Senate Republicans push for Ariel Assault

[AFK]

Senator Brownback, John McCain, John Ensign, and a bunch of other Republicans (oh and a token loony-tune Democrat, Mary Landrieu from Louisiana) have introduced a bill to ban human-animal hybrids. 

Mermaids, Centaurs and Sam Brownback

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) — an ardent anti-abortion activist — is worried that the Obama administration's loosening of restrictions on stem cell research will result in the creation of a new race of bio-engineered "human-animal" hybrid freaks.

Or beautiful mermaids.

The bill — modeled on an inexplicably overlooked effort by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — would ban the creation of "part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species."

The legislation, he says, "is limited in scope" and wouldn't limit the use of some animal parts for human use, including porcine pig valves.

Despite giving no concrete examples of what such hybrids would look like (i.e. Spider-Man), he's got 20 co-sponsors including one Dem, Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

"As our nation suffers through the greatest economic decline in a generation and our country's brightest minds are working tirelessly to reverse course, what does Sen. Brownback propose? Banning mermaids," quipped Chris Harris of Media Matters.

Why do Republicans hate Centaurs? 

[LMNO]

Amusingly enough, I think they're actually called "Chimeras".

[Cramulus]

I'd really like to believe that hot-ass mermaids are the endgame goal of genetic experimentation

[LMNO]

[Kai]

Yet more distracting bullshit.

[Iason Ouabache]

Yet more distracting bullshit.

Distracting bullshit that will kill lots of interesting biology research. 

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/why_do_they_hate_the_manimal.php

One teensy little problem: these clowns do not understand the science. We actually aren't planning to creating a slave-race of beast-men; the technology isn't there, for one thing, and for another, that's really not at all an interesting goal. No one is planning on operating on any human persons, or even violating them; the focus is all on cells and molecules. This is routine stuff. In one hand, you've got a dish full of human cells — it doesn't talk, it can't sign a consent form even if it had the capacity to understand one — and you want to know what makes them tick. In the other hand, you've got a collection of hard-won tools you've gathered from work in mice or worms or flies; interesting vectors, genes that act as indicators or switches, ways to basically reach into a cell and toggle states. Scientists have had these for years, and we've regularly used these tools to manipulate cells and puzzle out what happens.

Another example: we want to know what genes on different human chromosomes do, but it is highly unethical to do random mutagenesis on human gametes, bring them together, and then raise up the fetus in a volunteer's womb to find out what interesting ways it might go kablooiee. One technique that has been used is to make mouse-human hybrid cells: use a little ethylene glycol to weaken the cell membranes, push a mouse cell next to a human cell, and presto, they fuse. They then recover and go through cell divisions, and the hybrid cell begins to lose pieces of the unnatural excess of chromosomes it's got. You can then screen the resultant cells and correlate the presence or absence of gene products with the presence or absence of specific human chromosomes.

I know. It sounds so nefarious.

One more example: scientists have made transgenic pigs carrying five human genes. The idea is to create animals that can be a source for xenografts — transplanted organs — in humans with a reduced level of rejection. These pigs would become illegal under the Brownback bill, because they mingle a blessedly human H-transferase gene with pig cells. This is not to argue that there are no ethical considerations in these kinds of experiments, since there certainly are: we can argue about the ethics of creating species of pigs with the specialized purpose of providing organs for human use (it's about as great a moral dilemma as raising pigs for meat), and there's also the concern that hybrid pigs will also be dangerous incubators for training viruses to respond to human epitopes. But the ethical debates aren't the domain of crude science-fiction versions of the science that these clueless lawmakers think them to be.

[Elder Iptuous]

I don't understand these mandates against studying 'X'....
The law can only regulate what it can refer to by some label....
Science is (in part) about labeling.... the scientists are the arbiters of the labels.
why can't they simply label themselves around the legislative buffoons?
I realize this is not as elegant a solution as hanging the legislators and carrying on with science unimpeded, but it could be effective in the immediate, no?

[Cain]

Well, the British are doing it.

And look at where they are now.  Exactly.  Human-animal hybrids will RUIN your economy.

[Kai]

Yet more distracting bullshit.

Distracting bullshit that will kill lots of interesting biology research. 

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/why_do_they_hate_the_manimal.php

One teensy little problem: these clowns do not understand the science. We actually aren't planning to creating a slave-race of beast-men; the technology isn't there, for one thing, and for another, that's really not at all an interesting goal. No one is planning on operating on any human persons, or even violating them; the focus is all on cells and molecules. This is routine stuff. In one hand, you've got a dish full of human cells — it doesn't talk, it can't sign a consent form even if it had the capacity to understand one — and you want to know what makes them tick. In the other hand, you've got a collection of hard-won tools you've gathered from work in mice or worms or flies; interesting vectors, genes that act as indicators or switches, ways to basically reach into a cell and toggle states. Scientists have had these for years, and we've regularly used these tools to manipulate cells and puzzle out what happens.

Another example: we want to know what genes on different human chromosomes do, but it is highly unethical to do random mutagenesis on human gametes, bring them together, and then raise up the fetus in a volunteer's womb to find out what interesting ways it might go kablooiee. One technique that has been used is to make mouse-human hybrid cells: use a little ethylene glycol to weaken the cell membranes, push a mouse cell next to a human cell, and presto, they fuse. They then recover and go through cell divisions, and the hybrid cell begins to lose pieces of the unnatural excess of chromosomes it's got. You can then screen the resultant cells and correlate the presence or absence of gene products with the presence or absence of specific human chromosomes.

I know. It sounds so nefarious.

One more example: scientists have made transgenic pigs carrying five human genes. The idea is to create animals that can be a source for xenografts — transplanted organs — in humans with a reduced level of rejection. These pigs would become illegal under the Brownback bill, because they mingle a blessedly human H-transferase gene with pig cells. This is not to argue that there are no ethical considerations in these kinds of experiments, since there certainly are: we can argue about the ethics of creating species of pigs with the specialized purpose of providing organs for human use (it's about as great a moral dilemma as raising pigs for meat), and there's also the concern that hybrid pigs will also be dangerous incubators for training viruses to respond to human epitopes. But the ethical debates aren't the domain of crude science-fiction versions of the science that these clueless lawmakers think them to be.

Exactly. Its idiocy, and its distracting the republic from more important issues.