Immoral use of the Humanzee

as per the request of AdminNosey:

I don't see how you can attach a moral value to providing information in the service of a legitimate argument. Nor can I imagine a good reason to object to using a "humanzee" as evidence supporting a factual conclusion. (please note, I said "good" and not "possible") However, if you tried to use them as support for a social or political agenda, then all kinds of misuse is possible. I would guess the odds of that happening might be fairly good.

Must... not... make joke... about... immoral uses... of Humanzees!------------------
Mrs. Krabappel: Are there any questions?
Bart: Yes, how would I go about creating a half-man/half-monkey type of creature?
Mrs. Krabappel: I'm sorry, that would be playing God.
Bart: God schmod! I want my monkey-man!

So does using a Humanzee to show creationists that kinds are just a figment of the creationist's imagination push forward a social agenda?If the Humanzee experiment failed, and this (well along with an actual definition of kind) was used to show that there is a "kind" barrier, could this be used as supporting evidence for creationism, and consequently the adoption of creationist lessons in public school? or would this be too much of a social agenda?

I don't know if this is what you are getting at here, but the first experiment in this line of research would be to try to create a human/chimp hybrid embryo through in vitro fertilization and see if it is viable, that is survives of some number of weeks. Removes the bestiality aspect of it, and the embryo can be destroyed when it survives to the pre-determined time.Of course, then, this is where the ethical aspect comes in, seeing how the embryo is half-human, and we have just had, here in the US, a big political row about fetal stem cell research.

All it would show is that we are different species by the successful interbreeding criteria. No one disagrees that that barrier is there.The supposed barrier between "kinds" is somehow able to stop a series of speciation events being able to create groups of species that are as different as some are now.Even if it actually could produce a viable humanzee that was brought to term would it falsify the 'kind' barrier idea? I still don't know what a 'kind' is? It would just mean that we and chimps are the same 'kind' but only by some definitions. So the creationists would redefine kind in some way. For example, they would decide that it only when the interbreeding was natural. And, of course, any interbreeding between a human and a beast is, by any definition they would accept, "unnatural" and an abomination.So the experiment would end up proving nothing to either side.Aside from that, I am uneasy enought with the idea that I do not think it should be performed anyway. I have two areas of feeling that lead me to this:
1) This is just an emotional, unsupported distaste for the idea.
2) The other is the possiblity of producing a whole population of humanzees. I don't want to give us another chance to create slaves thank you very much.

quote:

---

Even if it actually could produce a viable humanzee that was brought to term would it falsify the 'kind' barrier idea? I still don't know what a 'kind' is? It would just mean that we and chimps are the same 'kind' but only by some definitions. So the creationists would redefine kind in some way. For example, they would decide that it only when the interbreeding was natural. And, of course, any interbreeding between a human and a beast is, by any definition they would accept, "unnatural" and an abomination.

---

Can you redefine something that hasn't been substantially defined in the first place?Regardless, I agree with your prediction. The hybrid would be called an abomination because it crosses a supposed line, and the line would simultaneously be redefined so that it could still be claimed to exist at all.

quote:

---

I don't see how you can attach a moral value to providing information in the service of a legitimate argument. Nor can I imagine a good reason to object to using a "humanzee" as evidence supporting a factual conclusion. (please note, I said "good" and not "possible")

---

There is a widely held (and widely disputed) position in medical ethics which holds that data from unethical experiments should never be used; the standard test case is the use of data from Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. If one holds that creation of a human/chimpanzee hybrid would be highly unethical, then it would seem at least possible that using the result of that experiment for any reason at all would fall into the same category.

That's a tough call isn't it? What if you could save lives with the information? However, I agree with that stand.I understand that there was very limited value in the results of any of the NAZI experiments anyway.