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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Comments about SOR Pamphlet #4
Message-ID: <280@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 09:41:45 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.280
Posted: Tue Dec 18 09:41:45 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Dec-84 02:42:32 EST
References: <190@talcott.UUCP> <576@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: net
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 33
Summary: 

In article <576@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
> >                               You overlook the fact a chimpanzee is
> > physiologically very close to a human.  In fact, you could cross a chimp
> > with a human!  The offspring, however, would be sterile, for the same
> > reason that mules are sterile.
> 
> Can anyone verify this?

I have not heard of any attempts, successful or otherwise, attempting to
produce ape/human hybrids.

The idea is not very far-fetched now that artificial insemination is
commonplace in laboratories, hospitals, and zoos.  It would be an ironic
trick to play on the Nobel Laureate sperm bank in California.  Talk about
damage to their reputation!  Not a nice thing to do to an unsuspecting
mother though.

There are any number of reasons why an interspecies cross might fail.  There
are unknown causes of spontaneous abortion at embryonic and fetal stages in
some interspecies crosses.  If the mother was an ape, there might be birth
problems due to the larger cranial size of newborns with human genes, or
perhaps premature birth of a fetus that would get larger if the mother was
able to tolerate it.

I'd say that it would be worth an attempt.  I would not be surprised if it was
successful.  (Please, if we're going to discuss ethics of this sort of thing,
move it to net.religion or net.philosophy.)  It really would stick in the
craw of creationists if they had to admit that humans and apes were
"of a kind".  But of course, they'd squirm away with some new BS claim
equally unsupported by the facts and the Bible.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh