"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." (Via The Anomalist.)
I have a creeping suspicion that "dealt with" is an expedient euphemism for "killed." After all, we don't want animals getting too smart, do we? I mean, hasn't everyone seen "Planet of the Apes"?
15 comments:
Sounds like "dabbling in the black arts" to me. People are all worked up over stem cells, which have a demonstrable human-health benefit, and they're giving animal-human chimeras a pass? Being a huge fan of Jane Goodall, I happen to think that apes (and a lot of other species as well) are already sentient anyway. Yet they seem to be slipping this kind of experiment past us as somehow "good science." I'd like to transplant some of Jerry Falwell's brain cells in THEIR brains!
P.S.
Q. What's purple and stars Charlton Heston?
Ans. "Planet of the Grapes" (obviously).
Oh..........my..........God!
"Planet of the Grapes" -- that would make a killer parody.
Another pet project is to list all the s.f. movies starring Charlton Heston, in which, at some point, he says (in response to one sort of horrific revelation or another) "Oh......my......God."
Planet of the Apes I (on seeing the Statue of Liberty sunk in the sand)
Soylent Green (on discovering that, "Soylent Green is people.")
Omega Man (I think on discovering that everyone else in the world has a disease that turns them into vampires)
So, in the "Planet of the Grapes" parody (perhaps on learning the secret of the Great Grape, the Charlton Heston character should utter in a long, drawn-out way his signature phrase, "Oh.....my.....God."
For the film version of After the Martian Apocalypse we'll have to cast him as Seth Shostak. :)
Speaking of "dealing with" other beings (likely) endowed with self-aware, choice-making consciousness, I was rather disturbed to discover that one of the highlights (as stated in their newsletter) of the recent "Homeowners' Association" (a loose affiliation of the property owners around my current rural residence) annual meeting and 4th of July picnic was dolphin steak. I put that about on par with cannibalism.
I swear, the more Conservative Christian Republicans I meet, the more I'm coming to despise them... my overall impression is that they're generally haughty, self-important pricks, early 'Boomers who act like the only thing anyone else is good for is wiping their asses for them, and that the world exists solely for satisfying their gluttony.
If there is a hell, I sure hope theirs is especially deep and uncomfortable...
If there is a hell, I sure hope theirs is especially deep and uncomfortable...
"Beneath the Planet of the Apes" -- the perfect place for Chimpublicans!
"Dolphin steak"!? Good god! As far as I'm concerned that's worse than cannibalism.
One of the things that most bothers me about this style of "conservatism" is its sheer, reactive in-your-face quality. If they see me hugging a tree, they immediately want to cut it down. If I have a "Save the Whales" bumper sticker, it makes them hungry for whale (or dolphin) steak. If I support environmentalists on the global warming issue, their impulse is to say its nonsense and go out and buy a Hummer to "prove" it.
twilliam -
"Dolphin", besides being a sea mammal, also is the name for a tasty game fish. Also known as Dorado, dolphin is a feisty little fish, with no blowhole, or live birth, or big brain.
Flipper is safe. :)
Besides, I always thought HOA types eat their own.
Mac -
That monkey at the linked site looks like he's been smoking something besides Marlboros... :)
Kyle
UFOreflections.blogspot.com
The smoking monkey!
I'm still laughing ... and I thought only humans were stupid.
Jon
And why does that monkey somehow remind me of Larry King? (Maybe it's that priceless expression on the monkey's face -- smoke-enhanced skepticism?)
kyle-
Thanks, I'm aware that there is a game fish known as "dolphinfish"; it is usually referred to as such in order to distinguish it from cetaceans, however. I can only hope that the HOA-types were, in fact, speaking of the fish and not the mammal; I'm disinclined to ask...
Man creates God, God creates man, man destroys God, man destroys man, ape inherits the earth. ;)