Leaderboard

Suffering as I do from Lyme Disease, I can sympathize with your plight. I have seen enough doctors and popped enough pills to last a lifetime. Nor is stress any stranger to me, therefore. I still manage to experience it, despite doing very little in the way of anything this year. And while the benefits I gain from Aspergers generally outweigh the hindrances, I still find, due to the combination of it and my fatigue, that I occasionally experience an inordinate amount of social anxiety. Re small talk: I do try to avoid it, but I regrettably find myself slipping into it occasionally. But I usually find some common ground on which to converse. I am also skilled in turning a conversation in a direction more to my liking. It has been far too long since I've had the latter with anyone other than my relatives. I still fondly recall having a Theological/Metaphysical debate at a school dance, during my Sophomore year of Highschool. I don't think that it is common to be greeted by a girl at such an event asking if one is "still a Pelagian." I find that Doctor Who and History make good conversation topics. I do this a good deal more often than I should. Being tired all the time, in spite of looking quite healthy, compels one to do this. Anyway, enough about me. I hope that you feel better, Ace. Perhaps you can take some comfort in knowing that you aren't the only one whose body seems to be in open rebellion. And no, I'm not a Pelagian.

I believe the traditional category for man is "rational animal" (or, as one Greek philosopher facetiously put it, "hairless biped." ) Due to linguistic evolution, the term "animal" has come to be used where once the term "beast" (which has now taken on a more feral connotation) was. I posit that being rational, and thus unique on this world, puts humans in a separate category from what would classically be called "brutes".

I believe the traditional category for man is "rational animal" (or, as one Greek philosopher facetiously put it, "hairless biped." ) Due to linguistic evolution, the term "animal" has come to be used where once the term "beast" (which has now taken on a more feral connotation) was.

We already share a lot of DNA with other animals; the more recent the common ancestor; the more the our DNA is identical. So if you take a pig's DNA for a certain protein. You'll most likely find a similar strain in human DNA, in the same 'neighbourhood', and the only difference will be mutations that don't change the shape or function of the protein. Copy and paste the pig DNA over the human DNA, and bingo. WRONG. Not this simple. Copying and pasting involves a specially tailored variant of HIV. In addition, even among similar things, there's a lot of variation in size and shape. Bonobos and chimpanzees are very close to us as far as percentage of similar DNA. Then come mice, and some types of bacterium. It's not quite the nice line taught in schoolyard neodarwinism (which is, in addition, ten years out of date when addopted). Maybe... On a side note, the only practical way to replace a piece of DNA in all cells in the body is when the body consists of only one cell; so right after conception. Correct, but you can also use an HIV variant to go through everything. It just takes time. Humans are animals. It's impossible to change the DNA of all the cells in a mature human body to pig DNA. If you to replace the DNA of a zygote (=a fertilized egg cell) with pig DNA, the result will be a miscarriage, the womb will probably reject the embryo within days of conception. I'd disagree with the first one on one semantic level, namely, we are unique in our abstract information processing ability and I believe this makes it reasonable to seperate humans into their own category for some things. The second is correct, afaik. We've never succesfully tried crossbreeding with our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Who knows... Some closely related animals can still interbreed, despite having a different number of chromosmes, e.g. zebroids (zebra horse hybrids) The crossbreed would likely be sterile (horse/donkey hybrids, most other hybrids). Also might have some odd or bad organ formation issues. I'm not familiar with biology of LF.Xx.3273, but I'm not aware of a method to replace the entire genome of a human body once it is beyond the zygote stage. For terrestrial organisms this question is currently meaningless. once again, our old friend HIV can do it. It just takes time and could be very very painful. Or fatal. Remember, kids, don't play with HIV! For the experimenter? No. For the experimentee? Yes. Especially because I have a powerful rifle. IF we can turn a human into a hybrid, we can probably just as easily do the opposite. If we can only play with zygotes on this, then... no. If we can SAFELY transition fully grown creatures, then... maybe, but previous caveats on pain and total organ failure apply. Growth rate isn't even synchronised in our own body... Correct, you renew your liver over seven years but renew your skin in far less time. Some 'behaviors' are encoded in the genome (example: knee-jerk reflex, metabolism, biases.) Biases are not genetic, biases are a result of where you grow up, and your culture. I have a bias against eating dogs. This is largely cultural. I could probably eat it just fine. Metabolism is not a behavior, feeling, or memory. Reflexes are... not behaviors, feelings, or memory, either. They are involuntary actions that happen on a very low level, and most still work when unconcious (breathing, hearbeat).