Gone to the Glowing Dogs?

In the news recently (all right, we're probably behind the curve on this story, but bear with us) 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, that is. 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. We are not sure what to make of this. There is nothing wrong using animals to seek cures for human ills. Yet we have to question the point of a glowing dog, even in that context.

Perhaps it was inadvertent; the articles we've encountered either did not say whether the team of researchers intended that effect, or perhaps we simply 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. We can live with that second point; but if it was the first reason, it is not so easy to acquiesce.

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 and effort. Especially in areas where public money may be being spent, we 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, there is nothing wrong with animal experimentation for the legitimate pursuit of ending diseases. But we do not 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, it is difficult to see where it is right to mess with any given animal.

Perhaps we am speaking out of turn, as we are 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.