requiem

this article is written by two scientists from the genome institute of singapore and addresses public misgivings about chimeric research and the possibility of creating human-animal hybrids in the future. briefly, their argument is that distant hybrids are biological impossibilities and therefore moral reservations are extraneous.

they miss the points:

• misgivings need not address a current technology.
• misgivings should be addressed. they can be useful. we tell teenagers that.
• biological impossibilities today are little lambs called Dolly tomorrow.

when two clearly clever people can miss such points the intellectual rigor of their ethical development is tragically suspect.