British scientist and well-known atheist Richard Dawkins pondered whether lab-created human meat could be the next “clean meat” and “overcome our taboo against cannibalism,” according to the Daily Mail.
Dawkins posted an article on Twitter about synthetic meat created from stem cells, something he said he has been “looking forward to” for a long time.
Then, he took things a step further:
“Tissue culture ‘clean meat’ already in 2018? I’ve long been looking forward to this,” Dawkins wrote, before sharing a link to the article. “What if human meat is grown? Could we overcome our taboo against cannibalism? An interesting test case for consequentialist morality versus ‘yuck reaction’ absolutism.”
The tweet was met with mixed responses from his followers. Some were appalled at the thought of human meat, while some seemed intrigued by the potential benefits of “clean” human meat as a food source.
Scientists have been working on creating lab-grown meat for years, with Dutch scientists creating the first test tube beef hamburger in 2013, and San Francisco-based Memphis Meats has grown poultry meat and meatballs from stem cells.
It is created by:
Despite the implication in Dawkins’ tweet, aversion to cannibalism is more than simply a taboo, as human flesh contains infectious proteins that can cause a chain reaction of diseases and result in death; it also carries the risk of contraction of blood borne diseases.
