Dr. Insoo Hyun, Director of Research Ethics and a faculty member at the Center for Bioethics was quoted for his take on the scientific debate surrounding hybrid creatures after the popularity of Netflix’s series, Sweet Tooth. Recently, this debate has surfaced again with Shrek 2 appearing in Netflix’s Top 10 movies in the U.S. At the end of the movie, Donkey and the dragon have mated to create six flying donkey-dragon creatures. If dragons were real, would this have any basis in science?
Hyun said, “Hybrid animals are different from so-called ‘chimeras’ (or human-animal creatures), created when cells from one animal are transferred into another animal.” Hyun continued, “farmers have been creating hybrids for centuries, so hybrids are not shocking or new in a socially disruptive way.”