
If we cloned Neanderthals, what rights would they have? - robg
http://www.reason.com/news/show/131717.html
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tjmc
Interesting question. It's a pity that the author only considers ways that
cloned Neanderthals might be mentally _inferior_ to us though. Given their
larger brain size, it's conceivable that they could have had greater mental
capacities but were out competed for other reasons. One of the linked articles
mentions that Neanderthals took longer to develop (possibly due to their
larger brain size) and this might have put them at a disadvantage. Perhaps
homo sapiens were simply more aggressive?

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Scriptor
Though I don't have a source to back this up, I really think that population
densities were too low during those times for much Cro-Magnon-Neanderthal
(funny how one's capitalized and the other isn't) interaction. That said,
aggression would not have been enough for humans, especially since the Cro-
Magnons were probably weaker physically.

There is always the possibility that there were changes in the environment
that they couldn't cope with but our ancestors did. Longer childhoods could
have been a hindrance.

As you know, a larger brain does not necessarily mean a higher intelligence.
It could have evolved to simply create a higher volume-surface area ratio that
helped preserve heat in their heads.

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mdd
Obviously, we'd have to consult an Unfrozen Caveman _Constitutional_ Lawyer:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfrozen_Caveman_Lawyer>

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electromagnetic
Would they have rights? Currently I know for sure of one country in which they
would have all the legal rights of humans: Spain. The Spanish parliament
extended human rights onto all the Great Apes, which would likely blanket
cover any cloned Neanderthals.

The question would be other countries, which the cloning of a Neanderthal
would likely help extend legal human rights to at least every species in the
Homo genus.

Personally I usually avoid the whole human rights for Great Apes (even though
I completely agree with it) because I can see both sides of the argument (I
believe saving a humans life is more important than any animals life).
However, I'd be joining any protest (here in Canada) to extend human rights
throughout the whole Homo genus.

Although once we establish human rights for all of the Homo genus, would that
legally prevent the cloning of Neanderthals without their prior legal consent?

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markessien
The right to party? No, I'm serious, why should they be any different from us?
I say we clone them and see if they can survive in modern society.

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cabalamat
> No, I'm serious, why should they be any different from us?

Um, because they're a different species. Look, I'm all for bringing back
extinct species if it's possible -- mammoths, Neanderthals, dodos, whatever --
but it's silly to expect one species to behave identically to another one,
even if they are closely related.

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pavel_lishin
Wait, so it would be unethical for a human to bring a Neanderthal child to
term, but if we cram it into a monkey, suddenly it's hunky dorey?

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Silentio
I love your comment and I think it sheds light on the possible way a
Neanderthal really would be treated if we did clone one.

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ilkhd2
Cloning does not work (yet) - period. If you remember Dolly the sheep had
strange complications with aging process, cellular abnormalities ()short
telomers). And look, the older mother becomes the higher probability of Down
syndrome: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trisomy21_graph.jpg>. (by the way
this diminish doubts that Sarah Palin is a real mother of that poor kid, not
her yonger daughter), bacuse with age number of mutations and defects in dna
grows up So, it is never clear what is the quality of DNA is going to be used
for the clone. We need to take responsibility on that.

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ahoyhere
This topic is explored in the Thursday Next series of novels by Jasper Fforde.
Really. He's not taken seriously enough for most people to include him in the
scifi cannon, but he deserves to be.

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dave_au
The 42 minutes to anywhere idea is covered briefly as well. It's like it's
Fforde day. And I'll never complain about Fforde day.

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access_denied
They would get Neanderthals rights. They get a copy of Human rights if they
wish and then we will make a deal, each race gets what it needs.

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electromagnetic
Human rights have already been extended to all the Great Apes in Spain. Why
would we make Neanderthal rights and not simply follow precedent (you know,
the thing all western countries do because we're all lazy SOB's: example,
DMCA's cloning by most western countries as a legal base for their own laws)
and extend legal rights to all of the Homo genus.

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access_denied
Because that would restrict the rights to self-definitition of the
Neanderthals.

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Allocator2008
Why clone Neanderthals? It would be like winning the war in 'Starship
Troopers', then cloning the bugs because it was so much fun fighting them the
first time, we just had to have another go at it. That is just stupid. Our
ancestors beat these guys 25,000 years ago. I say let the victory stand. There
will plenty of other struggles to be had no doubt, maybe even the insects of
'Starship Troopers'! :-)

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josefresco
I'm really tempted to make a joke about car insurance and/or Geico, but this
is Hacker News and it's serious business around here.

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jjs
Almost making a joke is worse than just making the joke.

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pavel_lishin
Hey, metajokes ought to have all the same rights as jokes, even if they were
born of a chimp!

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aardvark
Are you calling josefresco a chimp?

