If "the missing link" is found ALIVE...

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Even if you don't believe in "the missing link" between humans and apes, then assume this to be a hypothetical situation. So, if "the missing link" is found ALIVE, would it be ethical to hunt it down and kill it? How much respect and dignity does it deserve? Remember, it's considered "almost human". Would it be considered murder to kill it? Do we need the UN to draft a "Universal Declaration of Ape-man Rights?" Do humans have the right to consume it as meat product? Is it right to lock it up in a zoo?

Define "missing link" so that there wont be any equivocation, please.

Something of the form "Ape-man" (whatever that means)

Sigh. Your definition is as fuzzy as my name.

Which ape? By what measure is half way determined? Why are you assuming the progression from one to the other is linear? What is a human anyway?

Is it the hair and form that you are measuring, or the mind? Is a hairy being with a human mind human? Is this person a human or an ape? This is a real human being. He has been in my presence.



The problem is that you are measuring from two points that dont really exist, to some vague point somewhere between. You question is nonsensical like saying "When is a fish?"

As far as rights go, Higher mammals like apes are afforded greater consideration than simple monkeys. Likewise, cats and dogs are granted more 'rights' and human kindness than things like cows. Dolphins are shown consideration not extended to fish, or even whales.

He already walks among us


Likewise I'm sure if God finally has enough of our &$#% and comes down to give us all a spanking all of you sinners will kneel and repent.

Until then.....

I think ethically, it shouldn't be ok to consume it as food, hunt it down and kill it, keep it in a zoo, etc. I think realistically, it would be used in some scientific manner...cloned, kept in captivity, dissected, stuffed and put in a museum, something. This question is one of the problems I have with evolution. If we arose from animals, then we should really be re-thinking how we treat animals. Scientists have sent monkeys off into space, used them as crash test dummies, and still use them in laboratory experiments.

Well I wouldn't think it was ethical to kill it, even if it wasn't close to being human. However if I was starving like the Donner party I probably couldn't help myself< <

Last edited by MissConstrue on 12 May 2010, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When I took anthropology back in my college days, we were told that the notion of a "missing link" was a rather outdated, naive idea. There wasn't a situation where you had an ape at one end of the spectrum, a human at the other, with the missing link in between. Evolution is a gradual process, with one species slowly transforming into another. Hence with human evolution. And it would be unlikely to find some living human ancestor, primarily because those ancestors had quite simply disappeared upon evolving into the next stage. More likely, this alleged creature would be a relative or evolutionary side branch of human ancestors.
But to answer your question: no, it would be wrong to kill, imprison, or otherwise harm our prehistoric kinsman. Such creatures, having been able to avoid prior detection, must be few in number, and thus endangered. Such a creature would need to be protected.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

We are all "missing links" between the current state of our species and future states of our species.

ruveyn

Feel free to continue ignoring the fact that humans are apes. We are all ape-men (and ape-women).

Don't worry, we will ignore that issue.

Honestly, if we found "the missing link", it would be so rare that it would be scarcely important what we did with it. People commit genocides, so how morally important in comparison is the fate of tens of "ape-men"? We could kill this number without even being aware of it. Heck, a more important question is aliens.

Do you mean a Neanderthal? Or something further back?

So what do you recken our future species to be like?

I think he means the one that presently residing in the dense forests of nothern America and Malaysia. The one that is able to be seen but not ensnared.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSpKWzJIs4Y[/youtube]


I saw one myself a few years ago, I thought I was going to die right then and there.

Sociopathic, duh! I should hit you just for not recognizing how sociopathic human beings currently are.