Chimeras

That's a chimpanzee. Look carefully, might be necessary in the future.



Now imagine a human getting sexually attracted to a chimp. Imagine an intercourse... there have been many opportunities for such an intercourse over the long history of mankind. This is well known, many of us roam around with the knowledge that AIDS came from Humans intercoursing with apes. Although this is untrue, (US vaccination experiments in Africa using monkey blood gone awry), the idea of a human-chimp intercourse is not something novel. Everyone acknowledges that it must have happened... In fact, there are considerable evidences to the argument that homo-sapiens and Neanderthals interbred for the twenty thousand years that they co-existed, leading to modern men. Interspecial mating might be in this case, more natural than it seems. We are only marginally different from Chimpanzees in our genetic content. There is no doubt that with everything we have done over the ages, a chimpanzee-Human intercourse has NOT happened. Now imagine one such chimpanzee-human union resulting in an offspring. What are the social, moral and cultural repercussions of such an offspring?



Now imagine such a thing has already happened.







Was watching discovery yesterday, when the story of Oliver, an alleged humanzee came along. An actress even offered to let the creature mate with her. If it was so easy, you really wonder why such instances were not better known and in fact, more common.



Zoophilia has a long history. Mythologies of all cultures are awash with creatures born out of unions between men and animals. Even the extremes of necrozoophilia is not spared, being a part of the Ashwamedha horse ceremony. Just because little kiddies are not told ALL the tales in our mythologies, does not mean that they are not terribly well documented. Upto the middle ages, it was almost the norm in European countries, to intercourse with farmyard animals, and there are many documented evidences of this phenomenon. Ancient Egyptians copulated with Goats as a form of religious ritual, Roman women with Snakes as a cleansing ritual, Roman prostitutes with asses as a form of entertainment, and Greeks with 'beasts' as a form of art. It is not just the Gods of Greek and Roman pantheons who were sexually active with animals, the enactment of their mythologies had live shows of such intercourses.
The spectators at the colloseum have been thoroughly "entertained" with many spectacles - the least of which were gladiator deathmatches. Full scale battles were played out, sometimes naval ones where the colloseum was flooded with water. Hordes of virgins were sacrificed live - to baboons - and other animals - some of which were trained to kill or eat them after the act.



Bestialiy has survived as a form of pornography, something that is (fortunately?) taboo in mainstream society. The question is that of offspring from such intercourses. Since bestiality is much more common than it appears, why aren't there more cases of offspring? There isn't even one definite case, which can be considered true beyond all doubt.



As things turn out, that is not because of any lack of sincere efforts.


1) Stalin apparently directed his top scientists to carry out Human-Chimpanzee interbreeding experiments with a

"I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat"

speech. The scientist, Ivanov's experiments, fortunately failed (Hopefully). Apparently the Bolsheviks wanted to disprove a God. Good thing Stalin went down, or he might have got his army.



2) The Chinese, The Italians, and the United states have all tried creating Human-Animal hybrids. There are whispers and rumors of surviving offspring, which were killed immediately after.



3) Chimpanzees are relatively close relatives, but mankind's science has allowed him to combine the genes of Hamsters with humans, as well as a variety of other creatures, including mice and pigs.



4) Stem cell researchers not only fool around with human fetuses, significantly goes down the path to create parahumans, and has already ended up creating controversial chimeras.



Now comes the question of ethics. Governments, to be at the forefront in biotechnology, will become increasingly permissive about ethics. In fact, a controversial UK ruling actually seems to encourage the creation of human-animal hybrids. All of this was just an introduction to the real thing... how far should we go as a species? Where do we cross the line? What steps must be taken now to safeguard our species from unforeseen contingencies?







Ok, to be as open minded as possible, lets just pretend that humans can use the technology and the creatures they create responsibly. This would, however be the equivalent of saying that your offspring are your property, and you are free to do anything you want with them. Humanzees or Chumans used for menial tasks or hazardous working conditions, will eventually lead to the question of rights, and another movement will start of, about special discrimination and the likes. However, such a thing is not likely to happen if existing apes are given sufficient training to do the same things Humanzees would do.



About Chimeras from other animals with human genes, as long as the mental processes are not upto the same level as humans, there really shouldn't be any problem. Except the question of ill-treatment, again, to human genes, of ownership of creatures with human genes amounting to slavery, or even of cannibalism if creatures are bred to supply allegedly tasty human flesh as a specialty food - an offshoot of transplant farming.



Supposing we accept the creation of entire races arising out of interbreeding, an initial stage of co-existence will eventually lead to some kind of a war. There is simply no way out, we will not resist war with a competing species, we cannot do it even with our own.



Such scenarios, are all obviously drastic, and not much beyond the scope of conspiracy theorists, and are all hare-brained and crazy to the core - but all of it scares you, makes you uncomfortable, displaces you from the secure pedestal of unquestionable superiority to other animals.



When we hear of such things, we become fundamentally insecure about our own humanity.



Science will continue its progress, the people who don't take risks, the people who hinder science for being too unorthodox are the ones that future generations look back in anger towards. There is nothing men can do against the progress of science, it knows no responsible limits, no one knows what such genetic experiments can bring us, and if it is a cure for cancer or AIDS, the repercussions are a risk worth taking.



What we need to do on a personal level to counter the perceived threat, which as of now, and at least for our lifetimes, is a remote possibility, is to simply raise the benchmark of humanness... let being human stand for something much more than what it already does.



That, simply put, is the only real way out.