Political Crossfire Forums

G.A.Pster · Joined: 19 Dec 2004 Posts: 83 Location: OR, US of A

On the W’s state of the Union Address, he stated no human animal hybrids would be allowed…………now what exactly is a human animal hybrid? Does he mean like fish with implanted human genes or does he literally mean human animal hybrids like say a dog-human or rat-human :roll: ?

Saracen · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 16664 Location: On Earth

Link please.

Gus · Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 7610 Location: Tampa, FL

Moath wrote: Link please.

President Bush wrote: Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.

http://www.c-span.org/executive/transcript.asp?cat=current_event&code=bush_admin&year=2006

He's probably just talking about being opposed to scientists experimenting on humans at any stage of development.

Gnostic

G.A.Pster wrote: On the W’s state of the Union Address, he stated no human animal hybrids would be allowed…………now what exactly is a human animal hybrid? Does he mean like fish with implanted human genes or does he literally mean human animal hybrids like say a dog-human or rat-human :roll: ?

The current administration is and always has been rather prone to an anti-science agenda, even though the vast majority of Americans in poll after poll seem to support further study into such things as stem cell research. But at any rate, he was speaking of genetically-engineered embryos I believe.

G.A.Pster · Joined: 19 Dec 2004 Posts: 83 Location: OR, US of A

Moath wrote: Link please.

I don’t have one, I just heard him say it on TV after his anti cloning and stem cell research coments…………I’ll see if I can find a transcript.

Gremlin · Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 7944 Location: On the Run.

Moath wrote: Link please.

I watched/listened to it in a comma so i might of missed that part.

http://www.pfm.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Biotechnology_Policy&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=16170

Quote: U.S. Refuses to Issue Patent on Human-animal Hybrid
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has chosen not to issue a patent to Dr. Stuart Newman for a human-animal hybrid, indicating that such an invention would be too close to a human being to be considered patentable. Newman had applied for the patent in hopes that it would set a legal precedent under which human-animal hybrids, also called chimeras, would be considered unpatentable under U.S.law. A recent article in National Geographic also highlights the issue of human-animal hybrids within the world of emerging issues in biotechnology research and policy.

[Bible]Monkey · Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 6675 Location: Alberta

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy

Quote: National Geographic News
January 25, 2005

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans. ...

...There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo......

...Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new guidelines.

She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S. ..
....Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.

"It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who is also the senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C.

But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed carefully. It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate experiments—such as transferring a limited number of adult human stem cells into animal embryos in order to learn how they proliferate and grow during the prenatal period.

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United States.

"Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives," he said.

Mice With Human Brains

Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent human.

Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains.

There have to be limits of some kind imposed. Or in a few months, those mice with human brains will figure out how to start a computer and use a keyboard . It may be too late already-I have my doubts about those posters here named I like Cheese and Cats Suck

Saracen · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 16664 Location: On Earth

[Bible]Monkey wrote: There have to be limits of some kind imposed. Or in a few months, those mice with human brains will figure out how to start a computer and use a keyboard . It may be too late already-I have my doubts about those posters here named I like Cheese and Cats Suck

:lol: Agreed. But you know what they say about mice multiplying...

Gnostic · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 12:51 am Post subject:

[Bible]Monkey wrote: There have to be limits of some kind imposed. Or in a few months, those mice with human brains will figure out how to start a computer and use a keyboard . It may be too late already-I have my doubts about those posters here named I like Cheese and Cats Suck

:lol: :lol:

Gremlin · Joined: 20 Dec 2005 Posts: 7944 Location: On the Run.

[Bible]Monkey wrote:

There have to be limits of some kind imposed. Or in a few months, those mice with human brains will figure out how to start a computer and use a keyboard . It may be too late already-I have my doubts about those posters here named I like Cheese and Cats Suck

Ya there saving the human-animal hybrids for the ultimate warriors like in "Dark Angel"

Sorry cheap excuse to post some eye candy.

G.A.Pster · Joined: 19 Dec 2004 Posts: 83 Location: OR, US of A

Interesting, any one got a link to a picture of one of these human/chimps? I didn’t know transgenic research has progressed so rapidly.

Next thing you know we’ll have greazles running around :? , most of you probably haven’t played Deus Ex, so if you haven’t disregard this.

Gnostic · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:05 am Post subject:

Gremlin wrote: [Bible]Monkey wrote:

There have to be limits of some kind imposed. Or in a few months, those mice with human brains will figure out how to start a computer and use a keyboard . It may be too late already-I have my doubts about those posters here named I like Cheese and Cats Suck

Ya there saving the human-animal hybrids for the ultimate warriors like in "Dark Angel"

Sorry cheap excuse to post some eye candy.

Oh, MAN!! Is THAT what they're working on? And Bush is against it? What the hell is he thinking???

Exdirtball · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:04 am Post subject:

1. stem cell research is divided morally into two camps. Stem cells harvested from embyos and stem cells harvested from adults.

2. to date, no successful transplants have been made with embryonic stem cells but adult stem cells have been successeful in the healing arts to restore missing or corrupted organs.

3. no laws have been passed yet against any form of stem cell research

4. Christians' problem with stem cell research is only on the embyonic side.

5. my problem with stem cell research is in Federally funding a controversial program on the embryonic side.

6. cloning and/or creating embryos simply to destroy and harvest their stem cells or to mix them with animal dna is a major devaluation of human life.

Devaluing human life has a great deal to do with violent crime. When the wold is so willing to ditch a moral code we can expect society based on morals to fall apart.

variant · Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 213

Exdirtball wrote: 1. stem cell research is divided morally into two camps. Stem cells harvested from embyos and stem cells harvested from adults.

2. to date, no successful transplants have been made with embryonic stem cells but adult stem cells have been successeful in the healing arts to restore missing or corrupted organs.

3. no laws have been passed yet against any form of stem cell research

4. Christians' problem with stem cell research is only on the embyonic side.

5. my problem with stem cell research is in Federally funding a controversial program on the embryonic side.

6. cloning and/or creating embryos simply to destroy and harvest their stem cells or to mix them with animal dna is a major devaluation of human life.

Devaluing human life has a great deal to do with violent crime. When the wold is so willing to ditch a moral code we can expect society based on morals to fall apart.

Well your discomfort with using embryos that are going in the autoclave, or sitting around in a freezer for ten years until unviable is noted.

I would rather, if the feds are going to fund research, fund it wherever the scientists feel is promising. Of course they can go too far, and may require either regulation or the elimination of funding, but this is not one of those times.

Tell me when the last time the federal government knew which way to direct research? You have got to be kidding me on this one. Adult stem cells are easier to work with, and have been worked with longer with more funding; scientists want to experiment to see what embryonic stem cells will yield. The ONLY reason you or anyone else has a problem with this research is because it makes you feel morally queasy, there is no other reason, so stop pretending that you know better than the scientists themselves where they would like to research.

Human/animal hybrid cells are actually already created so the president might just be messing with perfectly good research. They are generally done by fusing human and mouse cells and then allowing the nuclei of the cells to fuse and make hybrid cells.

I always despise when scientists are preached to by warmongers about human dignity. (That would be president bush; I have no idea if you are a warmonger). The president has no moral qualms about researching biological weapons. So, I have to wonder both about the president, and about the “Christians” who overlook biological weapons (which can destroy BILLIONS of lives) and quiver over what will inevitably become wasted embryos.

I agree that cloning just for producing stem cells would be both unnecessary and barbaric. Of course it is fortunate that cloning embryos is completely UNESSISARY as there are a huge number of unused embryos basically lying around.

I also find it funny when someone is saying doing potentialy life saving research with embryos that are basically thrown in the trash as "devaluing life". You would have to explain that to me. I find it devaluing human life to do something like say, throw out worthwhile embryos in order to make religious nuts feel better.

DarkMerlin · Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject:

Exdirtball wrote: Devaluing human life has a great deal to do with violent crime. When the wold is so willing to ditch a moral code we can expect society based on morals to fall apart.

Do you have anything to back up this ambiguous claim?

Exdirtball · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:43 am Post subject:

DarkMerlin wrote: Exdirtball wrote: Devaluing human life has a great deal to do with violent crime. When the wold is so willing to ditch a moral code we can expect society based on morals to fall apart.

Do you have anything to back up this ambiguous claim?

Pardon my ignorance, I'm still new to the forum and am still trying to figure out how to use the quote functions.

I only have to examine history and my surroundings, I'm sure there are studies done on the effects of devaluing human life but I haven't researched them specifically. But look at history. Look at different cultures around the world. Anywhere human life is devalued the violent crime rate soars. Even if the violence is state sanctioned, its still violent crime. The only difference is the charges are brought against govenrmental representatives instead of the individual perpetrators.

The most terrible atrocities throughout history were and are committed on the heals of state sanctioned devaluing of human life. From Palistinian suicide bombings to the Taliban and Al Queda's theocratic court system to Nazi Germany's death camps to the European crusades to the Roman gladiator schools. And it goes on and on.
Here in America, the deadliest places today are our inner cities where kids aged 7 and up are carrying guns and pushing dope. This isn't state sanctioned devaluing of human life but they have devalued life just the same with their entertainment industry promoting and lauding violent lifestyles and their, ooh wait, this is state sanctioned! and even state funded abortion on demand.

I'll do some research tomorrow and see if I can't come up with a viable study to further back my position.

DarkMerlin · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:21 pm Post subject:

Exdirtball wrote: DarkMerlin wrote: Exdirtball wrote: Devaluing human life has a great deal to do with violent crime. When the wold is so willing to ditch a moral code we can expect society based on morals to fall apart.

Do you have anything to back up this ambiguous claim?

Pardon my ignorance, I'm still new to the forum and am still trying to figure out how to use the quote functions.

I only have to examine history and my surroundings, I'm sure there are studies done on the effects of devaluing human life but I haven't researched them specifically. But look at history. Look at different cultures around the world. Anywhere human life is devalued the violent crime rate soars. Even if the violence is state sanctioned, its still violent crime. The only difference is the charges are brought against govenrmental representatives instead of the individual perpetrators.

The most terrible atrocities throughout history were and are committed on the heals of state sanctioned devaluing of human life. From Palistinian suicide bombings to the Taliban and Al Queda's theocratic court system to Nazi Germany's death camps to the European crusades to the Roman gladiator schools. And it goes on and on.
Here in America, the deadliest places today are our inner cities where kids aged 7 and up are carrying guns and pushing dope. This isn't state sanctioned devaluing of human life but they have devalued life just the same with their entertainment industry promoting and lauding violent lifestyles and their, ooh wait, this is state sanctioned! and even state funded abortion on demand.

I'll do some research tomorrow and see if I can't come up with a viable study to further back my position.

Perhaps I quoted the wrong part. What I was getting at was, what makes you think that studying human animals hybrids in order to improve our medical knowledge and save more human lives leads to the devaluation of human life?

cap'n queasy · Joined: 15 May 2004 Posts: 34968

Are those hybrids accorded human rights as well as genes? Or are they property? You could run into some sticky situations, especially considering some of those hybrids have human brain tissue.

Exdirtball · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2006 12:54 am Post subject:

Quote: Perhaps I quoted the wrong part. What I was getting at was, what makes you think that studying human animals hybrids in order to improve our medical knowledge and save more human lives leads to the devaluation of human life?

Well, its not just the embryonic stemcell research, its cumulative acceptance of devaluation of human life as normative. Its light jail sentences for murder and violent crime, abortion on demand at taxpayer's expense, assisted suicide made legal, state funding controversial (over half of U.S. citezens have concerns for) creational experiments on human life, etc., etc.,

This is what I mean by, "Dumping the moral code."

Quote: Do you have anything to back up this ambiguous claim?

I spent all day researching over the web and there just isn't much study on crime, violence, and its causes unless you go to religion. So you're probably not going to like my link, but here it is.

http://www.crossroad.to/article2/2003/crime.htm

This is a study on the history of violence in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries written by Berit Kjos.

He quotes the journalist Alexander Stille from his New York Times article, "Did Knives and Forks Cut Murder?" Basing his observations on studies done by historians during the last 60 years, he summarizes their findings:

"Although there were no national statistics centuries ago, some historians discovered that the archives of some English counties were intact back to the 13th century. So in the 70's they began diligently counting indictments and comparing them with estimated population levels to get a rough idea of medievel and early modern crime rates. Historians in Continental Europe... came up with findings that yielded the same surprising results: That murder was much more common in the Middle Ages than it is now and that it dropped precipetately in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Berit Kjos proposes that the seeds of change were sown in the 15th and 16th centuries by religious reformers. He names Jan Hus (Bohemia-burned at the stake 1415), John Calvin (Geneva-1564), John Knox (Scotland-1572), John Foxe (England-1587), and of course Martin Luther who nailed the challenge on the Catholic Church's door in 1518. Through the reformed church educating the general populace, two things happened. Murder, violent crime, and indeed all forms of crime were dramatically reduced. Then leaders of state had to reform in the face of their version of civil disobedience. By 1609 the Dutch Republic won independence from Spain and Protestantism was now firmly established in the Northern provinces and throughout Europe. A century later, the evangelistic zeal spread the new doctrine all over Europe and began to cross oceans and continents. Thus the great reduction of violent crime in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

Berit Kjos attributes the decline of the crime rates to the spread of Protestantism, I propose the crime rates declined because of the moral code inherent in Protestantism.

With the advance of research, we have the technology to do just about anything we set our deviant little hearts to. Without a moral code to adhere to, we get the chimera, and civilization recedes back into more and more violent chaos. We get the German death camps, and Stalin-esk regimes, and suicide bombers (I know they have a moral code but just like the extreemists in every religion they justify their desires by twisting the code to their purpose), Polpot, and an endless list of others. Did you know that Stalin had a program to cross breed humans with great apes? They even had a woman get pregnant by an ape but the records are incomplete and they don't know what happened to it. He believed he could create a super race with the strength of the apes and the intelligence of the brightest minds. If he'd succeeded he would have had a few human versions of a mule unable to procreate. This is what we are seeing happen today with our soaring crime rates and state sanctioned human experiments.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

uh, hate to burst your bubble but humans already are animal hybrids

due to evolution, 98.5% of human DNA is identical to chimp DNA--genetically, we essentially are chimp hybrids! (well, technically that's not true--it is true that we shared a common ancestor with chimps)

we also have a lot of DNA sequences that are similar or identical to other animals.

we are all multi-animal hybrids