Poulos counters Bailey’s post on mixing human and chimp DNA:
I shouldn’t need to say this, and it’s quite horrific that any professor of philosophy should need it explained, but the ethical principle behind keeping the human species pure holds that our ethics are human ethics because we are human beings. ‘Naturally’ enough, human ethics includes such principles as ‘don’t torture animals’, but principles like this collapse if torturing animals is bad only, or primarily, from the perspective of the animals being tortured. Torturing animals violates human ethics because it’s bad for the humans doing the torturing. It’s extra-mindbending to think that the people inclined to miss this point might also incline to be the ones who emphasize how torturing humans is wrong from the perspective of the torturer and not just the tortured.
The Dish 