Animal experimentation

I see this morning (all right, I'm probably behind the curve on this story, but bear with me) that South Korean scientists have added gene material from another creature to a beagle puppy, causing it to glow red in ultraviolet light. The dog is named Ruppy, which is short for Ruby Puppy. Cute.

Cute in and of itself only, I should add. There is great debate in the scientific community about the value of such experiments, and well there should be. Ruppy is part of a series of experiments designed to make dogs more like humans genetically in order to use them in researching human diseases. I am not sure what to make of this. I have no qualms about using animals to seek cures for human ills. Yet I have to question the point of a glowing dog, even in that context.

Perhaps it was inadvertent; the articles I read either did not say whether the team of researchers intended that effect, or I missed the reason. Maybe it was simply to see what kind of genetic alterations could be effected, as a step on the ladder towards more useful experiments. I can live with that second point; but if it was the first reason, I am not so sure I would agree.

As a moral rule, doing something just to do something, doing 'science' just to see what can be done, is not particularly defensible. That's not to say that such actions are wrong, only that they may be little more than a waste of time. Especially in areas where public money may be being spent, I would go so far as to say they may be in fact wasteful of the taxpayer's cash.

Not to mention the effects on the animals. Again, I don't mind animal experimentation for the legitimate pursuit of ending diseases. But I don't see where we have the right to experiment on them merely to play with their DNA. If there is no, or within reason expected to be no, help to be developed against the bad things in the human condition, I cannot see where it is right to mess with any given animal.

Perhaps I am speaking out of turn, as I am admittedly shooting from the lip. That said, we must remember that we are not God, even when it comes to our treatment of the lower creatures with whom we share this planet. We have no right, in this area as well as almost all others, to tinker merely to tinker.