<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Geez. I hope this fellow never needs any Insulin. Neigh.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>]3</DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Nov 14, 2005, at 9:38 PM, Neil H. wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">The Dallas Morning News has an anti-transhumanist op-ed by a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute (a conservative Christian think-tank). <BR> <BR> <A href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-smith_13edi.ART.State.Edition1.2f25c31.html">http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-smith_13edi.ART.State.Edition1.2f25c31.html </A><BR> <BR> Some quotes:<BR> <BR> <SPAN class="vitstorybody"><SPAN class="vitstorybody"> Look out, America: The trajectory of science is coming into conflict with venerable human values and even our self-definition as a species, raising urgent ethical issues that will have to be answered before it is too late.<BR> ...<BR> <BR> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN class="vitstorybody"><SPAN class="vitstorybody"> The "sanctity/equality of life ethic" holds that all human beings have equal moral worth, regardless of their abilities or capacities. This objective standard is now threatened by "personhood theory," which holds that rights only belong to "persons," a status earned by possessing minimal cognitive capacities. If personhood theory supplants sanctity of life as the governing ethic of society, it would open the door to harvesting organs from people like Terri Schiavo or permitting biotechnologists to "farm" cloned fetuses for use in drug testing or experiments in genetic engineering.<BR> ...<BR> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN class="vitstorybody"><SPAN class="vitstorybody"> If scientists can insert human DNA into animal embryos, then animal DNA could just as easily be inserted into human embryos. Such experiments are far from unthinkable. A social movement called "transhumanism" advocates the creation of a "post human species," which would include using animal genes in progeny to increase strength or make senses more acute.<BR> ...</SPAN></SPAN><BR><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">extropy-chat mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>