[tmbchr]™

Monkeys With Human Brains?



Whoo!

SCIENTISTS have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal.
In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects.

Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare.

An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a ’super-animal’ intelligence.

[…] The committee will also examine how detectable differences in the monkey’s brains, for example emotional or behavioural changes, or if the monkeys developed ’self awareness’, could be measured - and dealt with.

Shit! It’s not like science isn’t already an ethical nightmare anyway, right?







9 Reader Responses

  1. Inder Says:
    July 12th, 2005 at 9:04 pm

    Just science? Sometimes I think our species is just one big ethical nightmare, lol. This ties into some of your earlier posts on consciousness — if, in fact, you could produce a monkey with a human brain, I wonder what type of consciousness it might have. I would like to think that nature would just end its misery soon after its birth, but who knows.

  2. Nathan Says:
    July 12th, 2005 at 9:21 pm

    Apparently these scientists never saw ‘Planet of the Apes’.

  3. Fell Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 12:24 am

    Everyone take a breath for a moment and just think…

    Who doesn’t want a friendly monkey to drink beers and play GTA with?!

  4. Jerky Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 1:52 am

    Hey, why NOT give monkeys a little more “oomp!” in the brains department? We might end up learning a little something about ourselves, like the scientific basis for our own species’ ongoing love affair with excreta-based humor.

  5. alistair Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 6:51 am

    we have enough shit flinging from politics and science and religion to warrant engineering competition. besides science wont have an ethical problem. oppenhiemer proved that.and the pope? ethical vacuum cleaner.

  6. Chiggles Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 11:15 am

    From Archaeology: The Science of Once and Future Things:
    “Anthropologists have even reported seeing great apes dance in lines and circles [Damon, 1957:1]”
    This and the ability to make/use basic tools and learn some sign language, I think is display enough of intelligence.
    Where may I ask is the link to the full story? Where I reside (Madison, WI) there is a growing interest in what has been/is being done to primates, such as a talk I missed last night titled “UW Primate Vivisectors A to Z” to the Primate Research Museum. I would not be surprised if this was being done in my city.

  7. Occult Investigator Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 11:23 am

    I added in the link. Sorry!

  8. james Says:
    July 13th, 2005 at 3:43 pm

    Dude… it’s DEVO come to life!

  9. Ant Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 12:32 am

    HAHA. I love the fact that it says “may accidentally produce”… I’m pretty sure that the science community is secretly thinking “you mean, hopefully… because that’s why we were injecting them with human brain cells, wasn’t it, guys?”

    And I agree with Alistair, It should be interesting when they start running for office.



SURROUND YOURSELF WITH STRENGTH.