# First human-animal hybrid created. Good or bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2017, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276 "2017-01-27T00:13:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/21 "2017-01-27T22:45:38Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > 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. Thanks, that makes sense. BTW, I’m on record as saying this idea ([along with bullying robots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wnp-OOZB34)) is very, very bad. I hate centaurs, and pig-centaurs sound much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2017, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/22 "2017-01-28T07:38:24Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > 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. Yes, that’s a fair assessment of my position. If we are going to create a “person” - whether it’s a genetically engineered human, a chimera or an AI - we should be able to offer it a quality of life comparable to our own. Or better. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/23 "2017-02-03T03:07:47Z")
I’m annoyed that the media insists upon calling it a hybrid, when they don’t call [this](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-glow-in-the-dark-kitty-77372763/) one despite having much more introduced DNA than the pig embryo does. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/24 "2017-02-03T13:30:23Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Orc. Do you want orcs? Because that’s how you get orcs. ---
**Author:** ![quiltguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e47774/32.png) [@quiltguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/25 "2017-02-03T17:35:14Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > A human that can make its own bacon. What could possibly go wrong with that? A human THAT smart you don’t kill all at once. Seems like a win/win situation to me. Hungry for a bacon butty? Want to lose weight? Tell ya’ what you can do, friend… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/26 "2017-02-06T07:33:44Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Why do they keep saying hybrid when it’s a chimera? Not the same thing at all. > [@elfkin477](#): > > I’m annoyed that the media insists upon calling it a hybrid, when they don’t call [this](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-glow-in-the-dark-kitty-77372763/) one despite having much more introduced DNA than the pig embryo does. It is a hybrid. The term means ‘of mixed character’ or ‘derived from the mixing of different parts’ - that’s how we can have hybrid cars and hybrid jazz. Even in biology, graft chimaeras are known as ‘graft hybrids’. Until fairly recently, this has only applied to plants, but that was just because nobody had figured out how to do it with animals. They have now. So here we have something that is made by mixing human and pig components, and the result has a mixture of characteristics of the two. Hybrid. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/27 "2017-02-06T07:40:19Z")
You don’t have to be so ham fisted about it. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/28 "2017-02-06T07:42:08Z")
First, as others have pointed out, not a hybrid, so I don’t see any ethical problems here. But I think we need a law, fast, saying that anything that is actually a hybrid of a human and another living thing has full human rights. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/29 "2017-02-06T08:50:54Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Orc. [Gamorrean](https://www.google.com/search?q=gamorrean&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirgq6xi_vRAhWGMSYKHWbVCw8Q_AUICCgB&biw=1600&bih=794)…? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/30 "2017-02-06T09:26:17Z")
As far as tasty bacon is concerned is it: [Pig](http://www.aerztezeitung.de/img.ashx?f=/docs/2012/03/14/schwein-AH.jpg&w=300) + [Long Pig](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/long_pig) = [Medium Pig?](https://agendaeurope.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/pig-with-human-face-die.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/31 "2017-02-06T10:32:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > First, as others have pointed out, not a hybrid, so I don’t see any ethical problems here. It is a hybrid, but why does that make a difference. It’s an organism that is partly human and partly pig - why does the precise mode of creation waive any ethical questions? > [@](#): > > But I think we need a law, fast, saying that anything that is actually a hybrid of a human and another living thing has full human rights. Can’t tell if serious. We could be talking about an organism that is a pig with a gene for the expression of one specific human protein, or an organism that is half-man-half-pig - you want to give both of those things human rights? You might as well give ordinary pigs the same rights (was that your point?) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/32 "2017-02-06T13:38:49Z")
If you’re just growing a human organ in a pig for transplant purposes, that’s one thing. If you’re trying to make a smarter pig, that’s another. I just don’t want to see lab-grown slaves with animal bodies but near human intellectual capabilities. We should make clear that such beings are not property. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/33 "2017-02-06T14:45:34Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It is a hybrid, but why does that make a difference. It’s an organism that is partly human and partly pig - why does the precise mode of creation waive any ethical questions? . . . I’ve never heard “graft hybrid”, so I’m not convinced that “hybrid” can be used when talking about a biological experiment that does not mix DNA. We do not call people who have had a kidney transplant hybrids, for instance. When we talk of cars and jazz we are obviously not using specialized biological language. Although I would say that putting a Mercedes Benz hood ornament on a Volkswagen probably wouldn’t create something that people would describe as a hybrid. The precise mode of creation does not waive ethical questions, but it does have an influence on the way those questions will be answered. This isn’t a pig with human genes in its cells. It’s a pig that had microsurgery to transplant human cells inside it. If it made little pigs, they would be normal little pigs. And if “graft hybrid” is used to describe walnut trees and roses that are grafted onto sturdier root stock, it’s not that either. There isn’t a hidden base pig with a human growing out of it or around it and otherwise leading a normal human life. You don’t have to warn people that breeding this human will result in weaker offspring unless they, too are grafted onto or around a good stock pig. If an article uses hybrid in the title, and then explains things properly, it’s clickbait and mildly misleading. If an article uses hybrid throughout the article, it’s misusing the word and I have to wonder what else the author got wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/34 "2017-02-06T15:24:31Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I’ve never heard “graft hybrid”, so I’m not convinced that “hybrid” can be used when talking about a biological experiment that does not mix DNA. Apparently it’s ‘frowned upon’ as a term now - perhaps for the exact reason it is in contention here, but it’s a term that exists, so now you have heard of it. > **[Graft-chimaera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graft-chimaera)** > > In horticulture, a graft-chimaera may arise in grafting at the point of contact between rootstock and scion and will have properties intermediate between those of its "parents". A graft-chimaera is not a true hybrid but a mixture of cells, each with the genotype of one of its "parents": it is a chimaera. Hence, the once widely used term "graft-hybrid" is not descriptive; it is now frowned upon. > Propagation is by cloning only. In practice graft-chimaeras are not noted for their stability and may ... ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2017, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/35 "2017-02-06T15:27:33Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > And if “graft hybrid” is used to describe walnut trees and roses that are grafted onto sturdier root stock, it’s not that either. There isn’t a hidden base pig with a human growing out of it or around it and otherwise leading a normal human life. You don’t have to warn people that breeding this human will result in weaker offspring unless they, too are grafted onto or around a good stock pig. Graft Hybrids are whole-organism chimaeras - not just common stock and scion grafts - they are cases (in botany) where the union of two different species results in a whole plant with a weird blend of the characteristics of both, as a result of the cells of both ‘parents’ mixing throughout the whole resulting organism - for example [Bizzaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizzaria) - a citrus graft hybrid that bears fruits that are literally [half one thing and half the other](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Citrus_aurantium_%22bizzarria%22_frutto_acerbo.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/36 "2017-02-07T21:19:51Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Graft Hybrids are whole-organism chimaeras - not just common stock and scion grafts - they are cases (in botany) where the union of two different species results in a whole plant with a weird blend of the characteristics of both, as a result of the cells of both ‘parents’ mixing throughout the whole resulting organism - for example [Bizzaria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizzaria) - a citrus graft hybrid that bears fruits that are literally [half one thing and half the other](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Citrus_aurantium_%22bizzarria%22_frutto_acerbo.jpg). Now that is interesting. I wouldn’t object to “graft hybrid” if an article went on to explain the difference between that and a true hybrid. Unfortunately for our piggy, it never got to develop enough to discover if the human cells would exert an influence on its porcine cells. I suspect that the experimenters are hoping that they won’t. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/37 "2017-02-07T21:28:02Z")
Well, since the trump joke has already been made, I’ll go with this: “Get some pig-men around here and I start to look pretty good.”-George Costanza ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/38 "2017-02-08T09:02:35Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I, for one, welcome our new man-pig overlords. 2/3 of the way to ManBearPig. Gore will be vindicated in this, just as he will be about Climate Change… ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/39 "2017-02-08T16:10:10Z")
Literally, is this kosher? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276/40 "2017-02-08T16:35:19Z")
\ That’ll do, piggly. That’ll do… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-human-animal-hybrid-created-good-or-bad/778276.md?page=3)