Caturday felid trifecta: Photos of cats on nip; Puffy the Hypnotist Cat; Londoners drank gin from a cat’s paw

March 10, 2018 • 9:00 am

Woman’s World features a piece on “The best cats on catnip photos that we’ve ever seen.” Here’s a few of the good ones with the site’s captions:

The first time this cat ever smelled catnip! (Photo Credit: Reddit/RrainLock)

 

Phew, alright! That’s enough catnip… for now. (Photo Credit: Reddit/sonderr)

 

Looks like this cat was happy to see a whole pound of delicious catnip! (Photo Credit: Reddit/microbionic)

 

And this is the reason this cat’s owners keep the catnip in a jar now! (Photo Credit: Reddit/dishie)

 

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In the mid 1940s, a cream-colored Persian cat named Puffy became quite popular, for he was said to hypnotize people with his unblinking stare.  This is from the Cinncinnati Enquirer on April 9, 1945:

Puffy, a cat that hypnotizes people, was named honorary President of the American Feline Society, Inc., today today and officially dubbed “King of All Cats.”

Citing the cream-colored Persian for devoting his “phenomenal psychic powers” to War Bond sales and entertaining wounded veterans, Robert Lothar Kendell, the society’s President, declared: “We truly believe you to be the greatest living feline, with powers never before possessed by a cat or, so far as we can learn, by any living creature other than a human being.”

Puffy, credited with putting more than 300 persons into a hypnotic trance with his huge, unblinking eyes, was all puffed up over the honor, reported his owner-assistant, Arthur Newman, “He’s autographing pictures with his paw print like crazy,” said Newman.

It was one night last fall that Puffy, then a kitten, first demonstrated his powers. “He was sitting on the end of a night club bar,” Newman recalls, his voice becoming hushed, “and a couple of girls came up to pet him. I didn’t pay much attention until one of the girls nudged me and whispered, “Look at my friend!’

“Well, sir, that girl was simply out on her feet. It wasn’t from drinking, either. I’m something of a hypnotist myself and I quickly realized that she was in a real hypnotic trance, brought on by Puffy’s staring into her eyes.”

Newman, who had bought Puffy in a pet shop for purposes of demonstrating that people should relax like cats, immediately started training him to stare even more fixedly, with such success that Puffy now can stare Newman down any time.

Thousands of servicemen in hospitals and canteens have seen Puffy perform. He stares into a subject’s eyes while Newman slowly counts out loud. In less than 10 seconds the subject closes his eyes, goes rigid or relaxed, and has to be awakened by Newman.

Skeptics to the contrary, Newman insists it’s Puffy and not himself that does the hypnotizing. “If that cat could only talk,” he says, “I’d quit working and just manage Puffy.”

People always feel better–headaches gone, and the like–after being hypnotized by Puffy, Newman says, because they have become relaxed in spite of themselves. Several have taken the pledge after watching Puffy do his act in a bar.

Besides hypnotizing people, Puffy entertained wounded WWII veterans and sold war bonds! What a great cat! Here he is putting a woman to sleep. Look at that stare!

The 10-month-old Persian cat owned by Arthur Newman of Jersey City, N.J., demonstrates her hypnotic powers, discovered by chance when a young lady fell into a trance after looking into the cat’s eyes while petting the animal. Puffy and Newman, a lecturer on relaxation and hypnosis, now give performances for servicemen. At a demonstration at the British Maritime Service Seamen’s Institute in New York, March 13, 1945, Alma Davies is succumbs to Puffy’s hypnotic eyes while Newman holds the animal. Miss Davies was out into a trance in about 20 seconds. (AP Photo)

Here’s Puffy selling war bonds!

Puffy Bares Paw in Bond Drive. New York. Puffy, famed mystic cat, perched at the bond booth in the Cafe Zanzibar tonight where he autographed his picture for bond purchasers as the Night Club 7th War Loan Drive got underway. Here, the king of all cats looks up at Ruth Rhind as she receives the bond she just purchased from Rose Horowitz. Puffy ‘sold’ over $50,000 in war bonds in his first two hours as bond salesman. Source here.

For his powers and services, Puffy was named King of All Cats:

My friend Miranda, who did much of the Puffy research, had this reaction:

Haha omg that is one of the best and funniest kitty things I’ve ever seen. Every bit of it is hilarious.

I mean, being a *hypnotist cat* is awesome enough, but Puffy doesn’t stop there. Oh no, hypnotic abilities are only the tip of Puffy’s glory:
1) He was “officially dubbed ‘King of All Cats’” (ALL CATS!!) *and* “the greatest living feline”. GREATEST CAT ALIVE!
2) He was patriotic as fuck and thoughtful too: he devoted “his ‘phenomenal psychic powers’ to War Bond sales and entertaining wounded veterans”. I mean, he basically hypnotized American humans into *funding the war*. I mean, hell, Puffy is, for all intents and purposes, responsible for the Allies’ victory in WWII. And he entertained wounded veterans, too. Basically, Puffy’s psychic hypnotic powers saved America. Fucking badass mofo. KING OF ALL CATS!
3) Puffy got all sorts of hot chick action, both feline and human. He was a pimp. All he had to do was look at hot chicks and they became his love slaves. He was clearly a Cat Sex God. I mean!! →
“It was one night last fall that Puffy, then a kitten, first demonstrated his powers. “He was sitting on the end of a night club bar,” Newman recalls, his voice becoming hushed, “and a couple of girls came up to pet him. I didn’t pay much attention until one of the girls nudged me and whispered, “Look at my friend!’
“Well, sir, that girl was simply out on her feet. It wasn’t from drinking, either. I’m something of a hypnotist myself and I quickly realized that she was in a real hypnotic trance, brought on by Puffy’s staring into her eyes.” “
4) And as if all that weren’t enough to prove he was indeed the God of All Cats, Puffy’s hypnotic stare also HEALED THE SICK. FUCK, HE WAS JESUS!  →
“People always feel better–headaches gone, and the like–after being hypnotized by Puffy, Newman says, because they have become relaxed in spite of themselves”
Omg Puffy haha this is the best thing ever! (^‿^)

I think Puffy glared at Dan Arel!

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Finally, from Londonist we learn of the world’s first vending machine, which dispensed illegal gin through a cat’s paw in London:

“The tale goes that a fairly devious chap called Captain Dudley Bradstreet, an illicit gin peddler, also had a sideline as an agent for the government informing on illegal gin producers. The nature of his business coupled with the fact that he was probably not the most well-liked man necessitated that he maintained a degree of anonymity, and he came up with an ingenious way of doing this.

“In his marvellously titled book, The Life and Uncommon Adventures of Captain Dudley Bradstreet, he explains how, when at a particularly low ebb, he spent his last £13 at the Langdale’s Distillery in Holborn, whom it was said produced the finest gin in London at the time; what he did next assured him a footnote in gins history:

I . . . purchased in Moorfields the sign of a cat and had it nailed to a street window. I then caused a leaden pipe, the small end out about an inch, to be placed under the paw of the cat, the end that was within had a funnel to it … When the liquor was properly disposed, I got a person to inform a few of the mob that gin would be sold by the cat at my window next day, provided they put money in his mouth . . . at last I heard the chink of money and a comfortable voice say, ‘Puss, give me two pennyworth of gin!’ I instantly put my mouth to the tube and bid them receive it from the pipe under her paw.

“Bradstreet had unwittingly created one of the earliest vending machines – for the distribution of illegal gin. Ingenious. An innovation that was soon copied across the capital. People would stand outside houses, call ‘puss’ and when the voice within said ‘mew’ they would know that they could buy bootleg gin inside. Very soon Old Tom became an affectionate nickname for gin.”

h/t: Tom, Will

Houston, we have ducks!

March 10, 2018 • 7:30 am

I was told by our office staff that two ducks had arrived at our pond (“Botany Pond”) in the last few days, and yesterday I went out to see. I walked to the pond’s edge and gave the same three-note whistle that I used to call Honey last year. And, sure enough, a mallard hen—followed by her handsome boyfriend—came swimming toward me. She then paddled by the edge of the pond, looking expectant. Sadly, I had no food in my hands, and even more sadly, the hen didn’t seem to be my beloved Honey. I had so hoped she’d return this year! This duck, as you’ll see, has beak markings that distinguish her from Honey.

Some iPhone photos of the new ducks:

The pair:

The beautiful hen:

Some beak photos; note that there is no mottling on the edges of her beak:

 

Here is Honey’s bill from last year, which looks very different. The new duck lacks Honey’s darker stippling, and Honey lacked the big light patch at the tip of the bill:

 

Honey was adorable!

When the duck came to my whistle, my heart leapt, for I thought it was Honey remembering how I called her. It’s still a mystery why the hen (but not the drake) came when I whistled: my unrealistic hope is that this is one of Honey’s offspring—the only female in the brood of four—that I helped raise to fledging.

Well, of course I can’t let ducks go unfed, even if they’re undocumented immigrants, so I immediately drove to the store and bought three bags of frozen corn. I also have a nearly full bag of mealworms left over from last year. If these ducks are here today, they shall feast. But I’m still hoping that my Honey will return.

Saturday: Hili dialogue

March 10, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s SATURDAY, March 10, 2018: my sort-of day off! It’s National Ranch Dressing Day, a condiment that didn’t exist when I was younger, as it was invented only in 1954, but is now everywhere (I like it). It’s also National Mario Day, but I’ve never played a video game, so that’s above my pay grade.

Remember, if you’re in the U.S., to set your clock FORWARD before you go to bed tonight, as Daylight Savings Time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday. This cartoon, from Off the Mark by Mark Parisis, shows how one clever moggie solves the “lost sleep” issue (h/t: Diane G):

Heather Hastie has a new post out with a good analysis of the proposed King Jong-un/Donald Trump summit and the horrendously haphazard way it was arranged.

Not much happened on this day in history. On March 10, 1804, there was a formal ceremony transferring ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the U.S. What a bargain—we really scammed the French! On this day in 1865, as the Civil War drew to a close, Amy Spain, an American slave, was hung for theft. This is thought to be the last execution of a female slave in America. On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell successfully tested the telephone. In 1959, fearful that the Dalai Lama would be abducted by the Chinese, thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala, his palace, to keep him safe. This eventually led to bloody rebellion and the flight of the Dalai Lama to India, where he still lives.  On March 10, 1977, astronomers discovered the rings of Uranus (no jokes, please!). I didn’t know until now it had rings. Here is a diagram:

Finally, on this day in 2000, the Nasdaq Composite index peaked at 5132.52, which was the end of the dot-com boom.

Notables born on this day are early jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke (1903), Clare Booth Luce (also 1903), James Earl Ray (1928), Sharon Stone (1958), Robin Thicke (1977), and Carrie Underwood (1983). Those who expired on March 10 include Harriet Tubman (1913), Mikhail Bulgakov (1940), Wilber Scoville (1942; invented the units of pepper hotness), Zelda Fitzgerald and Jan Masaryk (both 1948), Andy Gibb and Lloyd Bridges (both 1988), and Anita Brookner (2016).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to tell Andrzej something. Guess what it is?!

Hili: Semantics of body language.
A: What do you want to say?
Hili: Look carefully at what I’m telling you.
In Polish:
Hili: Semantyka mowy ciała.
Ja: Co chcesz przez to powiedzieć?
Hili: Patrz uważnie co do ciebie mówię.
I don’t own alligator polo shirts, as they’re pricey, but Lacoste is temporarily swapping the alligator for other animals. The explanation:

Lacoste has collaborated with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in an effort to bring more awareness to endangered species. Meaning that the crocodile will be switched out for varies types of animals that are on the endangered list and need more awareness.

Get yours now: they’ll be collectors items:

 

Matthew sent a hugely viral “selfie” of penguins investigating a camera left on the ice (longer version is here; h/t Jane):

Have a look at what Americans have left on the Moon:

If you’re eating breakfast, skip this next tweet, also sent by Dr. Cobb:

Matthew sent this:

But here’s a related one that appeared on the Facebook page of a friend:

Can you spot the crocodile bites?

. . . and you might want to see this article to see if any critics changed their minds. Sadly, I’ve never seen “The Big Lebowski”.

 

New panda movie opens in April

March 9, 2018 • 2:30 pm

Yes, I’m a sucker for cute animals, and everyone—save my friend Melissa Chen, who hates pandas and thinks they should be allowed to go extinct—thinks the panda is among the Top Five Cutest Animals.  On April 6, Warner Brothers will release the IMAX movie “Pandas”, which follows the life of  Qian Qian, a panda born in captivity but released in the wild to swell the shrinking population.

It’s narrated by Kristen Bell, and here’s the trailer:

I didn’t steer you wrong about Kedi, did I? (And if you haven’t seen it, you’re a reprobate.)

Oh, and here’s the Latin name of the giant panda: Ailuropoda melanoleuca, which means “black and white cat-foot”. There will be a quiz.

More from Lewis and Clark College, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Bari Weiss

March 9, 2018 • 1:15 pm

Just an update about the attempted deplatforming (and disruption) of Christina Hoff Sommers when she spoke at Lewis and Clark College Law School this Monday (see my report, and videos, here). First, the University administration has neither apologized to Sommers nor taken any action to discipline the students who disrupted her talk. (That might come, but I doubt it.) They have not answered my emails, sent to both the college President and the college’s Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, who was at Sommers’s talk and asked her to cut it short so she could take questions from the students (the talk was, of course, getting long because of the student disruptions, which security made no attempt to stop). Those emails asked if the students would be disciplined and why security wasn’t called (you can see them at the first link).

Further, as Sommers noted, the disruptors of her talk were actually students at the law school; campus security (which apparently was there to check IDs but not stop disruptions), limited attendance to the law students:

These are laws students who don’t understand the First Amendment.

Finally, and this is the salt in the wound, the ACLU, through one of its officers,apparently endorsed the deplatforming of Sommers. The ACLU is, of course, the American Civil Liberties Union, a group with a long history of defending civil rights and free speech. (They helped me pro bono when I and four others, in a class action lawsuit, took Nixon and the U.S. government to court for drafting conscientious objectors illegally in 1972. We won, and out of gratitude I volunteered for the ACLU for a while.) In 1977, the ACLU, in fact, defended the right of the American Nazi Party to march through Skokie, Illinois, a largely Jewish suburb of Chicago. They won. They’ve also defended the free speech of many other unsavory characters.

How far they’ve moved! Mat dos Santos, the legal director of the ACLU of Oregon, apparently approved of the letter from a consortium of student groups asking for Sommers’s invitation to Lewis and Clark to be rescinded. Or, at least, he retweeted the letter from those groups, which I believe constitutes approval in this case:

Here’s the original letter in the tweet passed on by dos Santos.

Let’s hope the ACLU of Oregon disavows Santos’s stand against free speech; in a rare move, I actually tweeted that AT THEM!

As for Sommers being called a “fascist,” which is palpably ridiculous, read Bari Weiss’s column on the debasement of terms like “fascist” and “Nazis” by the Authoritarian Left:

An excerpt:

By tossing people like Mary Beard and Christina Hoff Sommers into the slop bucket with the likes of Richard Spencer, they are attempting to place their reasonable ideas firmly outside the mainstream. They are trying to make criticism of identity politics, radical Islam and third-wave feminism, among various other subjects, verboten. For even the most minor transgressions, as in the case of Professor Beard, people are turned radioactive.

There are consequences to all this “fascism” — and not just the reputational damage to those who are smeared, though there is surely that.

The main effect is that these endless accusations of “fascism” or “misogyny” or “alt-right” dull the effects of the words themselves. As they are stripped of meaning, they strip us of our sharpness — of our ability to react forcefully to real fascists and misogynists or members of the alt-right.

For a case study in how this numbing of the political senses works, look no further than Mitt Romney and John McCain. They were roundly denounced as right-wing extremists. Then Donald Trump came along and the words meant to warn us against him had already been rendered hollow.

Orwell warned that the English language “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” He added, however, that “the process is reversible.”

Will true liberals do what it takes to reverse it? We can only hope so, because the battle against genuine authoritarian threats needs to be waged consistently, credibly and persuasively. For that to happen, words need to mean something. Calling women like Christina Hoff Sommers and Mary Beard fascists and racists only helps the other side.

And yes, I know that Weiss linked to a fake Twitter account in her original column, but that doesn’t invalidate her argument. I’m also aware that she’s been accused of hypocristy—for trying to censor professors when she was at Columbia. For a defense of her actions there (she didn’t censor anyone), read this piece written by a former president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE):


Because Weiss says things about the Authoritarian Left that they don’t like, they hate her, and are doing everything they can to ruin her reputation—except answer her arguments. Nevertheless, she persists!

Why talks with North Korea won’t succeed

March 9, 2018 • 11:42 am

While everyone seems to be heartened by the sudden announcement that Donald Trump will meet Kim Jong-un to negotiate for the DPRK’s suspension of either nuclear testing or building weapons, I am not optimistic. (I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.) There are three reasons.

1.) Trump will be meeting with Kim Jon-un, and Trump is an idiot—far less savvy than the North Korean leader. The U.S., as before, will be played.

2.) Kim Jong-un, and his predecessors, have no intention of abandoning their nuclear program, which is their one assurance against attack by the West.

3.) In the last decade and a half, North Korea has agreed to freeze its nuclear program and/or halt missile tests three times. It’s violated all three agreements. Why should we trust them now, especially in view of the spate of missile tests and bigger weapons?

Yes, I know it’s better to seem optimistic than pessimistic, for if talks don’t work, the alternatives are either that the status quo will continue (my own view) or unthinkable war will happen.  But my prediction is that, five years from now, North Korea will have missiles capable of hitting everywhere in the U.S., they won’t use them, and we’ll just have another nuclear power on the planet.

David Barash urges scientists to make human-chimp hybrids

March 9, 2018 • 9:20 am

Well, this is about as bad an idea I can imagine coming from a biologist, and its justification is equally poor.  The idea is to make human/chimp hybrids (“humanzees”), in the hope that their existence will convince people that Homo sapiens is not a separate, created entity, but is part of an evolutionary continuum not just with chimps, but with all species.

Our ancestors diverged from the ancestor of the two living species of chimps about 6.5 million years ago. These chimps are thus our closest living ancestors.

It’s often said that we’re nearly genetically identical to chimps, with a divergence of only about 1.25% in DNA sequence. But each protein made in the body is encoded by many DNA bases (a protein containing 100 amino acids has 300 DNA bases in its coding sequence), and so on average, as I recall, there’s at least one sequence difference or more between each human and chimp protein. And that doesn’t count DNA in regulatory regions that control gene expression.  All in all, saying that we’re 99% similar to chimps doesn’t mean that we’re almost the same in terms of either our proteins or the developmental program that constructs bodies from them. But this similarity has led biologists to wonder if we could make hybrids between humans and chimps.  Further, we have 23 pair of chromosomes, and the other great apes, including chimps, have 24. This would almost surely make any hybrids, even if they could develop, sterile, for the unequal chromosome numbers would impede meiosis, the formation of gametes that requires chromosomes of both parents to pair.

As I mentioned in Why Evolution is True, (footnote 51, p. 245), Ilya Ivanov, a Russian zoologist actually tried this, inseminating 3 female chimps with human sperm at a field station in French Guinea. No pregnancy or offspring resulted. (It’s likely that he used artificial insemination, though we’re not sure!) Then, later in Russia, Ivanov proposed to do the reverse experiment, inseminating human females (presumably artificially!) with chimp sperm. Fortunately, the Russians stopped the experiment, and Ivanov, for other reasons, eventually was sent off to the gulag. (There’s a long video about the work here, but I haven’t watched it.)

There are many reasons why we shouldn’t produce such hybrids. First of all, they probably wouldn’t develop anyway given the genetic divergence between the species and the fact that the one experiment trying this already failed (of course, the insemination could have been botched). But we simply can’t predict  how a hybrid would develop: whether it would form an intermediate animal or some bizarre creature deeply screwed up by developmental anomalies. The different chromosome numbers would certain make the animal sterile. Given our gross ignorance of what such a creature would be like, even if it could develop, it’s best not to try.

And of course there are the ethical problems. While I think chimps should be afforded many of the rights enjoyed by humans, including the right not to be experimented on, or to not be caged up in zoos, a hybrid human-chimp would cause additional ethical dilemmas—and big ones. If it were semi-human, with a “hybrid mentality”, what rights would it have? How would it be treated? Would scientists keep it captive to do biochemical and behavioral experiments? While it’s okay to make hybrid sunflowers, this is a different kettle of primates altogether.

Yet David Barash, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Washington and a writer of popular books, suggests, in a new article in Nautilus (“It’s time to make human-chimp hybrids“), that we should go full speed ahead in making humanzees.  His reasons, though, are not even based on scientific curiosity: they’re simply to prove a point—that humans are outlier creatures, not really part of evolution but exceptional, and perhaps created by God.  Somehow humanzees will show that to be wrong. Here’s his rationale (my emphasis):

Of course, all that we know of evolution (and by now, it’s a lot) demands otherwise, since evolution’s most fundamental take-home message is continuity. And it is in fact because of continuity—especially those shared genes—that humanzees or chimphumans could likely be produced. Moreover, I propose that the fundamental take-home message of such creation would be to drive a stake into the heart of that destructive disinformation campaign of discontinuity, of human hegemony over all other living things. There is an immense pile of evidence already demonstrating continuity, including but not limited to physiology, genetics, anatomy, embryology, and paleontology, but it is almost impossible to imagine how the most die-hard advocate of humans having a discontinuously unique biological status could continue to maintain this position if confronted with a real, functioning, human-chimp combination.1

. . . it seems equally likely that faced with individuals who are clearly intermediate between human and ape, it will become painfully obvious that a rigid distinction between the two is no longer tenable. But what about those presumably unfortunate individuals thereby produced? Neither fish nor fowl, wouldn’t they find themselves intolerably unspecified and inchoate, doomed to a living hell of biological and social indeterminacy? This is possible, but it is at least arguable that the ultimate benefit of teaching human beings their true nature would be worth the sacrifice paid by a few unfortunates.

“A few unfortunates?” First of all, Barash says we already know about the continuity of all life, including our common ancestry with chimpanzees. Exhibiting a creature that’s half of each, and might be severely screwed up and deformed, isn’t going to convince people otherwise. What possible effect could exhibiting a humanzee do to those who think that humans are special, whether we be created by God or simply think we’re entitled  to control the beasts and fowls of Earth (not to mention the forests)? Thinking a hybrid would change everyone’s mind is wishful thinking.

Barash recounts the story of Ivanov, whose experiments aren’t well known (that’s why I described them in WEIT).  That’s interesting, of course, but then Barash goes on to push for continuing Ivanov’s work by producing humanzees. He’s not sure if it should be done by direct hybridization (artificially, of course; we can’t have humans bonking chimps), or by forming a chimera: using embryos of humans and chimps (or inserting genes from one species into the other species via CRISPR). He favors the production of chimeras, but we’re nowhere near doing that. In my view, we shouldn’t do it—not without a rationale better than Barash’s.

At the end, Barash goes into a bit of a rant how we need to produce these animals because they’ll—wait for it—refute religious claims about human excepti0nalism.  But really, do we need to spend so much dosh and go to so much trouble to prove what we already know: that we are evolved creatures, splitting from our closest living relatives about 6 million years ago? Making a sad and possibly sick or deformed humanzee, merely to satisfy Barash’s need to show that Genesis is false, seems a waste of both time and money.  So this advice, in Barash’s last few paragraphs, strikes me as foolish:

Looking favorably on the prospect of a humanzee or chimphuman will likely be not only controversial, but to many people, downright immoral. But I propose that generating humanzees or chimphumans would be not only ethical, but profoundly so, even if there were no prospects of enhancing human welfare. How could even the most determinedly homo-centric, animal-denigrating religious fundamentalist maintain that God created us in his image and that we and we alone harbor a spark of the divine, distinct from all other life forms, once confronted with living beings that are indisputably intermediate between human and non-human?

In any event, the nonsensical insistence that human beings are uniquely created in God’s image and endowed with a soul, whereas other living things are mere brutes has not only permitted but encouraged an attitude toward the natural world in general and other animals in particular that has been at best indifferent and more often, downright antagonistic, jingoistic, and in many cases, intolerably cruel. It is only because of this self-serving myth that some people have been able to justify keeping other animals in such hideous conditions as factory farms in which they are literally unable to turn around, not to mention prevented from experiencing anything approaching a fulfilling life. It is only because of this self-serving myth that some people accord the embryos of Homo sapiens a special place as persons-in-waiting, magically endowed with a notable humanity that entitles them to special legal and moral consideration unavailable to our nonhuman kin. It is only because of this self-serving myth that many people have been able to deny the screamingly evident evolutionary connectedness between themselves and other life forms.

When claims are made about the “right to life,” invariably the referent is human life, a rigid distinction only possible because of the presumption that human life is somehow uniquely distinct from other forms of life, even though everything we know of biology demonstrates that this is simply untrue. What better, clearer, and more unambiguous way to demonstrate this than by creating viable organisms that are neither human nor animal but certifiably intermediate?

How about just pointing to the skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis?

n.b. For what it’s worth Nautilus was originally a Templeton-funded website, but now, with the loss of some grants (presumably Templeton doesn’t want humanzees either), it’s having trouble paying off its writers.