Don't Worry: Refusing to Fund Human/Animal Hybrid Cloning Not About Morals
With The Independent on a tear because moral concerns might have been behind the failure of scientists to garner public funding to conduct human cloning with animal eggs, we get this badly needed assurance. From the story:
Reports in the British media that grant applications to create hybrid human--animal embryos for research were turned down on moral grounds, have been rejected by the funding bodies and scientists involved.Whew, that's a relief. We sure wouldn't want morality to play any role in government funding of scientific research.
The story broke in the Independent newspaper on Monday, which claimed Stephen Minger, a leading stem cell scientist at King's College London, said that the grant applications may have been blocked by scientists on the funding committees who are morally opposed to the creation of cloned hybrid embryos. But when Nature spoke to Minger he said the Independent misinterpreted his comments, adding he did not have any evidence that moral objections led to his proposal being rejected. "I was not saying that religious or moral opposition to the proposal led to its rejection," he said.
Labels: Brave New Britain. Human/Animal Hybrid Cloning. Funding.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 3:05 PM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
What a pain in the rear. If morals have to go out the window, why not throw out the morals that say it's improper for people to torture prisoners? Why not, say, embrace the idea that every third person born has to undergo vivisection at age 15 for the study of the human body and the benefit of keeping our numbers down? Throw away the morals of that, if we're going to say that morals shouldn't play a part in medical and scientific endevors.
Bah, humbug.
Don't worry, they will. That's why it's imperative for the sake of humans that we refrain from experimenting on non-human animals. That won't lead to experimenting on humans; the zeal for experimentation begins on animals then moves to humans, same progression as with sociopaths. Both require the ability to ignore another's pain, and both sometimes involve enjoying another's pain. It's wrong. That's enough. Look where it's gotten us.
You know, Ianthe, I normally don't agree with you on animal experimentation, but I'm getting so fed up with the attitudes of the scientific community, I'm starting to lean in your direction.
Of course, I don't believe in harming humans who do experiment on aniamls, but I think that educating them in the ways we can limit animal experimentation is getting to be a necessity.
I don't want humans hurting humans, and it may be that we, as an exceptional species, will need to limit or do away with animal experimentation, if only to show ourselves that we *are* an exceptional species. We're the only creatures that have survivor's guilt over the other critters in our habitat. We ought to act on those feelings in a humane, thoughtful way.
Wesley, I'm not insane with joy over the ending of humane animal experimentation, please don't think I'm screaming for the end of it all. But it may be that, to protect ourselves from ourselves, we might have to curtail our animal experimentation. Please don't think I don't believe there is good that comes out of it. I'm trying to weigh the good of animal experimentation against the harm to humans that it might lead to. Blah. Why do we humans have to be so friggin emotionally complex?
Morals and ethics should be the foundation of any society. Without such concepts we become the most base of animals because we would have the intelligence to do the most harm without the moral compass to care about the ramifications. BRRRRRRRRRRR. That is a cold calculating bit of ice water reality.
Blogger Ianthe said...
' "Don't worry, they will. That's why it's imperative for the sake of humans that we refrain from experimenting on non-human animals. That won't lead to experimenting on humans; the zeal for experimentation begins on animals then moves to humans, same progression as with sociopaths. Both require the ability to ignore another's pain, and both sometimes involve enjoying another's pain. It's wrong. That's enough. Look where it's gotten us."
Excuse me but lack of interest in human exceptualism is a much more cancerous pill to our society then animal experimentation. If a human soul can turn it's back on a diabetic child as destined for death and not do as Flemming & Banting did, then we as a society will have become COMPASSIONLESS.
T.E. That's what I've been trying to say all along.
Donne: We already HAVE become compassionless, and part of how we've become compassionless is to have done experimentation on non-human animals. And no, I don't think that the diabetic child is a good enough reason to do the unethical.
Sorry, I mistyped your name, Donnie.
It isn't unethical to eat animals to stave of hunger and it isn't unethical to use animal experimentation to save a diabetic child. In fact I believe we have an amoral responsibility to give our children every opportunity to SURVIVE. My compassion recognizes just how important each child is to the human family whereas the animals have no sense of family structure and compassion to match ours.
As for the mistype,no problem but thanks for the courtesy of noting the error.
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