Human animal hybrids

OMG... X-Men becomes reality.

Regulators from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) have agreed in principle to allow human-animal embryos to be created and used for research.

They are mixing cow and human cells in order to have something that is "not human" thus it is "morally ok" to steal stem cells from it and then destroy it.

Are you going to be able to stop this kind of thing? No, it is science, and science will continue to progress, there can be no stop to it.

Did you see this coming? Come on, once cloning hit and was accepted, how could you not?

Is this OK? Stems cells probably do hold the next great key in biological science, and potentially are the best thing since pencillan for diseases that plague humanity. It is in our nature to try and live, like all beings, but we posses the capability to do this in ways that are far beyond natural, IMO. Some might argue that because we have this ability it is thus defacto natural. I am OK with stem cells, and I am even OK with them coming from human feti, but that leads you down the slippery road of "at what point do you draw the line and call it a human life". It's a disgusting topic.

I was pretty against cloning when it came out... seems to me like playing God a lot more than we already do.

This intermixing of species is disconcerting to me as well. Mutants are not kosher in my book.

Stem cells are purported to be the gateway to the cure for Alzheimer's disease... I had a grandparent who had it... not cool. What's it worth? Where do you draw the line? Won't that line inevitably be redrawn later anyway? What is your soul worth(not in a god fearing way but...)? What would you do for money? What would you do for power? What would you do for peace? What would you do to stop a war? How many would you sacrifice and who? What would you do for a loved one? What would you allow to save someone you know from suffering? At what point have you gone beyond acceptable? It must be different from person to person...

I tend to take a different view on the life thing. It is odd, that because we are given sentience, we can allow logic to play with our instincts, such as the will and need to survive. I believe that HIV, cancer, etc. are natures solution to the human "plague". Look at us... step back and look at earth from space. See that planet, teaming with life? What kinds of life do you find? Categories them all. In what category do you put humans? We are, after all, just another species on this planet. We do not fit in the "circle of life" though, we live outside of it. We have no natural predators, for as defined by wikipedia, "the key characteristic of predation... is the predator's direct impact on the prey population". We also populate unchecked, look at India and China. As far as life is concerned, I think that we are the single greatest destructors next to a natural extinction level event. I don't necessarily feel that we deserve to continue indefinitely spreading our DNA amongst the universe. We have to spread to other planets, why? Because we screwed ours so bad, or because it can only last so long? Well then weren't we meant to go out with it?

Then again, it's only my soft fuzzy sentient side that says that us killing all these species is wrong. And I probably only feel that way because of the way in which we do it... that it is our pollution and habitat encroachment that is killing off species (I won't mention the ones we hunted to extinction). If it were a dinosaur that was able to hunt and kill 50% of species on earth I would probably not feel that it doesn't deserve to live... so it is because of our sentience that we have a responsibility for our actions, and thus either deserve or don't deserve. Then again, just because we are sentient doesn't necessarily imply that we cannot wipe out all other life, as that is the benefit of our evolutionary status... this could go on and on and back and forth... I will stop here. :)

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