Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!microsoft!gordonl
From: gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Neoteny and Human Genetic Engineering
Summary: Creating slaves
Message-ID: <189@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jan 89 18:09:19 GMT
References: <17917@dhw68k.cts.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 18

In article <17917@dhw68k.cts.com>, stein@dhw68k.cts.com (Rick Stein) writes:
> In article <13127@cup.portal.com>, Mark Robert Thorson writes:
> >Another possibility, with lighter ethical baggage, would be to
> >neotenize one of our primate cousins.  If its intelligence could
> >be raised by a factor 10, it could be darn useful as an assistant
> >or for assembly-line work.
> But also, if these beings have intelligence which rivals a
> homo sapien, doesn't this neotenization really amount to 
> creating a race of slaves?  

But the point is that people would say that they aren't human, regardless
of their intelligence, and therefore aren't "slaves".  This is a 
classic argument.  Also see the very good film "Blade Runner" which
addressed this issue explicitly.  Replicants weren't slaves because
they weren't human.  Proof of their inhumanity was that the didn't have
emotional responses and could, in fact, be distinguished by a test.

	Gordon letwin