In a message dated 7/25/2006 11:08:02 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
My point, though, was simply that at that point they would clearly no longer be human.... they would be something else, by definition. One of the problems with your mode is thinking is the "by definition" part. This is way we used to think about species before Darwin. They were thought of as having some essential essence unique to them. However we now we define species in a variety of functional ways. The definition I gave (interbreding populations) was developed by Dobninsky and Mahr. (ok I probably spelled these names wrong). Whatever definition one uses species are real but they are natural things with blurry margins not philosophical things (with distinct essences). So the something else that HeLA cells would be would still be human in some ways and maybe not human in others. In some circumstances they would be separate species and in other circumstances they would not be. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
