Not exactly John Steinbeck's Novela, yet another story about "mice & men" is what we will report on today. You may have come from the apes, but you will be going to, not the dogs, but to the rodents.
The German Ethics Council (Deutscher Ethikrat) has recommended that researchers be allowed to insert human genes into mice, in a major report on human-animal mixtures. Yet they believe in requiring special permission be needed to insert human genes into apes.
The Council issued a report, concerning the ethics of human-animal mixtures, recommending that certain practices be forbidden, while obviously others be permitted. The Council reported on the ethics of introducing animal material into the human germline, which would then lead to human sperm or eggs in an animal, and then implanting those animal embryos into humans. Mice embryos into humans?
German Basic Law, which acts as the country's constitution, states that "human dignity is inviolable." The German Ethics Council report, delved into the philosophical issues that arise when mixing animal and human cells or genes, and how to define what is human, what is animal, and whether mixing the two violates the dignity of either one. Are you kidding?
Yet, the Deutscher Ethikrat has nevertheless recommended that researchers be allowed to insert human genes into mice! ! ! ! Though they believe it unethical to insert human genes into apes, mice are ok? I don't recall Darwinian theory purporting that we descended from rodents? Shouldn't they at least get a closer primate?
First of all, the idea of cybrids or chimeras, (growing embryos by inserting the nucleus of a human cell into an animal egg), is insidious in the extreme, and remains a highly controversial topic. The whole idea flies in the face of any kind of ethics, German or otherwise! But, add the supercilious idea, that mixing us with mice is ok, while mixing us with apes is verboten, is off the charts for insanity! Whose in charge of the asylum here? It certainly seems to me that some of the inmates are loose.
For all those women who believe they've married a rat, perhaps they won't be too far off in the near future. Then, instead of getting a divorce, she can simply call an exterminator.
The German Ethics Council (Deutscher Ethikrat) has recommended that researchers be allowed to insert human genes into mice, in a major report on human-animal mixtures. Yet they believe in requiring special permission be needed to insert human genes into apes.
The Council issued a report, concerning the ethics of human-animal mixtures, recommending that certain practices be forbidden, while obviously others be permitted. The Council reported on the ethics of introducing animal material into the human germline, which would then lead to human sperm or eggs in an animal, and then implanting those animal embryos into humans. Mice embryos into humans?
German Basic Law, which acts as the country's constitution, states that "human dignity is inviolable." The German Ethics Council report, delved into the philosophical issues that arise when mixing animal and human cells or genes, and how to define what is human, what is animal, and whether mixing the two violates the dignity of either one. Are you kidding?
Yet, the Deutscher Ethikrat has nevertheless recommended that researchers be allowed to insert human genes into mice! ! ! ! Though they believe it unethical to insert human genes into apes, mice are ok? I don't recall Darwinian theory purporting that we descended from rodents? Shouldn't they at least get a closer primate?
First of all, the idea of cybrids or chimeras, (growing embryos by inserting the nucleus of a human cell into an animal egg), is insidious in the extreme, and remains a highly controversial topic. The whole idea flies in the face of any kind of ethics, German or otherwise! But, add the supercilious idea, that mixing us with mice is ok, while mixing us with apes is verboten, is off the charts for insanity! Whose in charge of the asylum here? It certainly seems to me that some of the inmates are loose.
For all those women who believe they've married a rat, perhaps they won't be too far off in the near future. Then, instead of getting a divorce, she can simply call an exterminator.
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