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Evolution and The Disturbing Science of Man-Monkey Laboratory Hybrids
Scientists in the USA and China have created hybrid monkey-human embryos that can survive for up to 20 days. While chimera research is not new, this latest project followed the results of a companion study last year, when Professor Weizhi Ji and his colleagues at Kunming University of Science and Technology in Yunnan, managed to grow a monkey embryo outside the womb for an extended period of time.
Those involved claim that they are following medical and ethical directives laid down by the governing bodies in each of their countries and state that these chimeras are critical in the study of developmental evolution. This revolutionary macaque-human specimen came about since international agreements prevent the teams from experimenting on human embryos. By creating a chimera of the two, using monkey ova and pluripotent human stem cells, they are not breaking any regulations.
Surely, I am not alone in seeing the massive flaws in their research? Ethical considerations aside, how can a human-monkey embryo be a valid substitute for the study of human evolution? The very fact that in both studies, the embryos perished long before they could become viable entities should be evidence enough that combining non-human and human matter is fundamentally wrong.