If we can "manufacture" a creature...

AVengeance · 11-07-2006, 03:28 PM

In another topic (that I don't wish to derail), I respond that the intent of creating something 99.9% "human" is to get inroads into creating a clone army. I have no "proof" of this, just so you know, it's purely speculation and slippery slope argument. HOWEVER: if the technology exists, where we create an animal that is 99.9% (or whatever) identical to homo sapiens, but is a different, NEW, species, does it get the same rights as a human, or is it just another animal?

EXAMPLE: we discover a new species of monkey, deep in the Amazon. Wow, right? How cool! We take some specimens, and analyse the DNA. They look similar to small, hairy, humans, but they are genetically different by 0.1% . We would simply classify them as an animal, right?
Now, what if we CREATED this species, rather than discovering them? They're not human, right? Just animals? We already use DOGS in police forces, we use MICE in laboratory experiments, why not use these new animals on the battlefield? Using leftover eggs from fertility clinics, we could create a new species, one that matures rapidly, is genetically different than humans, but has many of the same features. Make 'em smart enough to operate simple machines, docile enough to obey commands, and raised in a closed environment so they are good for one thing.

Implications? Thoughts?

Kytro · 11-08-2006, 02:28 AM

First of all I think automated technology will supersede anything biological in the near-ish future.

Secondly the level on intelligence and capacity for rational thought are better guidelines than DNA

AVengeance · 11-08-2006, 09:58 AM

what do you mean automated technology- you mean robots? Machines lack animal instinct, emotional response, patriotism. You can't "program" some things into a abiomechanism.

Kytro · 11-09-2006, 12:18 AM

Originally Posted by AVengeance

what do you mean automated technology- you mean robots? Machines lack animal instinct, emotional response, patriotism. You can't "program" some things into a abiomechanism.

I disagree is so far as while such things are not currently possible (and the level of technology they we interact with daily gives us a false impression of where technology is headed) they very well may be in under 50 years.

I'm not sure emotional responses (well strong ones) are a good thing for soldiers.

It is more than possible that people will be enhanced, but not for combat. Even if people control robots, remotely.

BigRob · 03-08-2007, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by AVengeance

In another topic (that I don't wish to derail), I respond that the intent of creating something 99.9% "human" is to get inroads into creating a clone army. I have no "proof" of this, just so you know, it's purely speculation and slippery slope argument. HOWEVER: if the technology exists, where we create an animal that is 99.9% (or whatever) identical to homo sapiens, but is a different, NEW, species, does it get the same rights as a human, or is it just another animal?

EXAMPLE: we discover a new species of monkey, deep in the Amazon. Wow, right? How cool! We take some specimens, and analyse the DNA. They look similar to small, hairy, humans, but they are genetically different by 0.1% . We would simply classify them as an animal, right?
Now, what if we CREATED this species, rather than discovering them? They're not human, right? Just animals? We already use DOGS in police forces, we use MICE in laboratory experiments, why not use these new animals on the battlefield? Using leftover eggs from fertility clinics, we could create a new species, one that matures rapidly, is genetically different than humans, but has many of the same features. Make 'em smart enough to operate simple machines, docile enough to obey commands, and raised in a closed environment so they are good for one thing.

Implications? Thoughts?

I think they already mapped the human genome as well as the Chimps and there really was less than a .1% difference. I believe the article was in TIME 3-4 months ago.

edit: a quick search found this. I originally was trying to remember the numbers off the top of my head. I found this on Wikipedia

The chimpanzee genome is 98.77% identical to the human genome. On average, a typical human protein-coding gene differs from its chimpanzee ortholog by only two amino acid substitutions; nearly one third of human genes have exactly the same protein translation as their chimpanzee orthologs. A major difference between the two genomes is human chromosome 2, which is the product of a fusion between chimpanzee chromosomes 12 and 13.[11]
Humans have undergone an extraordinary loss of olfactory receptor genes during our recent evolution, which explains our relatively crude sense of smell compared to most other mammals. Evolutionary evidence suggests that the emergence of color vision in humans and several other primate species has diminished the need for the sense of smell

ballz2wallz · 03-08-2007, 11:05 AM

I don't know what you mean by 'same rights as a human'? If it's an animal, it's an animal and gets treated as one. If it's human-like (ie soul, mind...those things that separate us from animals) then I'm sure it would be treated as such. I would almost consider different races as an example of yoru question of different species.

BigRob · 03-09-2007, 08:11 AM

I'm sure a group like PETA would decide to take up the cause

northhunter · 03-11-2007, 04:02 PM

Can I trade my two teenagers for two of the "new species"?

Rouger2 · 03-20-2007, 05:04 PM

If they come from human eggs they will be human just like us in every way.

Dumpy Dooby · 03-21-2007, 07:56 AM

This is a weird discussion for The Lab, but whatev. Richard Dawkins, in his newest book, talks about the moral dilemma that would rear its ugly head if we were to create a half-human/half-chimp hybrid. He asks the same questions that are asked in the first post about human rights and whatnot.

My answer would be the same as the first response in this thread: it depends on intellectual capacity. Retards are not considered emancipated (they are "dependents") often throughout their entire lives because they don't have the intellectual capacity to think in the abstract. Humans have these rights because we understand them. So whatever creature is created should only have those rights acknowledged as long as it understands them.