3. Scientific Progress

The dog days of the summer of 2029, with 100-degree temperatures and 90% humidity, would fill the remainder of July and August. There were just eight weeks left for the research group to meet their self-imposed deadline and submit their papers for publication.

Carl was contacted by the two top journals in his field, Science and Nature, whose editors recognized the importance of ‘the project’ and agreed to dedicate a single issue of both journals on the same week in September highlighting the molecular engineering of animals. Science would publish the general paper on ‘the project’ with Ming as the lead author and Nature would publish both a paper on the biology submitted by Salah, as well as Julie’s paper on AI enhanced learning. Internationally renowned scientists from outside Carl’s research group were also invited to write supporting related articles for these issues on the technologies used in ‘the project’. This extraordinary plan was modeled on the one successfully used for the publication of the sequencing of the human genome at the beginning of the new millennium.

The special issues of Science and Nature appeared that September with great fanfare. On the review of Ming’s paper, they received the expected questions about the mechanism by which intelligence and communication skills were enhanced and in response, based on their current data, they could only speculate on the reasons.

Salah was able to include control data from a three-year-old human head, the head a non-engineered, three-year-old mini pig, and the heads of Pippa’s parents. These data all supported the larger skull and brain size of Pippa’s head and the enhanced neuroplasticity of Pippa’s brain.

Finally, Julie’s manuscript clearly showed the effectiveness of enhanced learning, and the advanced communication and reasoning skills demonstrated by Pippa. Her paper included hours of linked movies comparing Pippa’s accomplishments to the performance of Brooklyn and Kristen. It was fortunate that Luke and Margaret Jacobson had signed a release, allowing the inclusion of data on Kristen early-on in ‘the project’. Assessment of both intelligence and communication skills put Pippa’s level in between that of her two human peers.

The talk of much of the scientific community for the rest of the year focused on the Meyers’ work. The idea that humans and their close cousins were so similar, was compelling, comforting, and frightening. Just a small number of experimental manipulations were able to humanize a pig. This discovery was on par with other great scientific works.

An editorial accompanying the Meyers’ article in Science stated, “This work will prove to be as important as the sol-centric model of our planetary system, advanced by Galileo, as radical as the evolutionary relationship of all life, advanced by Darwin, and as frightening as the atomic bomb, first envisioned by Einstein, then developed, and built by Oppenheimer.”

While the initial scientific responses to ‘the project’ were uniformly positive, the public and political responses were strikingly more negative. The mainstream press, such as the New York Times, provided a more positive assessment, stating, “Despite the critical lack of caution used in pursuing ‘the project’ of humanizing a pig, the validity and scientific importance of the Meyer group’s findings are quite remarkable.” In contrast, social media, and religious organizations, in the same breath both questioned whether the science was ever actually carried out and criticized the immorality of the research performed.

A typical self-contradictory comment from Christianity Today read, “The creation of talking animals is fake news and just part of the ‘big lie’ foisted upon the American people by this cadre of rogue scientists. These researchers obviously behaved immorally when they altered a pig to make it talk and deserve to be severely punished, for doing so is an act of creation and that is solely the purview of God.”

Half of the nation’s politicians were looking for ways to go after the scientists and shut down their research, while the other half were interested in looking for ways to regulate science for both its own protection and for the protection of the general public. In this regard, hearings on Capitol Hill were being proposed to address ways of slowing down scientific discovery by allowing ethicists to weigh in before experiments were performed. However, the inefficiency of the deeply divided, democratic government resulted in its failure in both its targeting and its protection of scientists. This left the window open for the exploitation of humanized animals by both government autocrats and businesses.

Some government agencies and businesses were soon very interested in finding ways to exploit this discovery. The Department of Defense (DOD) issued a call for proposals to engineer animal soldiers and the Department of Labor issued a call for proposals to establish new regulations on animal labor. For-profit businesses quickly initiated research into animal labor in hazardous or repetitive jobs, in hostile environments, or in areas where there was an insufficient immigrant labor force.

In the midst of this unceasing tumult Carl greatly appreciated the expert legal and public relations advice he was receiving. He credited his father-in-law’s foresight and personal financing at every opportunity. The researchers were not similarly assisted by the State government or the university, as the opinions and the sides on which these bureaucrats stood, like the weather, changed daily.

Carl was now accepting weekly invitations to present seminars around the world and his travel schedule was out of control. It was fortunate that his research group was sufficiently competent and independent to continue ‘the project’ despite his absence. Ming and Salah revised ‘the project’ goals and initiated new experiments to establish the mechanistic basis for their scientific success while carefully avoiding the creation of a second Pippa.

On his trips, and in his correspondence, Carl realized that while the scientific community admired his research group’s discovery, they also worried that he had opened a can of worms; one that would only enhance the bureaucracy and negative public reaction surrounding their own scientific work. His colleagues were already feeling pressure to justify their own science on moral grounds, putting them in an uncomfortable position. Furthermore, the high visibility of the Meyers’ research suggested that these difficulties would be with them for quite some time. Government, business, and public opinion were neither predictable nor controllable. Carl had been contacted by a number of companies and asked to serve as a consultant. Each time he refused to take consulting money to avoid future criticism that he had somehow profited from this work.

In addition, Carl had been invited to visit several government laboratories to give advice on how they might start their own program on the engineering of intelligent animals. They intently listened to Carl when he provided scientific and technical advice, but as soon as he touched on the moral and ethical issues that he had encountered in his own research, he was met with indifference and the conversation prematurely ended. This frustrated Carl, as he now understood firsthand how important these moral and ethical issues were, and he knew that they could not be ignored without paying a major penalty.

Only time would tell what the price would be for the Meyers’ discovery and those pursuing its advancement. The new decade of the 2030’s had begun and despite Carl’s resistance to the manufacturer of new humanized animals, the genie was out of the bottle. His CRISPR-based engineering of pigs was now routinely being used to prepare organs for harvest in xenotransplantation. This solution to the insufficient supply of organs for transplantation, as well as other biotechnological and medical advances, had enhanced global health.

Other non-biological technologies had also taken hold during the decade, including an increased dependence on nanotechnology in additive manufacturing and the...