Human-animal Mixing Going Too Far, Report Says

[woodsmoke]

Honestly, I don't know what to think this subject.

 

I get the impression there's a lot of species-based egotistical knee-jerk reaction to the idea. "You can't mix humans with 'others,' it's just wrong!"

 

Okay... so what makes us any more special than the Earth's other organisms? Why is it okay to breed lions with tigers, wolves with dogs and horses with donkeys, but not humans with another species? I'm not necessarily trying to make a point here, just suggesting something to think about.

 

I'll say again, I don't have any answers and don't know what the hell to think about the idea, but I don't want to just dismiss it out of hand based on some unfounded notion that humans are somehow superior, or that there's something actually and inherently wrong with our interbreeding with other species.

[The Sage Nabooru]

In my opinion, humans are NOT superior, and animals are NOT inferior. The idea that one should mix species, simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it or - for chrissakes - to harvest the organs, is absolutely abhorrent to me. Imagine if you were created for the sole purpose of stroking some bio-scientist. You would spend your entire life being prodded with needles and tubes, put to sleep and woken back up again, living in a cage or bare room under constant surveillance, forced to perform feats of physical activity with wires attached to your heart, subjected to every sensory torture than can be imagined to test your limits, have your skull opened and brain poked, force-fed and then opened up to see how well your organs are maturing for the alcoholic who needs a new liver. And ultimately killed off, either from the stress, accidentally when lab assistants were trying to figure out how many volts of electric shock your body could take, or intentionally when they tire of you and find a buyer for your lungs. All in the name of science.

 

Science is like a religion in that it is something incredibly powerful, so powerful that some would be tempted to allow it to run loose and let it control humanity, rather than the other way around.

[KT45]

In my opinion, humans are NOT superior, and animals are NOT inferior. The idea that one should mix species, simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it or - for chrissakes - to harvest the organs, is absolutely abhorrent to me.

I'm just curious about your feelings concerning eating animals or if you think it is wrong to raise animals simply for the sake of eating them.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

I worked for many years in hospitals and I always felt that the dead were rather like empty houses. Who ever lived there was gone but I still treated the body with respect because it had been home to someones loved one. I always thought that I would have no problem with donating my organs or a loved ones organs. I knew that they would be put to good use, I even worked for the Eye Bank for awhile. But after my father died following a prolonged illness I refused to give permission for an autopsy. When the Doctor asked me why I had no GOOD answer it just seemed like they had hurt him so much when he was alive that they should just let him rest. Pretty silly when I look back on it but that was how I felt in the moment. Have any of you ever given permission for a loved ones organs to harvested? I was just wondering what your experences with the system were. I know that it seems easier when you are talking about it than that moment when you have to say goodbye and give permission. At least that is how is was for me.

 

No, I've never had any experience in that area. I have seen many pets die, though, no one wanted to harvest their organs.

[Amanda]

Science is like a religion in that it is something incredibly powerful, so powerful that some would be tempted to allow it to run loose and let it control humanity, rather than the other way around.

 

[Asimov]

In my opinion, humans are NOT superior, and animals are NOT inferior. The idea that one should mix species, simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it or - for chrissakes - to harvest the organs, is absolutely abhorrent to me. Imagine if you were created for the sole purpose of stroking some bio-scientist. You would spend your entire life being prodded with needles and tubes, put to sleep and woken back up again, living in a cage or bare room under constant surveillance, forced to perform feats of physical activity with wires attached to your heart, subjected to every sensory torture than can be imagined to test your limits, have your skull opened and brain poked, force-fed and then opened up to see how well your organs are maturing for the alcoholic who needs a new liver. And ultimately killed off, either from the stress, accidentally when lab assistants were trying to figure out how many volts of electric shock your body could take, or intentionally when they tire of you and find a buyer for your lungs. All in the name of science.

 

Some of what scientists are doing is wrong, such as animal testing for beauty products. Some of what they are doing is fine.

 

They aren't creating human animal hybrids in that report to harvest their organs. They're mixing humans and animals because the mix seems to produce similar behaviours in the hybrids. They mixed human and frog in order to see if they could help treat skin problems and disease.

 

How is that simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it? What if they bring the animal to the stem cell stage, where it's not aware?

[Ziggy]

Some of what scientists are doing is wrong, such as animal testing for beauty products. Some of what they are doing is fine.

 

They aren't creating human animal hybrids in that report to harvest their organs. They're mixing humans and animals because the mix seems to produce similar behaviours in the hybrids. They mixed human and frog in order to see if they could help treat skin problems and disease.

 

How is that simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it? What if they bring the animal to the stem cell stage, where it's not aware?

 

I suppose if they can manufacture organs without creating strange animal/human hybrids then that would be OK. So If the animal itself was not aware of anything maybe that would be OK... but it still makes me shudder because I would still see it as a living thing aware or not But of course maybe my feelings would change if there were huge benefits and it could be proved there was no feeling at all.. and I would just get used to it.

[Amanda]

They aren't creating human animal hybrids in that report to harvest their organs. They're mixing humans and animals because the mix seems to produce similar behaviours in the hybrids. They mixed human and frog in order to see if they could help treat skin problems and disease.

 

Hey Asimov, I don't think they can come up with an adequate testing of skin by that kind of hybrid, to effectively treat human skin problems. I have heard that science is close to reproducing an environment that closely mimics human systems for testing drugs, so that animal use in such areas are not warranted and to more closely monitor more true effects on humans. That seems like the way to go, IMO. :wink:

[woodsmoke]

In my opinion, humans are NOT superior, and animals are NOT inferior. The idea that one should mix species, simply for the sake of seeing if one can do it or - for chrissakes - to harvest the organs, is absolutely abhorrent to me. Imagine if you were created for the sole purpose of stroking some bio-scientist. You would spend your entire life being prodded with needles and tubes, put to sleep and woken back up again, living in a cage or bare room under constant surveillance, forced to perform feats of physical activity with wires attached to your heart, subjected to every sensory torture than can be imagined to test your limits, have your skull opened and brain poked, force-fed and then opened up to see how well your organs are maturing for the alcoholic who needs a new liver. And ultimately killed off, either from the stress, accidentally when lab assistants were trying to figure out how many volts of electric shock your body could take, or intentionally when they tire of you and find a buyer for your lungs. All in the name of science.

 

Science is like a religion in that it is something incredibly powerful, so powerful that some would be tempted to allow it to run loose and let it control humanity, rather than the other way around.

 

So how's living in the Dark Ages treating you? Read much Mary Shelley lately?

 

[jjacksonRIAB]

My initial reaction is some people have been reading too many horror novels. Evolution is an artifact of any sustainable living system. What is wrong with accelerating it?

 

Hell, we play that game more or less every time we have children.

 

My first suggestion to people who scream playing god, pointing at arch-villan SCIENTISTS crouching in dark corners conducting EVIL experiments without MORALS because they are EVIL would perhaps be a cerebral implant. :-P

[The Sage Nabooru]

My initial reaction is some people have been reading too many horror novels. Evolution is an artifact of any sustainable living system. What is wrong with accelerating it?

 

And what evidence has humanity ever brought forward that they know the best direction to take when "accelerating" evolution? When attempting to conform any part of nature to "superior human intellect"?

 

So how's living in the Dark Ages treating you? Read much Mary Shelley lately?

 

My first suggestion to people who scream playing god, pointing at arch-villan SCIENTISTS crouching in dark corners conducting EVIL experiments without MORALS because they are EVIL would perhaps be a cerebral implant. :-P

 

And your argument is....? Oh wait. You don't have one.

 

I'm just curious about your feelings concerning eating animals or if you think it is wrong to raise animals simply for the sake of eating them.

 

I do not eat meat or animal products. I personally find it morally wrong, especially considering that vegetarians tend to live longer and be healthier people. For me eating meat is little more than a selfish luxury, like wearing fur. I understand not everyone feels this way.

[woodsmoke]

My argument is that you're doing the exact same thing with science that you often accuse others on these very forums of doing with religion. You're lumping it all together--good, bad and ridiculous--and speaking against the whole based on your opinion of an absurdly miniscule portion.

 

Cancer isn't cured by killing any poor shmuck unfortunate enough to play unwilling host to a tumor.

[Amanda]

My argument is that you're doing the exact same thing with science that you often accuse others on these very forums of doing with religion. You're lumping it all together--good, bad and ridiculous--and speaking against the whole based on your opinion of an absurdly miniscule portion.

 

Cancer isn't cured by killing any poor shmuck unfortunate enough to play unwilling host to a tumor.

 

Hey Woodsmoke, I'm curious as to how you feel about raising genetically engineered animals to harvest their organs? I do eat meat... and have a few leather items, so I will give you that. I think a lot of it is because I haven't taken the time to think about it... yet, what can I say about the snake that eats the mouse and such?

 

It seems to me that thinking we are the highest on the intellect echelon, by a system we've made, to be able to use everything for our whims... just doesn't seem right. I think about it as if aliens from another planet came here and had one up on us! How would we want them to treat us? How would we feel if they decided to use us to produce organs for them?

[woodsmoke]

I feel fortunate that I still have time to learn and formulate an opinion on that particular issue, as I've yet to see any credible source reporting such a practice being carried out in reality. So far it's only the hysterical, the paranoid and the ignorant screaming about "TEH EBIL!" science may commit one day.

[NotBlinded]

Honestly, I don't know what to think this subject.

 

I get the impression there's a lot of species-based egotistical knee-jerk reaction to the idea. "You can't mix humans with 'others,' it's just wrong!"

 

Okay... so what makes us any more special than the Earth's other organisms? Why is it okay to breed lions with tigers, wolves with dogs and horses with donkeys, but not humans with another species? I'm not necessarily trying to make a point here, just suggesting something to think about.

 

I'll say again, I don't have any answers and don't know what the hell to think about the idea, but I don't want to just dismiss it out of hand based on some unfounded notion that humans are somehow superior, or that there's something actually and inherently wrong with our interbreeding with other species.

Where I see the problem is that when you give an animal human qualities, that might include the knowledge of death. Would we treat them the same way most animals are treated by humans? Would we crate them at night and while we're away? Do we do this to humans? Will we eat them? We we keep a human-chimp cross at the zoo?

 

It's not so much that we are superior, but it is more the way we treat the animals that many see as inferior. Does that make sense?

[The Sage Nabooru]

Where did I say that I considered ALL science to be "evil"? Oh, that's right, I didn't.

 

I think science is a glorious thing, a great manifestation of the universal order. I am totally supportive of the vast majority of scientific research. Curing cancer, curing AIDS, saving the rainforest, whatever.

 

I just believe that science is like religion in that it's not ALL good, either. I don't lump together all of religion or all of science and proclaim that anything either of them does is surely a fantastic and wonderful thing.

[Asimov]

They aren't creating human animal hybrids in that report to harvest their organs. They're mixing humans and animals because the mix seems to produce similar behaviours in the hybrids. They mixed human and frog in order to see if they could help treat skin problems and disease.

 

Hey Asimov, I don't think they can come up with an adequate testing of skin by that kind of hybrid, to effectively treat human skin problems. I have heard that science is close to reproducing an environment that closely mimics human systems for testing drugs, so that animal use in such areas are not warranted and to more closely monitor more true effects on humans. That seems like the way to go, IMO. :wink:

 

Well, they can and have, so you're wrong.

[woodsmoke]

Where I see the problem is that when you give an animal human qualities, that might include the knowledge of death. Would we treat them the same way most animals are treated by humans? Would we crate them at night and while we're away? Do we do this to humans? Will we eat them? We we keep a human-chimp cross at the zoo?

 

It's not so much that we are superior, but it is more the way we treat the animals that many see as inferior. Does that make sense?

 

Yeah, that makes it a bit easier to understand. Thanks for the explanation.

 

Where did I say that I considered ALL science to be "evil"? Oh, that's right, I didn't.

 

I think science is a glorious thing, a great manifestation of the universal order. I am totally supportive of the vast majority of scientific research. Curing cancer, curing AIDS, saving the rainforest, whatever.

 

I just believe that science is like religion in that it's not ALL good, either. I don't lump together all of religion or all of science and proclaim that anything either of them does is surely a fantastic and wonderful thing.

 

In my defense, your post did read an awful lot like something straight out of a Victorian horror novel, but I digress. You're right, and I apologise for going off like that. I'm afraid I'm not very tolerant when I think I see someone foolishly railing against "the human plague" and how everything we're doing is inherently wrong and can only lead to harm and disaster--a shortcoming which really only serves to bite me in the ass all the harder when my perception is flawed. I'm hoping I can overcome that before I die.