Spoiler Alert Warning: This article contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.
A new chapter was introduced three days ago in the epic story of apes taking over the planet. Everyone has been talking about the number one box office movie as of today, the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes movie, across Arlington, Texas, and the country. This movie solely takes place in present day to near future Earth. Apes are being captured to be experimented on in a new drug trial to enhance brain function with the ultimate goal of eliminating Alzheimer's and other diseases or deteriorations of the brain. As a result, the apes gain intelligence and able to solve puzzles, demonstrating reasoning ability. One ape that was brought in happened to have been pregnant during the testing phase and passed the virus drug to her offspring. After several years of growing up with the lead doctor, Caesar continued to learn and to show increasing intelligence. When he was taken way from his home and locked up after an incident, Caesar seemed to become bitter and figured out a way to escape and to give his fellow apes, chimps, and gorillas the enhanced drug therapy. When tried to be stopped by one of the guys from escaping, Caesar finally spoke his first word in a rage of anger. They all escape, go on a rampage, all in order to get to the outer woods of San Francisco. However, this same new drug given to the apes is in fact fatal to humans, but is not known by the scientists or other doctors of the drug's fatality.
What implications can be learned from this movie? We use animal testing for experimental drugs in order to view and monitor the reactions to the drugs given. Hollywood tends to like movies like the newer Planet of the Apes movies and Deep Blue Sea using animal testing in order to help solve some of the medical problems with the brain, like Alzheimer's. In doing so, increasing brain function in the animals, these animals are portrayed to kill people in order to escape their captors. However, is it ethical to experiment on these animals if the possibility of increasing brain function also increases intelligence? While it would seem that in helping a new species to become an intelligent species, skipping a few steps in the evolutionary line for natural development can be unpredictable in many ways. In the same way, if a highly technologically advanced race of aliens came to Earth a thousand years ago and gave humanity nuclear power knowledge, could we have used this knowledge responsibly, or would it have been in our nature to use the new found power to destroy whatever enemies may come? Would this not have radically changed our natural human development discovering responsibility along with new found knowledge and technology? Giving knowledge, tools, and technology to a more primative race before they are ready and able to fully understand the capabilities and responsibility that would have naturally come with the discovery through normal development could be very detrimental to the species.
It is strange to think that during this movie, and by the end, you are actually cheering on the apes to escape and begin taking over our world. When the lead scientist that raised Caesar finally found and confronted him wanting him to come back home, Caesar simply says, "Caesar is home," meaning the woods. Yet, the threat to humanity is not the apes, it is the drug that was developed in the lab because of the highly contageous virus that has now begun to spread across the globe through an infected airline pilot, with his next flight to New York. Thus foreshadowing the future events to come.
The debate on animal testing is an ongoing debate. There are benefits to them, however, they potentially could cause more harm than good (as in the movie). Does this mean that they are unethical to help further the human race and medical research? The choice is yours.
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