Genetically Speaking

I am blown away by what scientists are attempting these days. I read a National Geographic article on a man-made phenomenon called a "chimera" that sounds like it is out of a science fiction story. As you may already know, a chimera is a mythical creature. I have heard a few versions of what it supposedly looks like, and the gist of it is a part lion, part goat, part snake. Basically the parallel being that it is a melding of different species to create, well, a monster of sorts! I remember when I first heard of a chimera. It was in a book of folk tales that my mom had called "With a Deep Sea Smile," and the story was about a man playing a kind of game of Memory with the Devil. I, being probably about 6 or 7, thought it was some kind of instrument. Anyway I digress. Apparently it is now possible to do any number of unnatural, mythical things to embryos! There is a great debate on now about whether this is all ethical, if it will create some kind of super animal that can think like a human but have the instincts/power of an animal, and if it will devalue BEING human in itself.

I say that they have already done the latter by enforcing the theory of evolution. By calling Darwin's theory a truth, they have brought us down to the status of mere monkey, or going farther back: paramecium. This country embraces a beginning of nothingness. We teach our children that nothing exploded and suddenly there was all this stuff!! We drill into them that millions of years ago, we were no more important than a tiny plankton. And we are to believe that humans are merely animals. I remember thinking that. When I was a child, my science and biology classes taught me that we are all just animals. How depressing! Animals do not have logical thought. They may exhibit emotions and loyalty to one person in particular, but they cannot sit here at this computer and type to you their thoughts, feelings, hypotheses. I love animals and hate to hear of them suffering. But I just know that I am different than them.

How this relates to chimeras is this: They are in the process of inserting human genes, blood, and brain cells into different animals to study, in an isolated way, how human genes, blood, and organs work. I think this is very valuable research especially since they may be able to someday harvest organs from animals to transplant into humans. They also may be able to use animals as blood and tissue donors as well. But the question is, once you start putting human elements into an animal, does it gain rights? My question is, how the hell would you know if the animal WANTED rights? It can't sign a signature on a paper, it can't tell you, and really it doesn't know if it does or not. I don't really know what my side is on this matter yet but I see the pluses outweighing the minuses. I think the question really should be: Do we want to save human lives or have a ton of pigs, rats, and monkeys sitting in labs waiting to hear if they have rights? It is a question few people probably will answer honestly as not to step on any toes.