What would you think of a Humanzee?

An unethical thought experiment. This is a quick question really. Maybe it belongs in the coffee shop.I was thinking about the human cloning issue lately and I remember some folks arguing "Oh, it's unethical because the clones wouldn't have souls" or something like that. Anyway, the idea was that only god can put souls into people.Then I remembered reading some stuff about how chimps are close enough to us where it's theoretically possible to interbreed. Assuming this is the case, and a chimp and human were crossbred, how would the creationist community react?Further, how would they react if the creature produced, displayed obvious traits of human intelligent, personality, and consciousness? I wouldn't expect the creature to be as smart as a person, but maybe slow.How would the creationist community react if such an experiment were carried out? Would it blow the conception of soul or human out of the water?This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-09-2005 07:54 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

What distinguishes humans from chimps, in my opinion, is the extent to which we are a social species. Many of the changes between apes and humans are social adaptations. The existence of a humanzee wouldn't change that.I don't know about the soul part. The soul is a non-scientific concept, with strong religious and cultural support. I'm not sure that anything could blow it out of the water.

Human DNA is 98% comparable to Monkey DNA.Human DNA is 99% comparable to Cow DNA. *this is for those that say, "look! monkey DNA is almost the same as human, so we came from monkeys." *jeapordy wrong answer beep* Ooooo sorry, looks like we came from moo cows.Far fetched? Cows born with human DNADid we miss the human-cow?The soul is defined by the bible as your mind, will, and emotions. So animals have them. I beleive the spirit is what you are referring to.Goes something like this:Plants only have bodies.Animals have bodies and souls.Humans have bodies, souls, and spirits.This message has been edited by Tal, 08-11-2005 09:29 AM

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Charles Knight has no patience..."Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"
--Ann Coulter

Neat article Tal! But it dosn't say cows are 99% compatible with Human DNA. Or did I miss it, let me know, cuz that would be interesting. I wasn't aware of this distinction. Does this mean you belive the hybrid would have a Spirit or not?

Human antibodies have been produced in mice before, but cattle are bigger and make more of them. from your articleArtificial chromosomeThe calves are known as transchromosomic. Unlike other cows they have an extra synthetic chromosome - one of the bundles of DNA and protein that carries genetic information.An artificial chromosome has been put into the animals to carry human immune system genes. quote from your articleWhere does it say we evolved from cows?? We put the human anitbodies in there...

The DNA thing I learned in Biology 101 when learning about the DNA cycle. Yes, the teacher was an evolutionist. But he was wise enough to teach things as we know them instead of "yeah, it absolutely happened"...if that makes any sense. Anyway, that question was on the test, and I was gald because the rest of the test was pretty harsh. Alot of christains aren't aware of it either. As far as would a clone have a spirit, my pure guess would be yes, but he would have his own soul (mind, will, and emotions not exactly the same as the donor) and spirit; much like twins.

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Charles Knight has no patience..."Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"
--Ann Coulter

Yes, but not a clone, a Humanzee. A hytpothetical human/chimp crossbreed. Would he have a soul?ABE: A soul and a spirt I mean. You know, like us. Would it have our soem spiritual status?This message has been edited by Yaro, 08-11-2005 10:07 AM

I don't know.

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WWXD?
What would Xenu do?"Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"
--Ann Coulter

This is a coffee house thread. I don't wanna get into some crazy serious debate. And the idea is hypothetical anyway.Would you venture a guess?

What question? And is there a source for your 99% homology between cow and human DNA?TTFN,WKP.S. I believe Xenu would commit genocide by exploding people with volcanoes.

lol that was my guess!My official guess is that it can't be done. From a theological point of view man can do almost anything, but God has controls in place so we don't break certain bariers. Atom smashing comes to mind as an example.I bring that up because the last I heard (from memory over 5 years ago) is that the atom smashing process kept smashing atoms and finding smaller particles, but the last one they smashed had some unusual quality (particle switching polarity?) that wouldn't allow further smashing to smaller particles. I can't find the info on google atm. I'll keep looking.

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WWXD?
What would Xenu do?"Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"
--Ann Coulter

The Bioinformatics thread was great (the search function is down at the moment so I can't find it), Cytochrome b comparisons of cows/humans/chimpanzees:Sequence type explicitly set to Protein
Sequence format is Pearson
Sequence 1: COW 379 aa
Sequence 2: HUMAN_ 378 aa
Sequence 3: CHIMPANZEE_ 337 aaSequences (Cow to Human) Aligned. Score: 78.836
Sequences (Cow to Chimp) Aligned. Score: 80.4154
Sequences (Human to Chimp) Aligned. Score: 95.2522This initial impression of one protien would indicate that our DNA is more closely matched with Chimps than it is Cows. I would be interested to see a study that would indicate otherwise. I have a feeling, however, that your teacher was either wrong, or you are wrong about what your teacher was saying.

Your official guess has a decent probability of being wrong, as it was shown back in the 1970's that a human sperm will penetrate an ovum from a gibbon - which is not even a great ape like a human or chimp. The study didn't apparently report whether the experiment was carried on far enough to see if a truly fertilized egg resulted.

Anyone from the UK remember that ITV series about this topic, I can't remember its name.Ahh, thanks to the wonders of Google I now know that it was called 'First Born', although in 'First Born' it was a human-gorilla hybrid.TTFN,WK