Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Human-Animal Hybrid Experimentation -- The Opportunity for Asymmetric Intervention?

In response to your initial ATCA briefing "Human-Animal Synthetic Organisms: Asymmetric Threats to Humanity" of 24th March 2008, while I do not believe that hybrids pose a threat to humanity, generating them will pose an asymmetric threat to conventional society. Some people will welcome the changes that could be triggered, others fear them, but the asymmetric element is that the changes could be forced on the many by the few.

The issue is less about the science and any resulting technology, more about our interpretation of it. Western society was basically founded on the Abrahamic (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) explanation that humans were different and indeed special because God says so. Our status was a given. Around the world other cultures drew similar conclusions. When science started to flourish, many assumed this intellectual and explanatory framework would also provide evidence of this boundary. In many ways, however, that boundary has not materialised.

As it was pointed out in the opening salvo of the ATCA thread, science has not found it easy to define what is genetically human. At least not in a way that established a tight boundary between our species and any other. In fact the more we know about genetics, the less clear the distinction. We share many (may be half) of our genes with other species, and posses genes that don't get switched on, which in other species produce features like long tails. The most prominent explanation for both of these features is that humans have evolved from other species, and so you would expect common inheritance and 'fossil genes'.

Read the article at mi2g.net.

[ENDS]

To reflect further on this, please click here and read views as well as respond directly within the online forum.

We welcome your thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.

Best wishes


DK Matai

Chairman
Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance (ATCA) & The Philanthropia
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ATCA: The Asymmetric Threats Contingency Alliance is a philanthropic expert initiative founded in 2001 to resolve complex global challenges through collective Socratic dialogue and joint executive action to build a wisdom based global economy. Adhering to the doctrine of non-violence, ATCA addresses asymmetric threats and social opportunities arising from climate chaos and the environment; radical poverty and microfinance; geo-politics and energy; organised crime & extremism; advanced technologies -- bio, info, nano, robo & AI; demographic skews and resource shortages; pandemics; financial systems and systemic risk; as well as transhumanism and ethics. Present membership of ATCA is by invitation only and has over 5,000 distinguished members from over 120 countries: including 1,000 Parliamentarians; 1,500 Chairmen and CEOs of corporations; 1,000 Heads of NGOs; 750 Directors at Academic Centres of Excellence; 500 Inventors and Original thinkers; as well as 250 Editors-in-Chief of major media.

The Philanthropia, founded in 2005, brings together over 1,000 leading individual and private philanthropists, family offices, foundations, private banks, non-governmental organisations and specialist advisors to address complex global challenges such as countering climate chaos, reducing radical poverty and developing global leadership for the younger generation through the appliance of science and technology, leveraging acumen and finance, as well as encouraging collaboration with a strong commitment to ethics. Philanthropia emphasises multi-faith spiritual values: introspection, healthy living and ecology. Philanthropia Targets: Countering climate chaos and carbon neutrality; Eliminating radical poverty -- through micro-credit schemes, empowerment of women and more responsible capitalism; Leadership for the Younger Generation; and Corporate and social responsibility.
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