Planet of the Apes Beginning for Real?

The movie series "Planet of the Apes" about a time in earth's future where apes are the dominant species and humans are dumb brutes living in the jungle has been a cult classic for years. Now a group of scientists has plans to implant human brain stem cells in monkeys. The scientists acknowledge that they can't be sure what will be the result of these experiments, but one possible result is that the apes will gain the ability to think more like humans!

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Excerpts:

"The possibility that human cells might create human-like abilities is much larger in nonhuman primates than in mice," said panel member Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University and chair of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics steering committee.

Researchers do not currently insert brain stem cells into human brains. Some in the group questioned whether inserting human cells into monkeys would provide relevant scientific results. The panel recognized that the possibility of making monkeys more humanlike is an issue that goes well beyond science.

On one hand they might find cures for horrible diseases like Parkinsons and on the other hand, well we really have no idea what might happend. This seems like a very bad idea to me. This could be bad news for both the primates and humans.

We wouldnt let them get too intelligent, theyre not aloud to know what chemicals we are pumping them full of. We would only do it on a few 'samples' anyway.

That's exactly the reference my hubby made this morning when I read him this story from the NY Times! LoL
How do you know how much knowledge they'll be allowed to have? With human brains they may just read the info themselves! Lol

In all seriouness though...this is NOT something we should do IMHO. This just crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed. ALL of this crossing of species is something that will come to no good end.... I have no reason for that except a horrible gut feeling whenever I ponder it (for which admition I'm sure to be slapped around quite soundly here lol).

Originally posted by maidenwolf
That's exactly the reference my hubby made this morning when I read him this story from the NY Times! LoL
How do you know how much knowledge they'll be allowed to have? With human brains they may just read the info themselves! Lol

In all seriouness though...this is NOT something we should do IMHO. This just crosses a line that shouldn't be crossed. ALL of this crossing of species is something that will come to no good end.... I have no reason for that except a horrible gut feeling whenever I ponder it (for which admition I'm sure to be slapped around quite soundly here lol).

the apes arent going to magically learn how to read and understand everything thats being done to them.

im sure if you take a potentially smart kid and raise them in a limited environment and dont teach them how to speak or read, they wont really be able to grasp alot of things.

as for the planet of the apes, that will never happen, unless we roll out a billion apes out there with human brains, in which case we will all run out of food, and their bodies will allow them to find food better ;o

One thing i want to ask if they can reproduce with other apes? If some of these "mutant" apes escape into the wild and meet with others of their kind then that will be terrible. Anyway i doubt that a few of them can do anything. Now anyone would like to have some grey's brain stem cells inject into you?

Once they have human brains, I wonder how long before someone asks that exact same question....breeding......

As for them escaping....animals with their own "lesser" intelligence do it all the time, what makes anyone think these can't or won't at least try?

And as for my reading comment...it was a joke....but now that I think about it, once they have human brains, you know they are going to want to test those brains...just how human are they? How intelligent? etc. Once they teach them to read (and they will), nobody will want to destroy them...they'll be too human...too interesting.

...Those Damn dirty apes. Hopefully it doesn't come that though. I too have bad feeling about this. More than likely these little experiments will seem to be leading to good in the beginning, but then lead to chaos. How severe the chaos is will be determined how smart these Apes become.

Originally posted by maidenwolf
Once they have human brains, I wonder how long before someone asks that exact same question....breeding......

As for them escaping....animals with their own "lesser" intelligence do it all the time, what makes anyone think these can't or won't at least try?

Ah Psudo science strikes again!

And how may I ask you, are we going to alter their DNA so their able to reproduce with these Human cells?

I'm not a scientist (and would never claim to come even close...I prefer the ethics side of issues even though I do find it fascinating) so I'm not sure about this....anyone else? It's a good question though. lol