Re: Humans as raccoons?


"Par" <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrng1t3pl.t2.usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mark Stephen <mstephen@xxxxxxx>:

I'm a little surprised this idea never comes up in the interminable
evolution threads. I have three dogs, a border collie, an Irish
flat-coat retriever and a Great Pyrenees. They differ wildly in size,
appearance, temperament and intelligence, and these traits seem to have
been established in only a few generations. AFAIK, the only sf novel
with a cultural background which would allow this sort of
experimentation on humans by humans was _Iron Dream_, but is this sort
of selective breeding with humans actually impossible, or merely
unethical and kinda disgusting?

We have surprisingly litte wariation within our genome (i.e. we are all
pretty much alike). Sure, it would be doable, but not as quick (in
generations or easy as a more variable species. Please mae sure to keep
track of the undesirable traits and eliminate them properly; you would
not like having supermen who all got diabetes or Huntingtons, would you?

Then there is the genetic enginering path, as in Stirlings Draka series.
Clean up the horrid mess in the sense of smell genes, add a functional
appendix, continually replacing teeth as in Crocodilia, fix up the
joints, etc.


This comes up as a potential genetic fix, having regrowing teeth. Most
people refer to sharks. Sharks' teeth are actually specialised scales, and
so don't really fit the human mould. Crocodiles, like sharks have whole sets
of teeth continually growing and falling out side by side, not from
underneath as in humans.

Humans have the two sets, the buds of which are both present at birth. How
likely is it we will be able to either add a third (or fourth) set of buds,
or perpertually renewing buds?


.

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