Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Until recent times, the idea of a human-animal hybrid belonged only in tales of folklore
and fantasy and the realm of science fiction. The imagination of authors such as H.G. Wells,
who wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1896, brought such creatures to life in novels, but by
2004 technology had advanced to the point at which choosing the sex of one’s child was a real
possibility. This breakthrough prompted politicians to propose some radical legislation reported
by Newsweek, “The President's Council on Bioethics discussed proposals for possible legislation
that would ban the buying and selling of human embryos and far-out reproductive
experimentation, like creating human-animal hybrids.” 1 This topic remained a concern, and in
2006 President George W. Bush made the following appeal to the citizens of the United States
during the State of the Union Address.
Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of
medical research: human cloning in all its forms; creating or implanting embryos
for experiments; creating human-animal hybrids [italics mine]; and buying,
selling or patenting human embryos. 2
Human-animal hybrids have, from ancient to modern times, held the fascination and fear of the
human race and the potential for the creation of such a hybrid merited not only legal action
against this possibility but also the president’s attention in a national speech. From the earliest of
times, composite creatures have fascinated man, and a 32,000 year old ivory statuette, which
could possibly be the oldest representation of the human form in art, is actually that of a lion-
headed man (Fig. I.1). 3
In his discussion of Fig. I.1, J.J. Putnam states, “The world’s earliest known
anthropomorphic figure pushes back in time evidence of the human ability to create symbols;
this may be an attempt to capture the animal’s power.” 4 What is even more provocative is that
this ivory statuette is not a singular occurrence, and a similar figurine combining lion and human
1 Kalb 2004, 47.
2 For a transcript of the State of the Union address, see CQ Transcriptions (2006, 31 January, http://www.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101468.html).
3 It is Rice’s (1998, 264) proposal that this ivory figure is representative of the earliest attempt of fashioning art in
the form of a human being.
4 Putnam 1988, 467.
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