Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!mit-eddie!media-lab!minsky
From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Human/Chimp Hybrids?
Message-ID: <3478@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 27 Sep 90 14:54:33 GMT
References: <999@massey.ac.nz> <6284@bgsuvax.UUCP> <26689@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <3432@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <1990Sep25.175301.6426@cbnewsm.att.com>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 58

In an earlier note, I said:

>> Surely it is the most vicious proto-genocide to block the
>> coming-into-being of an entire promising new species.

mls@cbnewsm.att.com replies 

> Well, now; *that's* a loaded term for you, "proto-genocide" -- we are 
> to be held to account as murderers of the worst kind for NOT producing 
> species we might conceivably produce?  Isn't that the old-time Catholic
> argument against birth-control?

Well, yes -- and I meant it as a mixture of irony, sarcasm, and humor.
Why does that argument stop before asserting that our job is to
produce as many humans as possible?

But I was trying to be a little more serious in sugeesting that after
extinguishing so many species, making some new ones is

>>  surely the least we could do to make amends.
 
Then mls@cbnewsm expressed reservations about this:

> And here is the real rub.  Your position assumes as a default that we
> are "good guys" enough to do an acceptable job of "guardianship" over
> any such manufactured species.  I have doubts -- very serious doubts
> -- that this is a good assumption.

and quite properly countered some of my "loaded" terminology with more
of his own.  But there is a serious issue: 'unfit' as we may presently
be to plot the future of biology, we should try to clarify the issues
as well as we can, and recognize that the responsibility remains with
us no matter that we turn from it. 

In particular, we are responsible for the chimpanzees and for their
further evolution.  They are our closent relatives.  Much like us,
their brains may well have evolved quite as much as ours have, in the
five megayears since the divergence, and the unknown refinements
therein could be, in our own future, the most valuable biological
treasurehouse on the planet.

How could that be? The human brain is composed of several hunderd
specialized sub-computers of different architectures.  They each have
different features and bugs.  (Never mind that one man's bug is
another man's feature -- that's evolution.)  Now chimpanzees must have
evolved quite a few different micro-arrangements, and these could be
the source of cognitive powers different from ours, if suitable
combined.  It is the same argument, perhaps, for preserving the
botanical variety for future medical interventions, to preserve the
genetic variety of our relatives for future mutual needs.  Some
millenia from now, we might find that a few chimp genes could provide
some of our descendants with ways around some of our own limitations
to learning and thinking.

So the hybridization proposals might well be premature, but the
important thing is to get the world to recognize the immense
importance of helping our relatives.  But, unfortunately, to even
discuss such things can sometimes do more harm than good.