The pig embryo (photo on page) was injected with human cells early in its development and grew to be four weeks old.
I think this a marvelous achievement and the lives saved by this research could be immeasurable. I do realize though that some may not feel that way and recognize that it’s possible science could take this in some directions which are the stuff of science fiction. A class of underpeople perhaps, to serve mankind as sf writer Cordwainer Smith’s bio-engineered cats and dogs did in his books (the underpeople term is his).
So what do people here think? Is this work worth pursuing or are we moving into areas that should not be explored?
Doesn’t bother me at all. Long term, I would expect that we’ll move away from using animals to just growing the organs in a vat or 3D printing them, but as an interim measure it seems fine. Point in fact, we’ve already been growing human parts on and probably also in animals for quite a while. The only real difference here is that the animals are growing the organs for their own use and do so starting from the embryonic stage.
Long-term, we’ll be growing organs in a vat or printing them in 3D. Same with meat. But if this comes along sooner, why not save lives? There’s nothing magical about humans versus other animals, beyond that we’re smarter. This only seems to prove that fact.
I’ve long assumed that humans in the far future would be barely recognizable to us due to genetic engineering and cybernetics. Good or bad, doesn’t seem likely that sort of progress can be stopped. I don’t know if people would stand for a slave species being created. That’s what robots are for. Instead, I figure the rich will zoom way ahead or the normal people, leaving everyone else behind.
[QUOTE=aldiboronti]
I think this a marvelous achievement and the lives saved by this research could be immeasurable. I do realize though that some may not feel that way and recognize that it’s possible science could take this in some directions which are the stuff of science fiction. A class of underpeople perhaps, to serve mankind as sf writer Cordwainer Smith’s bio-engineered cats and dogs did in his books (the underpeople term is his).
So what do people here think? Is this work worth pursuing or are we moving into areas that should not be explored?
[/QUOTE]
Pig with liver that can be transplanted into human = good
Pig with human head and brain = problematic
Biotechnology offers promises of some wonderful things, and also dangers. We need a calm, intellectual approach to studying the possibilities and create law on what is and isn’t allowed. With the current government, I’m not expecting too much.
Traditional nomenclature for actual hybrids is: father’s species first. Since this is not a true hybrid, I think it would make sense to go with the Pig species first since it is the major contributor to the organism. Puman it is. Or Piman.
The nervous system is what is important. Creating a creature which is just a pig with human-compatible organs is only a problem if it promotes the cross-species spread of disease - slaughtering a pig for its organs isn’t any more morally objectionable than slaughtering it for its meat. Creating a caste of creatures intelligent enough to be slaves would be an atrocity.
One human cell in 100,000 pig cells, spread throughout the embryo, is pretty low yield even for a chimera. That’s a long way from making an organ.
How does that compare to the number of fetal cells that cross the barrier into a mother’s body? (Cells with Y chromosomes have been found in women’s blood ten years after giving birth.)
I’m curious what you meant by this. Is it using a semi-intelligent caste of creatures as slaves that would be objectionable, or is it only objectionable if we were those creatures’ creators?
Assuming it’s the first, is it really worse than what we do today to dogs, horses, parrots, dolphins, etc.?
I’m not Grumman, but I’m pretty sure he’s saying that harvesting human organs from pigs is fine, but slaughtering humans for their pork is not. It depends on the specific creature we’ve made, and whether it is more like a human or more like a pig. Obviously, a guy with a top hat and funny nose, who squeaks when he says “Good morning” to you on his way to the office is not fair game to kill for his meat, or lock up in a fattening pen or force to sleep in the mud and eat garbage.
