Playing God with Neanderthals

No, it is how our empathic abilities work. It is how our brain works. If we can't understand how a species thinks, feels emotion, etc. then we have little empathy for them. Primates are the most protected group within scientific experimentation because we can better recognize how they think and display emotion. If we state that it is wrong to cause a human pain because we dislike that pain ourselves then we must also extend those rights to species that feel pain like we do.Think about it. Do we farm chimps for meat? I think everyone would cringe at the idea. So why not the same reaction for cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs?

Some people DO have that reaction to the farming of pigs, cattle etc. for meat.What about extending rights to animals that feel pain in different ways to us?Isn't it arrogant to apply humanity as the norm by which all other compassion etc. is measured?In the pursuit of knowledge shouldn't we side-step emotion?... hmmm ... maybe that would be a little dangerous after all now that I see it written down.

Would they have an even stronger reaction to the farming of chimps? What about extending those rights to plants and bacteria? Isn't it just as arrogant to extend these rights just to animals?

Hi, Peter. Learn what?----- How else should we measure worth?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

A pharmaceutical company has developed a compound that kills a broad spectrum of bacteria in standard cultures with a very low incidence of resistance. This same drug also kills bacteria that are resistant to other antibiotics. However, the scientists at the company have no idea if it is toxic in humans. What should they do first?1. Expose plants to the drug.2. Expose mice to the drug.3. Expose chimps to the drug.4. Expose humans to the drug.5. Never test the drug and never release it while millions of people die from bacterial infections.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

6. Give it to whomever stands to gain the most from the drug being sold?/snark

Start with mice, move on to more similar critters like pigs and chimps, use simulations to test as many possible human toxicity conditions as possible and if the results still look promising do a double blind test on human volunteers. Keep meticulous records.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Why not start with chimps or human volunteers?

The first thing that popped into my head was someone asking Werner von Braun if he wanted to go up in the first manned flights. I imagine his response would have been "Hell No!!", or the German equivalent.

Mice and rats have shorter life spans and faster development.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Learm what? ... pretty much anything of any use to them. If humans sit about assuming things based upon some unacknowledged principle (e.g. arrogance) then they will miss an awful lot in an awful lot of fields of study.Not sure what other criterion could be used to measure 'worth' (which is itself a fairly vague concept), but it seems to me that basing that on a measure of similarity is arrogant and somewhat counter-productive.

... but they aren't a great match phsyiologically ... are they?What about trialling on people dying of whatever the thing is supposed to cure?I'm sure a sufferer would be more than willing to give informed consent.

Thinking that its up to us to GIVE those rights in the first place is probably the most arrogant position ... but life is life, and all of it is necessary for the survival of the planetary eco-system so should be equally revered.... but if we move down that route we end up in a very tricky position ...

It's pretty much the only basis I have for according you more rights than my refrigerator. Unless you can stand in one corner of my kitchen and keep my food cold.

Hi, Peter. But, what assumptions are being made in this case (the case of reluctance to clone Neanderthals)?----- If you don't really have an alternative criterion for measuring "worth," then how can your complaint against the only criterion either of us has been able to think of be valid?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.