Something like this: 'If you've been riding through the
dessert on the back of horse with no name for three days and
nothing else to do, you might want to name the horse.'
|7.1.06 @ 6:53PM|#
JK,
I think there were two reasons the monster wasn't named... with no
name, you can call it "the monster" and that sounds scarier than,
say, "Mike".
But I like to think it was more important as part of the theme that
"the monster" was actually a *good* person, but turned to evil
because he was abandoned and alienated. Dr. Frankenstein ditched
the monster as soon as he made it, and the only point it was
accepted as a person by anyone was a brief period with a blind man,
who immediately rejected the monster as soon as he knew what it
was. If the Dr. had given the monster a name and accepted it as a
person, the monster would have been a hero rather than a
villain.
|7.1.06 @ 7:00PM|#
Yes, Frankenstein was the doctor's name. Mary Shelly did not
offer a name for the doctor's creation.
I thought his name was Adam. Perhaps that was just in the
movie.
Anyway, everyone seems caught up on human animal hybrid fantasis.
The real uses of chimeras are a lot further from this - using human
genes to make animal organs more compatible with human
transplantation, for example, or raising human cells in tissue
culture with other cells. These are "real" chimeras.
English-speaking crocodiles are just a nonsense fantasy that
shouldn't be taken seriously for another thousand years or so.
Larry A|7.1.06 @ 7:01PM|#
'If you've been riding through the dessert on the back of
horse with no name for three days and nothing else to do, you might
want to name the horse.'
Depends. If you're in the desert there's the rule, "Don't name your
food." OTOH it would be okay if you're riding through dessert.
;-)
The SF story I keep remembering is the one where all food in the
society is created in vitro. One variety turns out to be immensely
more popular than the others. But it has to be recalled when
researchers discover they've accidentally created the laboratory
equivalent of human flesh.
|7.2.06 @ 12:33AM|#
Because someone could misuse power shouldn't mean that no one should be allowed to have that power? That makes sense as a general rule of thumb but should it be applied axiomatically? This line of thinking makes more sense to me: because someone could abuse the right to bear arms doesn't mean that no one should have the right to protect himself. However, it doesn't mean that the right to bear arms extends out to cover any sort of weapon at all: your right to protect your house and family with a gun against an attack does not necessarily extend to allowing you to own a nuclear weapon, which could threaten all of our lives and liberty. Similarly, for genetic engineering, its power to do enormous good as well as potential harm should suggest that at least in theory the right to do any sort of experiment at all, should be weighed against what it suggests for human beings' rights to life, liberty and dignity.
|7.2.06 @ 3:09AM|#
Yes, I think Smith clarifies some of my thinking about some of these issues. It goes further than the specific science of genetic engineering to the deeper philosophic question of the tension between such a robust interpretation of individual rights, where the most triumphalist and fundamentalist view does not consider that adoption of such rights, axiomatically and in the extreme, regardless of issues of externalities or occasionally blurred boundaries between individuals and their property, could actually lead to a less free and more dangerous society.
|7.2.06 @ 2:40PM|#
There are differences bewteen 1. using science to cure
diseases; 2. a person volutnarily using technology to modify one's
body, and 3. creating weird human/beast hybrids. I have no problem
with the first two. As to the third option, and to those who
wouldn't mind it, you are just posturing.
Comment by: ron at July 1, 2006 03:51 PM
In reading Ron's article, it appears we already have #3 for the
purpose of #1.
|7.4.06 @ 3:26AM|#
Wasn't someone awhile back suggesting experimenting on human libertarians and democrats to form a new species? Something like, "homo libertarius democritus erectus." Now, that would make for an interesting, though possibly dangerous, chimera. But add bat sonar to it and I'd pay for the operation myself.
|7.4.06 @ 6:35PM|#
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