Time to question bioengineering.

[BloodyHeretic]

The reason many scientists and engineers don't take the "warnings" of liberal artists seriously is because they know jack shit.

That is a profoundly ignorant statement.

So do I as it happens, but they've done it, should we make legislation to prevent them?

The above perfectly enrages me in some contexts. It reeks of self-serving moral superiority, as if scientists and researchers are mindless, soulless automatons that need to be controlled.

Do you have even an idea of a tenth of the animal welfare legislation in place? Or are you simply shooting blanks from your ass?

By Odin's beard, sometimes atheists are no better than Christians!

You should read your own posts for the reek of self-serving moral superiority. I'm a science student myself, I've no desire to paint scientists as soulless or in need of control, it's scientists I most want to hear from in the debate. I do have a notion of the animal welfare legislation there is, I'm not an expert. I simply assume you agree there needs to be animal welfare legislation, and I wanted to extend the debate to this new area of science. If the current legislation covers this already, you simply had to point out, if you know. I never claimed to be an expert, I just wanted to talk about an issue of interest to me, and obviously a lot of other people as well. I think there has been a good debate, some very interesting posts, including some from yourself. Why be such a dick about it?

Well does anyone think it's wrong that they've built chips into the brains of insects and can remote fly them around a lab? Would it be wrong if they did it to chimps?

BH, that's quite a leap from simple insects to complex mammalian organisms. But why did you select chimps? Was it to drive the human-like point home, or merely to make an emotional appeal? Subverting a roughly sapient organism like that fly in any form would be considered awful, be it a dolphin, chimp or human.

There is a great need to understand the limits and capabilities of our fellow animals, only if to better evaluate what we can do and can't do, for ethical, scientific reasons. I agree with that, but mindless fear is not the route to go. Nor through appeals to emotion or the "Frankenstein" effect.

I selected chimps for the exact reason of driving home a human-like point. I want to talk about the limits of where we take this. We will one day be capable of bioengineering in humans. We'll be able to direct our own evolution (Neo-evolution). This is fascinating and again, a subject we need to talk a lot about. Is there a problem with this? I haven't suggested mindless fear as a route to go down, all I said is that it's an emotional response to this subject which comes up, fairly understandably. It's important we address this and don't let it be the basis or direction for our decisions, but maybe a motivation to make good ones. We should of course use our reason to make these decisions.

Throughout the thread there's been good logical posts, about how we already use animals for our own ends etc. I have to say, I have been educated and I'm delighted, that's why I started the thread. Why you have to be so unpleasant about it is beyond me.