You are a research scientist . . .

[Borodog]

And you have developed a technique that would, with 100% certainty, result in a human-chimpanzee hybrid. In a laboratory a chimpanzee egg would be fertilized with human sperm, implanted in the womb of a human surrogate mother, and brought to term.

Would you do it? Would you do it if the only available sperm donor was yourself? What if the only person that would volunteer to be the surrogate mother is your wife or daughter? Finally, how would you raise the offspring?

[madnak]

Totally! Yeah yeah.

I mean, as long as my wife were willing. As for my daughter, uh, well, it would be a little strange to have my child come to term in my daughter's womb, but okay sure.

[Darryl_P]

No way would I do that, even if it were total strangers providing the sperm and surrogate motherhood...heck, not even if they were liberals or worse, anarcho-capitalists!!

I'd try to get the highest possible price for my discovery and then get rid of whatever pills messed up my mind so much that I became a research scientist.

[New001]

I would almost certainly do it, but only if someone else was the donor.

[MrMon]

Most of you seem to have missed the 1988 BBC mini-series "First Born". Played here in the States as well on PBS. Still creepy. Not available on video, unfortunately. Also known as "The Gor Saga". Apparently shows up on the SciFi channel every now and then.

IMDB listing for First Born (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096584/maindetails)

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
And you have developed a technique that would, with 100% certainty, result in a human-chimpanzee hybrid. In a laboratory a chimpanzee egg would be fertilized with human sperm, implanted in the womb of a human surrogate mother, and brought to term.

Would you do it? Would you do it if the only available sperm donor was yourself? What if the only person that would volunteer to be the surrogate mother is your wife or daughter? Finally, how would you raise the offspring?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would I possibly want to?

[hmkpoker]

I don't even want a human baby!

[pilliwinks]

There are plenty of other ways to end up with a retarded child. Why go to all the trouble?

[Borodog]

For the people who said they would do it, why?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Most of you seem to have missed the 1988 BBC mini-series "First Born". Played here in the States as well on PBS. Still creepy. Not available on video, unfortunately. Also known as "The Gor Saga". Apparently shows up on the SciFi channel every now and then.

IMDB listing for First Born (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096584/maindetails)

[/ QUOTE ]

Never heard of it. I'll try to catch it on scifi sometime.

[madnak]

Because the story about how I had a chimp-baby with my daughter would make a good conversation piece?

Really, I think a human-chimp hybrid could tell us quite a bit about species diversification, evolution, genetics, and neurology. Research into such hybrids could probably be very illuminating. Also I could make millions selling them as circus attractions!

[Exsubmariner]

I would do it only if I was reasonably certain I would recieve a nobel prize. I would use my own sperm and my wife/daughter. After I exploited the offspring for as much noteriety, fame, and wealth I could, I would kill it outright or it would meet with some horrid accident.

(Disclaimer: I am in a particularly foul mood this evening and the above in no way reflects anything but that mood.)

[JMAnon]

I would do it, regardless of whether it was my sperm or my wife carrying the child. I would raise the offspring like a retarded child -- try to give it the best possible life with its limited capacity.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]
For the people who said they would do it, why?

[/ QUOTE ]

Curiosity. I imagine there are many things we could learn from the hybrid. Not to mention, having a pet dog is great; imagine having a pet chimpman.

[bluesbassman]

I would do it out of scientific curiosity. Presumably, if I had developed this technique, I would find it irresistible not to see how it turns out.

I would closely monitor the health and comfort of the developing hybrid fetus/baby, and if it started to suffer in any way, I would euthanize him/her/it.

[guesswest]

I think it might be the case that you'd actually have to be said research scientist to know enough about what this entailed, to make an informed decision. It's like asking 'if you were an aircraft engineer would you fly in a plane made with x design?'

[madnak]

What if x design is just really cool in general? /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Borodog]

At first I was thinking that I would do it for the "scientific curiosity" reasons others have mentioned. But the more I thought about it, the less it made sense. What really could you learn from it? A human-ape hybrid will not likely bear anything but a superficial resemblance to any common ancestor of the two groups. What could you learn neurologically that you can't learn already from comparing humans to chimps?

Then again, it may well be that because it isn't my field I could just not have any idea of what could be learned; there might be a lot. You could learn some [censored] that would cure Alzheimer's patients or something, or cure developmental disorders or brain injuries or something.

I would like to hear Rduke55's input.