As far as I can tell, Hari Seldon finds the premise of dividing creatures up on the basis of percentages as an abstraction and then determining how we treat them as absurd, especially since there are already animals that are 97% us, and humans have a poor record when it comes to deciding how to treat even 100% humans.
I’m fairly sure that that isn’t what the O/P meant by half-human/half-animal, unless of course that I’m being whooshed.
As for the O/P if it has a high enough level of intelligence to be sapient and self-aware and hold a conversation on an equal level with a human then I think it should have all the rights and protections of humans. But then I feel the same way about AI’s.
I’m mangling the quote but this has stuck with me, “There is nothing more evil than treating another person as an object”. And that’s what the other creature would be, a person, if it has a high enough intelligence it doesn’t matter whether its otherwise 100% animal or not.
I always get the impression that in these sorts of scenarios people are looking for a way to replace slaves as using humans for that is generally frowned upon these days, if we had uplifted animals or sentient machines to do it then that’d be just great. Personally I would still consider it wrong.
None of the above is directed at the OP btw
Mentally disabled people are humans because they’re… human. There’s no biological question about it. So using them as a basis or argument for whether or not hybrids deserve human rights is a little misguided.
We already know that cat-girls aren’t genetically human so we try and find a different basis for determining what rights they should have. Using their cognitive abilities is a reasonable place to start even if not all humans are cognitively equal to all other humans.
Ethical philosopher Jonathan Glover dealt with this in his book “What Sort of People Should There Be?” He explored the idea of a genetically created slave race.
Where it gets really sticky is if the race is created to enjoy enslavement.
(Which Al Capp looked into, with the Shmoos.)
Of course, creating animate slaves is wasteful; robots make so much more sense. Still, ultimately, you arrive at the same moral dilemma. If a robot is smart enough to serve as a really effective high-level servant – say, a butler – then it begins to approach personhood.
I’ll check that book out, thanks!
And yeah but there are plenty of people that think that no matter how advanced or apparently self-aware an AI is it shouldn’t be given any rights at all, including at least one person on the Straightdope, because of some nebulous and poorly defined reasons that I don’t quite grok. Can’t recall the poster or the thread that one was in though.
Any society that could do what you are describing would certainly be “human”. No non-human animal can be a geneticist.
There’s a really rather good webcomic that actually touched on the issue being discussed in this thread recently:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2600/fc02546.htm
If you can get over one of the main characters being an anthro/furry there are quite a few thought-provoking scientific, technological and social issues raised in that comic that I haven’t come across elsewhere.
Why do you think this way?
Now we need a poll on which half-human, half-animal creatures to develop first.
I expect centaurs and mermaids would come in higher than minotaurs, werewolves, etc.
Just don’t forget to spay your cat girl! 
I’m for “uplifting” more than chimeras. Sapient chimps and gorillas, and dolphins with prosthetic hands. (As in the science fiction of David Brin, Larry Niven, and perhaps Cordwainer Smith.)
On the other hand, I think it might be nice for people to have access to hooves, instead of these damn awful feet which we’re still evolving away from. Toes. Jeeze, I ask ya! Toes!
If they do get human rights, I bet we still don’t let them get married.
Hand-feet as seen in the otherwise awful movie ‘Ultraviolet’ could be useful as well.
Personally I just want a tail, a big bushy fluffy fox tail, give me that and I’d be a happy human-animal crime-against-god-and-nature monster-thingie
swish swish swish
Prehensile tail for me!
Well I’m going for aesthetics over utility, obviously 
OK, question answered. If the “half human half animal” creature could be a genetecist, it would be completely human. If it could not be a geneticist, it would not be.
So, the simple test is “Could it be a geneticist?” Then, it is either human, or not human. It can’t be half genecitist and half non-geneticist.
It’s only a matter of time before someone crosses a man with a sea cow.
Oh the humanatee.
First, there’s a legal question here, and it’d be a doozy to work out. There is absolutely no precedent, and legal systems would have to work out the details, and I’m sure those details would work out differently in different jurisdictions.
That’s a perfectly valid point, but not necessarily contradictory to the posts that you’re responding to.
The posts you’re responding to are arguing a philosophical position that creatures that are sentient like humans should be treated legally and ethically the way humans are. I subscribe to that argument, though there are caveats (e.g., we might impose restrictions on machine intelligences that don’t make any sense to apply to human ones.)
Your point is valid that sentience is not a minimum requirement for being valued as a human life, because we (at least try to) value severely mentally disabled humans as lives to be (legally) valued the same as anyone else. There’s plenty of precedent for that, so it’s not in question here, and it’s tangential to the OP’s question.
No doubt there are people who believe that humanity is a God-bestowed trait, and that chimeras of any type would be abominations that are not subject to being treated as humans. But I’m a humanist, which means that I believe that societal values should be based on shared values and good logic, without reference to some external definition of good and evil (e.g., God’s will). To humanists, the sanctity of life is based on a shared value, and the simple consistency of valuing us all the same in this regard. I get to vote based on my opinion; others get to vote theirs.
I don’t speak for the redneck, but here’s my answer. It would be cruel to subject an infant to being a genetic experiment. If adults can do it to themselves, fine, but that’s not generally how genetics works – at least, not in species that can’t regenerate large portions of their bodies. The kinds of genes that affect basic appearance and the design and layout of major organs work during development. Change them after adulthood, and you don’t quite get what you might expect.
lol
That would take so many generations and so much time, at least 100 years, to make it near impossible.
Why? Because it is. There is no damn reason to genetically alter humans to have wings, cat eyes, frog legs, or fishlike gills. We are what we are. We build machines to overcome our deficits.
Other reasons like we have enough trouble dealing with humans of different skin tones and facial features. Why the hell would you want to add in people with 3 eyes and 4 legs or something?