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2005-07-14 Home Front: Culture Wars

Moral Debate: Procedure Risks Making Monkeys More Humanlike

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Posted by BigEd 2005-07-14 15:45|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Dr Moreau would have had it so much easier today. Research ethics have been replaced with "trial hoping for error" that results in something grotesque. In that monkey testing is legal, but human testing is not, yet they share 99.9% of their DNA; is it legal to own a creature that is 99.95% human and .05% monkey? 99.99%? Remember that the commonly believed "distinguishing characteristic" of "human intelligence" does not exist as an objective criteria. Right now, we know that a monkey may develop a vocabulary of over 1000 words, posess a significant long-term memory, show aptitude at learning and using tools, and can even speak in sign language. Is that any less human than an austistic child?

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-07-14 16:10|| 2005-07-14 16:10|| Front Page Top

#2 ...Making Monkeys More Humanlike

That is an insult to monkeys.

Posted by mmurray821 2005-07-14 16:11|| 2005-07-14 16:11|| Front Page Top

#3 No Monkey ever called me Infidel!

Posted by Abu Clay 2005-07-14 16:13|| 2005-07-14 16:13|| Front Page Top

#4 'moose:

Is that any less human than an austistic child?

Well, my son goes to pre-school with one. She wanders about the preschool playground singing to herself. My son calmly says to me, "Oh. That's Isabel...."

She has no attention span... Some of the monkeys do... That's what makes this spooky, though your analogy is well taken...

Posted by BigEd 2005-07-14 16:49|| 2005-07-14 16:49|| Front Page Top

#5 POTA Rules! IT'S beginning!

Posted by borgboy 2005-07-14 17:01|| 2005-07-14 17:01|| Front Page Top

#6 Anonymoose, you are desribing an ape (a primate), albeit some monkeys do have some of the traits.

Baboons have been used in ancient Egypt as temple slaves, because they gave themselves well to training for menial tasks that still required some intelligence, though.

Of course, it's not only monkeys/apes that have some abilities formerly attributable to humans only. Google "Alex parrot" to get some idea about how the boundary between human abilities and non-human ones (beside primates) is pretty fuzzy to say the least.

Posted by Sobiesky 2005-07-14 22:24|| 2005-07-14 22:24|| Front Page Top

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