Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!iuvax!silver!chiaravi
From: chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Neoteny and Human Genetic Engineering
Summary: The evil that humans do
Keywords: Blade Runner
Message-ID: <2923@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 89 05:49:17 GMT
References: <17917@dhw68k.cts.com> <189@microsoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Organization: Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 51

In article <189@microsoft.UUCP> gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) writes:
>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.

	Actually, they had emotional responses -- their emotional responses
were different from those of normal humans in great part due to their not
having a chance to develop much of a background (due to short life span and
conditions of slavery) and in some very small degree due to an inherent
difference which was not explored in depth (but which allowed the test to work
even in cases of posession of human experience).  Blade Runner depicted the
test as being accurate if the tester is sufficiently persistent, but accuracy
of the test is not necessary either for the plot of Blade Runner or for use of
such a test in real life (remember witch hunts, Communism, and the McCarthy
era).

	The point is that people tend to look for differences which set them
apart from others to justify use of the others as slaves.  Most people have
been deprived of the chance to use other people as slaves, but given a chance,
they will do it.  Since question of the legal status of intelligent
genetically engineered beings has not been addressed, many people would jump
at the chance to use them as slaves.  Once intelligent genetically engineered
beings appear, the opportunity to use them as slaves will also appear, unless
this important ethical and legal question is addressed between now and then.
If it is not, the beings in question will be used as slaves, unless they can
escape.  No matter how much they look like us and act like us, people who are
aware of their existence will devise tests to detect them.  If it is
impractical or impossible to devise an accurate test, people will develop and
use an inaccurate test, just as has been done many times in human history.

	Sorry to put an article of small relevance to biology in sci.bio, but
these are issues which really need to be addressed.

-- 
|  Lucius Chiaraviglio   |  ARPA:  chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
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