The Abolition of Man

IB Bill has some sobering thoughts about currently ongoing research involving chimeras and trans-species transplants via human stem cells. Here's one excerpt from the news article:

The potential power of chimeras as research tools became clear about a decade ago in a series of dramatic experiments by Evan Balaban, now at McGill University in Montreal. Balaban took small sections of brain from developing quails and transplanted them into the developing brains of chickens.

The resulting chickens exhibited vocal trills and head bobs unique to quails, proving that the transplanted parts of the brain contained the neural circuitry for quail calls. It also offered astonishing proof that complex behaviors could be transferred across species.

Here's another cheery bit:

Now Weissman says he is thinking about making chimeric mice whose brains are 100 percent human. He proposes keeping tabs on the mice as they develop. If the brains look as if they are taking on a distinctly human architecture— a development that could hint at a glimmer of humanness— they could be killed, he said. If they look as if they are organizing themselves in a mouse brain architecture, they could be used for research.

I dunno, it's been over 30 years since I've read the H.G. Wells story, but somehow I'm reminded of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

My own take is, if such hubristic tinkering is the shape of things to come, look for a push to "cure" human beings of their innate aggression, violence, and inconvenient anti-social tendencies. Including the inconvenient tendency to question authority. No doubt the frantic push will stem from some "caring," "progressive" ideological frenzy not unlike those which have torn like wildfire through Western culture over these past 30 or 40 years.

Imagine having the entire human race (except, no doubt, for our ruling elite) on the built-in equivalent of Ritalin.