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Planet Gattaca
No subject sends the techno-ostriches ("we-just-make-this-stuff, we're-not-responsible-for-it") rushing angrily for their holes in the ground faster than any suggestion that genetic research, increasingly computer driven, is proceeding more rapidly than any consideration of the staggeringly complex social, moral and ethical issues it raises.
This is all is too far away to worry about, they squawk. Or it won't really happen. Only scientists, programmers and biologists understand it enough to talk about it, anyhow.
But 1997's eerily prescient movie "Gattaca" proves once more that science fiction does better peering into the future than scientists themselves. In that movie, whose ads included a line that says: "There is no gene for the human spirit," Vincent (Ethan Hawke) a young man of the future, wants to travel in space, but he can't because he has a heart condition. So he can't pass the genetic screening tests that have turned humanity into a two-tiered class, the perfect and the others.
Vincent is one of the last "natural" babies born into a sterile, genetically-enhanced world, where life expectancy and health are determined instantly at birth. Myopic and slated to die at 30, he has no chance of a prestigious career in a society that no longer discriminates because of race or gender, but because of genes. He assumes the identity of Jerome, healthy at birth but crippled in an accident, who provides Vincent with hair, blood and urine samples to he can get through checkpoints and pass the astronaut's screening tests. Vincent plans to voyage into space in only a few days if he can avoid the gene police, who are trying to track him through an eyelash he left behind on an office floor after a superior who discovered his secret is found dead.
What's so bizarre about "Gattaca" is that it's not really even science fiction, but an early documentary of the 21st Century. Genome research is now going on all over the world, the idea that we can unravel the essence of life enthralling scientists, who believe they may at long last be able to eliminate mental and physical disease, prolong life, and greatly ease human suffering.
In all this enthusiasm, there is less consideration of the nature of a world in which there is no human suffering, or what, precisely, suffering even means. Or in which whole categories of humanity - the mentally and physically impaired, the short, the ugly, the rebellious, the depressed, the addictive - may soon begin vanishing from the earth. There isn't much talk either about the social implications of a reality in which this high-powered genetic screening capabilities are available only to technologically-advanced classes and cultures.
News of Gattaca Nation projects roll in almost daily. There is the Mother Gattaca Project, the Human Genome Project, stumbling but well on its way to cataloguing all the DNA strands of human existence sometime in the 21st century.
Last week, a genetic research company announced it planned to map the genes of the entire Icelandic population and to beginning drawing DNA samples there. The 275,000 mostly homogeneous residents of Iceland are considered ideally suited to genetic study; according to Wired News researchers believe that creating a massive genetic database could lead to the discovery of disease patterns and new drugs.
Last Tuesday, microbiologists at the University of North Carolina said they had examined two of the smallest known bacteria, a kind known as Mycoplasma. Their minimum set of genes -- the ones needed to survive and replicate in a nutrient-rich environment -- from 265 to 350, said the researchers, who told reporters that building a cell from scratch no longer appears impossible.
Elsewhere last week, the BBC reported, scientists working at the Institute for Genome Research in Maryland announced that they believe they have found the essence of life - at least on a genetic level - which comes down to about 300 genes. This is the minimum set of molecular instructions required to build a living organism. "It [the building of such an organism] would clearly be creating a new species of life that does not exist," conceded Dr. Craig Venter, founder of the Institute for Genetic Research (TIGR) and the head of the Celera Genomics Corporation.
Dr. Venter is unequivocal: he now has the ability to build a living organism - a new species. This statement ought to have rocked the world, sending journalists, ethicists, scientists, lawmakers and politicians scurrying to figure out what that means for humanity, good and bad.
But apart from links to a few websites (including this one), it barely made news at all.
The lessons of technology - that it is inherently unpredictable, and even the best intentions often unleash unintended consequence - ought to make us wary of this runaway genetic research. Dr. Venter made a point of telling reporters that there will be no effort made to proceed with this experiment until there has been a "full and public debate."
But it's worth noting that Dr. Venter and his team want to study the ethical issues after, not before, his team in Maryland has already pared down the tiniest-known living organism, a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium, to its essential genes. It's dubious this secret will be kept for long, no matter what the result of this "debate." If these findings weren't troubling, even to the scientists uncovering them, why the need for a debate at all?
M. genitalium, says Dr. Venter, lives in the human genital tract and lungs, causes no known disease, but has fewer genes than any other known living thing. Humans have beetween 80,000 and 140,000 genes, say geneticists, but M. genitalium has just 480.
"I think if we could get down to the point of truly understanding and having one of the formulas for life - and you have to understand that there are thousands if not millions of different formulas - it would be a profound breakthrough," Dr. Venter told the BBC.
That's an understatement. Finding the formula for life would dwarf almost any previous scientific achievement that comes to mind, not to mention knocking conventional religion and theology on their antiquated behinds. What is a theologian supposed to tell some kid who can read the recipe for human life? If we can make it, doesn't that raise certain ultimate questions?
Dr. Venter says that "we are not going to carry out this experiment until there has been a broader debate on this issue," a common refrain among biologists and geneticists.
But where is this debate supposed to occur? In Threads on Slashdot? In the United States Congress, whose idea of technological debate is requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools? Or in the American media, still stuck on hacking and cracking, e-commerce, or whether or not Johnny will sneak onto the Playboy website?
Recently a group of bio-ethicists met with a panel drawn from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant faiths and concluded: "There is nothing in the research agenda for creating a minimal genome that is automatically prohibited by legitimate religous considerations."
So what? Is that the only major ethical issue? And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?
Dr. Venter has only to log onto the discussion that will follow this column to get a realistic dose of just how likely it is that a rational, coherent public discussion of "scientists-playing-God" will take place.
"Gattaca" wasn't the first crack that culture took at this issue. Mary Shelley published her brilliant take nearly two hundred years ago in the novel "Frankenstein", which found in the discovery and taming of nature's most powerful secrets a hidden agenda for trouble.
Victor Frankenstein didn't like being questioned about the morality of the things he made and the secrets he unlocked any more than his successors do. When his own monster challenged him, he called him a fiend and a freak and told him to get lost. He paid for it dearly.
H.G. Wells, who helped invent science fiction with publication of his first novel "The Time Machine," foresaw that the future could be a dangerous place, and was one of the first novelists to place his characters in the context of technological and biological evolution.
But despite his own training as a biologist, Wells never imagined the discoveries that would create the new science of molecular biology soon after his death and dominate the landscape of biology into the next millenium.
The issue with these Gattaca projects isn't whether or not they should proceed. Only the most fanatic Luddites could seriously argue that understanding the secrets of human existence and eradicating disease ought to be - or even could be - forbidden? Geneticists believe human cloning is only a few years away, legally authorized or not.
About all we can do is hold Dr. Venter and his colleagues to their word, and hope there is some rational discussion somewhere before the corporate lawsuits and patent issues are resolved, and the first genetic research lab starts peddling perfect, cheerful Icelandic babies around the world.
To stop the research would be to deny one of the noblest traits of the human character - to figure out the world and make it better.
But Victor Frankenstein's problem is our problem. "The world," he declares in the novel, "was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are amongst the earliest sensations I can remember."
Victor would be having the time of his life in the modern world, where his kind of research is no longer even considered controversial, where corporations dominate regulators and lawmakers, and where experiments that play around with human life don't have to be conducted in remote, crumbling Gothic towers, but get the enthusiastic support of venture capitalists and punch-drunk, morally-oblivious technologists.
But the words of Victor's creation are even creepier in l999 than they were when Mary Shelley first wrote them:
"You propose to kill me," thundered the monster when Victor threatened him if he didn't go away. "How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends."
The monster's warnings - and Shelley's instincts -- were more than borne out in the horrific bloodbaths and environmental havoc of the two centuries that followed them.
Victor didn't listen then, and nobody's much listening now. But the warning still rings true.
Katz says that the discovery of the minimum number of genes neede to make a life form will mock religion because it is antiquated. However all the scientists are doing is taking pre-existing building blocks, that behave in a pre-existing way in nature and trying to make an organism that uses as few as possible. The likelyhood is that they will fail because the genes are more complex than the scientists really understand. Nature tends to eliminate unneeded genetic parts over time so it is likely that the organism is very close to having as small a genetic code as possible to allow it to survive and reproduce. Removing genetic material may allow it to only exist in special laboratory conditions, and reproduction may be less efficient. The scientists don't really know what is going to happen, which is why they carrry out the experiment, but just removing possibly unneeded genetic material from an organism is no where near creating life.
Nascantur in Admiratione. (Let them be born in Wonder)
It's too early in the morning (EST) for the usual dosage of John Katzian dystopia. Perhaps I'll give it a try after my three martini lunch.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
By putting the ability to create life in human hands, "God" has in essence open sourced life (oh wait, I can see Bruce Perens jumping on this misuse of the word!).
Bleah.. end of the religious debate folks, lets start forking life forms and putting them in CVS trees.
We taking ourselves a little bit too seriously when we get indignant about artificially created life? Life has been artificially assisted since ages. Heck, asprins might have created life ages ago by preventing the biblical "Honey I have a headache excuse"....
This one is devoid of content, Jon! All you've said is that humans are studying genetics and that this is a bad, dangerous thing. You haven't told us why (except that it will raise some uncomfortable questions for religious people). You may vague references to Gattaca, but never once say *why* genetic engineering may be a problem.
Your journalism is even a little lacking, because you don't even mention any of the possible benefits: cures for cancer, the correction of genetic illnesses, etc. If you want to state a debate, offer points of view from both sides.
We can't debate with you if you haven't provided us any substance!!!
Dana
Have I been underground for too long? I've never heard of Gattaca and have to wonder if it is a reference to an obscure movie. Was this an NBC made-for-TV thing? Something that actually came out in theaters? Something that is out now? ==confused==
And where, exactly, is this debate (which Victor Frankenstein's monster started 200 years ago) supposed to occur? Slashdot's Threads?
Yeah, why the hell have these geneticists not consulted with Slashdot yet!?
What is their deal!? We are obviously the experts...
Without further ado, here it is:
I think my point is made: science can never explain the primal causes, can never account for the ultimate origin of anything. To try to claim otherwise is the worst kind of hubris. And I do wish that you would try to be at least a little more balanced in your coverage.-- Slashdot sucks.
I'm not sure if Katz really gets Frankenstein, or if he's just repeating the pop picture of a man dabbling in ``things man was not meant to know.''
In Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein's sin was to reject his creation when he saw what he had made. He was not wrong to create it in the first place. In a few passages, it seems like Katz is aware of this, but the fact that he has chosen Frankenstein as one of his catchwords for biological research tends to suggest that he isn't.
--
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow)
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
I am all for it, and don't see this as treading into the realm of God.
Science should be free to experiment, explore and discover.
The evil comes when the non-scientists (Government, Politics, Business) take those inventions/discoveries and turn them into the monstrosities that has become Colonialism, A-Bomb, ...etc.
We should not limit science, thougt, ...etc. for the sake of those beings...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Are we meant to create life? I don't think so. That was a rather small slice of religious groups. What about the Covenant of the Goddess? The President and Quorom of Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Maybe a random sampling of independent denominations? Polls over the next year in every country on earth where people can say if they want this or not. The ability to create life is an awesome power. Perhaps too powerful. We not only risk a potential Gattaca, or Frankenstein like rebellion, or a Nazi "Master Race", but upsetting the natural balance moreso than we already have.
You still write year numbers with a lowercase "ell" instead of a "one", Jon. I am sure you must be looking forward to Y2K...
The creation of a new form of life is no more dangerous then your average run of the mill genetic engineering. The life those scientists want to create is simplified at best. It will be the lowest common denominator. Who honestly thinks something like that could cause any damage? Aside from messing up some clean labware any simplified organizism wouldn't last 5 minutes with the competition you get from other forms of life.
With your average gene splicing and other forms of genetic engineering you're starting off with a viable organism and changing what it does. That could cause some problems without safeguards.
Weither or not man "created" life is not definitive.
If we're able to assemble genes to create a new speecies, it doesn't necessarely mean we've created life. Theologists would argue that "God" created live, and that Man has onlly assembled life-baring genes that God created.
The religion debate is far from over.
...at the same time it's an important thing to bear in mind. Yes, misuse of progress in genetic science would be a tragedy... especially if the corporations get hold of it. Imagine a world where you are genetically predisposed to buy product, and forced to be happy living a 9-to-5 existence to pay for it (eeek!)
Having said that, this new technology and research could be used for better purposes, for example, those who have been rendered infertile by illness could theoretically 'have' children through cloning and splicing their genes with their partner. Evolution isn't a nice beast sometimes, but this could allow us to bend the rules somewhat. Having the power to perform miracles shouldn't be discouraged, but to take responsibility for our actions with the must be considered paramount. I just hope those that would abuse it don't get there first.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
All in all a very poignant movie about an all-too forseeable future.
"They also claim they've found the essence of life in Maryland..." They've probably been searching for *that* particular secret for centuries. Probably something to do with cows, I suspect.
I'm no great fan of Dr. Venter, but it's not true to say that he wants to do the work first and consider the ethics later. There was originally an announcement in January about this, stating that it was time for the situation be considered fully before any action was taken. The more recent statement - a paper in Science - could be considered a second RFD. They've called for discussion in public forums, which seems to me to be very responsible.
The timescale for the HGP, incidentally, is rather shorter than the article supposes. Both it and the private sector efforts expect to have substantially complete sequence coverage of the human genome during the first half of next year. Things are moving very quickly. The HGP proper is due to have fully finished sequence, accurate to better than 99.99%, by the end of 2003. The events shown in Gattaca - which I would agree is both a good and a perceptive film - will be plausible well within current lifetimes.
I seem to remember that Vincent didn't actually kill the boss guy. Someone else killed the boss guy.
During the investigation, they vacuumed everything and discovered the eyelash that didn't belong there. Of course, they suspected the owner of the genetically defective eyelash, and tried to figure out how it got there. But that part of the investigation was totally a accidental wild goose chase.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Viruses like AIDs and the common cold have been
sequenced for over a decade. Their 1-2 dozen genes structures are well-known and poorly understood. Its a long way to a 480 gene minimal cell and 100,000 gene human.
"If we're creating life, doesn't that raise some loaded questions about history and religion?"
No. YOU raise loaded questions about history and religion and sensationalise something that should instead be approached rationally and cogently. Heated debate, or debate at all, is not what is needed, because there is no answer to the question "should". "Should" we have harnessed electricty? "Should" we practice modern medicine (the Mormans don't think so). "Should" we have invented the internet so we could have stupid heated debates on overinflated issues?
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
....is quite a leap. The objective of the debate should be whether it is moral to create life of any kind. If no one protests until scientists have the technology to recreate people, then scientists will go right ahead creating people. There was an uproar when Dolly was cloned, but had Dolly been a bacteria, the uproar would have been far less - humans have much more of a connection with woolly, friendly animals than with tiny bacteria. If scientists were discussing whether or not they should create Lassie from a puddle of goo, the debate would be much more intense.
Somewhere in his ravings about punch-drunk venture capitalists, Katz makes a decent point. Creating life - playing God, literally - is something that modern religions don't really discuss. While I assume that most Western religions view it as a bad thing(TM), I am just as interested in seeing what Eastern religions have to say about it. While we may not hear about it until scientists clone Abraham Lincoln, it promises to be interesting.
Katz's remark about techno-ostriches is ironic, as his post is a prime example how nothing whips computer guys into a frenzy faster than a future-shock statement that they are unequipped to critically assess. The hoopla here reminds me of the sturm-and-drang around the nanotechnology myth. It's all theoretically defensible, but practically so far removed that people who actually practice the art can scarcely contain their laughter. Even Venter would be amused by the interpretation here ... that he has the ability to create new life. I'm quite certain that Katz would take a different view of the proceedings if he spent 6 months trying to _clone a pre-existing_ gene. The physical world is much less forgiving than the theoretical world ... and talking about creating a new life form is unadulterated fantasy - nothing else.
Several Science Fiction books besides have looked at the same issues explored in Gattaca. On e in particular that comes to mind is Leo Frankowski's Copernik's Rebellion , which describes what could happen if genetic developers introduce "useful" bio-artifacts into the world.
With the increasing complexity of computers, it is becoming possible to make the complex calculations required to do genetic manipulations such as described. And when a thing can be done, you just know that it will be done, sooner or later.
I am not so much worried about someone accidently creating some sort of all destroying life form. Such things aren't realistic, considering the delecate balance of a life form. But I could imagine someone doing it on purpose (someday).
Ethical questions aside, I don't think creating life in a laboratory is going to be a bad thing. It will certainly be interesting.
Mike Eckardt meckardt@spam.yahoo.com
every time something happens in the world of science, i am *SICK* of people who can only understand (or feel they can only describe it to others) it in the simple terms of some hollywood claptrap thats designed to bring out the strongest emotions about the subject.
FUCK! What the fuck are you doing Katz, I'm surprised you even use computers you fucking amish twat! WTF is this, you SOB, technology rules, everyone who says stuff shouldn't happen should be shot. Im religious.... but I hate organized religion becuase they fight everything, and so do you so I hate you. On the subject of organized religion: it doesnt make sense, you have these people who beleive in god and know that god knows all thats going to happen, but then when a scientists finds something they get all pissed and say "its not part of gods plan!" well if god knows all........ fuck it IS! you dumbasses, if you beleive a scientists can change the world and god didnt plan it, then you should go to hell cause god knows all so therefore he knew this would happen.... back on gene crap, katz you bastard...... i doubt people will want to raise perfect children, and all that. Now is being judged by your genetics that bad? I mean they say you have a heart condition so you can't go into space..... when technology is that good anyway cant they just inject you with like InstaHeart(TM) and like the second your heart fails, grow a new one,....or just inject you with something to fix the condition in the first place.... what you are saying is stupid..... technology rules, it will happen, it wont be bad, let it happen, and stop trying to scare the idiots who dont yet realize this!
:)
(posted A/C.... you think id be stupid enough to post as my real name and get all the - karma?
He is glossing over an important fact: The human genome will be decoded. The question is whether it will be open and available to all, or be the patented intellectual property of a few.
At least he did a little research; last time he posted on this topic he seemed unaware of Gattaca's existence.
I normally don't engage in Katz-swatting, but the Genome Project needs our support. We, the Open Source community are some of the best equipped to understand the importance of what may be the most important Open Content project to date.
Not so much a sig as a lack of one.
While I can understand the reluctance to embrace technologies such as genetic engineering and research based purely on the possible consequences (gattaca, uncontrollable genetically engineered disease, etc.), I find this incessant whining about the "moral" implications increasingly annoying. The *real* implications are frightening enough that we don't need to involve millenia-old superstition into it. They only contribute to paranoia, confusion, and slow the adoption of the *good* that can be harnessed from the technology.
Technology has advanced to the point (or more specifically, is now advancing at a such a rate) that we've lost "control" of it. It now moves out of pace (much faster than) the remainder of our social mindset, which includes our "moral" aspects. What this means is that these ideas are (and will continue to be) increasingly out of touch with technological advancement, and will only grow less relevant with time.
Human beings traditionally have an extremely hard time dropping old or ingrained ideas and adopting new models, even if the new model is more accurate or convenient. This makes perfect sense, neural networks tend to settle into local minima, if it's worked before we're conditioned to think it will work again, why change? The concepts of "space" and "time" still used in the mind of your average joe-blow were abandoned by physicists nearly a century ago, and we still haven't caught up.
My point is, we need to stop this incessant babble about ideas no longer relevant to the matter at hand. Let's stop wondering what some omnipotent invisible gaseous vertebrate in the sky will think of what we do, and discuss the real matters at hand: what good can we get out of it, and what are the real dangers involved? We're not going to *stop* it, and we're foolish to think something like words printed on paper (i think they call this "legislation") will. So, shall we scare ourselves with the boogie man or deal with it rationally?
Unfortunately I think the former...
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
I guess Katz rented Gattica and read Frankenstein a couple of nights ago and decided to find something he could use them to ramble about.. hmm.. let's see.. the Human Genome Project.. yeah.
The thing I don't understand about this article is why had the scientific community decided to take ORGANIZED RELIGION's opinions into concern with respect to the genome project. We are simply exploring the body, no more, no less. We havent found the basis of life, and _I_ at least dont beleive that the basis of life can be found by science. If the religious leaders truely beleive in their own religions, I dont think they would be too concerned with scientists stepping on their robe-clad toes by mapping out proteins. This research is a tool, it is a guide book, it could lead us to great things. So why are we involving the same people who have banned evolution in Kansas? The Human Genom Project is research. It is not some doom-bringing pandora's box as katz would like to hype us into beleiving.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
About an genetically engineered astronaut class
and a guy who sneaks into it with
Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law.
The title is neoglism from the four chemicals of DNA.
More thoughtful and better than your average F/X space opera.
First off, I'd like to say that I don't think there's any way to stop research into these areas. Humans are curious, and we're not going to stop just because people tell us to.
Jon seems to have the assumption that discriminating based on genetics is bad. Is it, though? I agree that discrimination based on color, beliefs, or nationality is bad, but that's because none of those issues determine a person's worth intellectually or physically. When we're talking about sending people on space missions, though, it's important to pick someone who is not flawed physically. There's no reason why the character in Gattacca shouldn't have had a desk job at some random company, but weaseling his way into space flight just hurt society.
Discrimination is not all bad; we need to be careful about the basis of our discrimination and whether it is consistent with what we need. If we're picking someone to be a taxi driver, we don't need someone with an exceptional intelligence (not to knock taxi drivers), but when hiring a college professor, it's a definite asset.. We discriminate when we hire people for jobs now, and genetics just gives us more information. That information can be used when we need to pick a good Shuttle astronaut, and it can be safely ignored when we're hiring a new janitor. People with heart conditions should be discriminated against for jobs in which their heart condition can cause harm but not for jobs in which it's irrelevant.
He was not wrong to create it in the first place.
You are missing it as well. The point is that science is not ready to handle it's creations. Dr. Frankenstein reacted as anyone might when their experiments go not as planned. He should not have been messing around with life in the first place... because when he did ultimately reject his creation, the repurcusions were more than he ever imagined. Katz uses an appropriate (if not easy) analogy here.
These scientists are not creating an existing life form, they would be creating an entirely new form of life. New being the key word here! Just think of a couple worst case scenarios please. Does Steven King's The Stand mean anything to anyone?
This is pretty scary stuff. Bacteria has not always had the best relationship with mankind.
Vincent killed nobody.
Anssi Porttikivi / app@iki.fi
And now I've got to live with the consequences.
In other words, science has a brutal downside when you abuse it
We're talking about two millenia worth of thought and reflection on life and morality here, Jon, not some Johnny-come-lately spawn of the so-called Enlightenment.
Katz and other intellectuals love to bash on Fundamentalists and Catholics as if they were all educationally stunted retards, which is a symptom of their own inability to deal with the arguments resented by those people. (It's called an "ad hominem" attack.) The fact of the matter is that Catholicism, Judaism and other monotheistic religions include large numbers of people whose brainpower makes Katz look like the tenth-rate scribbler he is. Fifty years from now, does anyone seriously think that Katz will be thought of as being in the same league as William F. Buckley, to name but one well-known Catholic intellectual?
In any case, this is just typical whining by somebody who doesn't like the answers he's getting from organized religion and therefore assumes that there are no good answers. Can we just have another link to suck.com next time? At least that was amusing.
No, the story was that Vincent did not kill anyone. It's worse than that. Someone else (who later confessed) killed the supervisor, but because the investigators found a stray eyelash from Vincent, they decided that Vincent - hiding behind a DNA disguise - was the prime suspect.
Thus the point goes even beyond Katz's comments. Just because your DNA appears in the wrong place may lead to you having to prove your innocence, a difficult and sometimes horribly awkward situation.
In the article you stated that Vincent killed a superior that had learned his secret. This was not true, however. Vincent did not kill anyone, it just so happened that his eyelash fell off in the company and they found it, so the gene police assumed he had done it... It was actually Vincent's boss, who wanted to see the flight take place, and the man killed had wanted to postpone the flight. Eukaryote
To be quite honest, I don't think a "Gattaca" style future can ever be implemented, for two reasons: there are too many powerful people who would not be included in the "elite", and number two, we already have a discriminatory scale in place, that of money.
The rich and elite already have a power lock (this includes corporations). Even if this were to happen (and not all the rich people in the world are beautiful, perfect genetic specimens. For references, see Gates, Bill and Forbes, Steve), how would anything change? The rich could afford this, while the poor and middle-class would hope and strive and struggle and still not crack into this world where how pure your genetic makeup is has an effect on your outcome in life. This technology will not be cheap enough to truly cause the devastating impact you speak of for many years (say, 20-40 years at present...don't forget, the HGP uses massive computer power to brute-force this stuff right now).
What this comes down to is a simple matter of economics. Is it in anyone's best economic interest to do this at present? No! Within the next 10 years? Only if major breakthroughs are made, and analyzing your genome doesn't continue to take days/weeks/months. Perhaps my children will have to deal with this, but I also hope that by then, this debate will have taken place, and cooler, more moderate heads prevail.
Finally, Jon, while I appreciate these articles, please give them substance. Otherwise, what could be a powerful tool to convince people of the necessity of this debate turns into an almost evening-news quality scare report.
"Evil will always triumph, because good....is dumb!" Dark Helmet
Many people claim that knowledge is neutral and its in the application that's good or bad.
But should scientists, those who are responsible for uncovering knowledge be aware of the possible good/bad applications of the fruits of their work? There has already been many benefits when its come to the work done in genetics.
But creating life is a big step. Scientists may be ready it. My question is: Are the people ready for it? Are people ready for the possibility to know life and how to create it, to use the knowledge responsibly?
IMHO, scientists have to bear some responsiblity. (s)he may be ready to learn, to know the wonders of the human genome but (s)he should be aware of how their knowledge might be abused, might negatively impact society's moral and ethical health. (s)he should take steps to prevent such abuse before proceeding with their experiements.
Just my thoughts
---ussphoenix
-My Two Cents
It appears to me that the current advances in Genetic research are no different to any other technological advances made in history: the automobile, computer, nuclear weapons etc.
The most basic intellectual needs of humanity mean that we strive to seek knowledge. However, knowledge once found cannot be bottled and if useful will be used regardless of any current philosophical, moral or other beliefs. Morality will adjust accordingly.
Today, we have a problem with human cloning or genetic enhancement just like our forefathers will probably have looked with disdain at the number of overweight young men sitting at their computer terminals instead of going outside or fighting. But society adapts and in the future our descdendents will look back at their non-genetically grandparents and say,"How did they live in a world without genetic enhancements?"
The sad thing is that whilst the curiosity of the Western world is fulfilled and the fruits of technology are making Americans (and Western Europeans to a lesser degree) fatter, richer and more confortable, the rest of the world is still suffering under the raw natural forces and man-made terrors, usually developed by the West.
One day, the technological have-nots be they poor urban youth or starving African babies will cry out and say, "Why have you forsaken us?" And us in the West will face a dilema as to whether we help them or allow them to die.
That my friends will be the one and only debate we truly will have have a say in. I think most of those in the Linux community have already taken a stand on the issue. I hope the rest of our society does so also.
"Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for me and my monkey" - The Beatles "If you're not part of the solution, you'
IMHO, genetics and microbiology are barely understood enough to be able to understand the more primitive mechanisms. DNA was discovered in the 1950's, but it wasn't until the late 1970's when the unwinding problem was solved, and DNA was shown to have "handed-ness". There is as much, since then, that has come to light that is simply a complete mystery.
CJD and BSE are classic examples of what isn't understood. The popular theory is that they are caused by prions, but this does not explain how the agent can remain active after proteins would be denatured. Nor is the mechanism understood by which a prion, when ingested, could actually -get- to the brain. The stomach lining stops large molecules, very effectively.
In short, biology and microbiology are nowhere near as well understood as proponents of Genetic Engineering claim. There are too many unknowns, and too few knowns.
I'm not saying GE is dangerous. I =AM= saying that I don't believe we know enough to even know if it's dangerous! And that's far too little knowledge for my comfort.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I must agree here : the whole article was nothing but a series of grim predictions about the horrors and abominations gene technology would lead us to. You make it sound as if only mad scientist types would do that kind of research, without any consideration for any consequences. I think most genetic research is done for good causes, like curing cancer, or finding ways to treat disease.
Maybe you should invent a new pledge, modelled on your Y2K pledge : The genetics-pledge. Repeat afer me : I will not spread fear and panic...
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
Okay, perhaps 'luddism' isn't quite the correct word, but what I'm seeing here is a lot of generalisations that -- as others have noted -- doesn't actually say anything.
What's so bizarre about "Gattaca" is that it's not really even science fiction, but an early documentary of the 21st Century
Bullshit. Sorry Jon, but you've no more of an idea than the rest of us as to how the next century will turn out. Certainly a few of the nasty things in Gattaca will make an appearance, but equally there'll be good things we can't forsee as well as bad things we can't.
his statement ought to have rocked the world, sending journalists, ethicists, scientists, lawmakers and politicians scurrying to figure out what that means for humanity, good and bad.
I saw the reports on the BBC, and I noticed that they couldn't actually find anyone to give a reason why this was a Bad Thing. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realised that I couldn't find anything bad about it either.
Consider: we're talking about stringing together a few hundred genes and hoping they replicate. Maybe they will; if they do it will be a tremendous breakthrough, but as far as everyday life is concerned, it (in and of itself) won't have any impact. Venter's call for debate is timely inasmuch as we'll be able to consider now what will happen in the decades to come, but I don't think it was necessary to hold up the research.
So what? Is that the only major ethical issue?
Well, I don't know, Jon; what do you think? This piece seems to be like everything else I've read or seen on the subject; 'this is wrong; but I can't put my finger on why'.
And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion
This bit's going to sound like religion bashing; it isn't intended as such.
Religions are conservative by nature, and are very reluctant to endorse any new technology that diminishes the suzerainty of god. But 'gene splicign is bad... mmmmkay?' isn't a good argument, so religion has to come up with a solid reason to justify its stance. And it's very good at doing this. I say bring on the religious philosophers; they'll point out the problems with the ideas.
To sum up, then: new stuff is coming along. We don't know how it'll affect us, but we assume some bad stuff will be involved. Let's talk vaguely until something else comes along that we can dither about.
Much of the plot dynamics relies on being able to
distingush bad genotypes in a couple of seconds from dandruff or finger pricks.
I thought this was merely a plot device until
hearing about companies like Assymetrix that put
tens of thousands custom gene analyzers on a chip using the same techniques and micro-electronics.
One such device is in testing to directly detect
cancer cells by DNA rather than by appearance.
More accurate. Must be fast.
People tend to get bent out of shape not because this proposes to synthesize bacterial life, but because they fear that this will eventually lead to being able to synthesize human life from raw chemicals. People further vaguely worry that synthesizing human life would remove the distinction between animal and human, life and non-life, and rationalize all sorts of non-ethical things. However, they're wrong, and organized religion already has agreed with me. First, the worry, then the reassurance.
The uninformed worry goes something like this: if you believe there is no clear demarcation between an adult and an infant, infant and a fetus, a fetus and an embryo, embryo and a zygote, and scientists are able to synthesize a zygote from pure chemicals, it's only a few more assumptions to get to the conclusion that humans are just complex probablistic automata, not worthy of special value or consideration above insects.
However, the problem with this unfocused anxiety which Katz shows signs of, but fails to properly examine, is that it makes fundamental assumptions which are not proven, or even likely. The flaw is that if the components of life are deterministically constructed, it is still possible to believe in a human soul, in a self with free will, and all the special value and ethical considerations that human life is due. All you have to do is read GEB (Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid) by Douglas R Hofstadter.
Religion long ago agreed with the GEB premise (or a parallel one) when it accepted evolution (even guided by God, which also doesn't imply a lack of free will). Evolution is exactly the same type of (probablistic) process that chemically constructing a human is, so it doesn't follow that synthetic people don't have souls in just the same way that evolution does not imply that all humans are mere selfless animals. The religious advisors know that, but the common lay people like Katz never got wise to the deeper meaning of the earlier debate on evolution.
"There's so much left to know/ and I'm on the road to find out." -Cat Stevens
I'm still trying to understand what compels many of you to read Katz's articles and promptly reply with what amounts to nothing more than 'Katz sucks!'. Though they are well written, that doesn't truly improve the content of our discussion, as I don't find 'I rather dislike Katz and believe he's being sensationalist in this article' to be much better. Let's face facts, kids. You have the power to block him out of you dislike him. You further have the power to avoid commenting if you have nothing original to say. I, however, don't have the option of filtering out 'Katz sucks' replies that manage to make their way up to 5 without any real compelling content. Can we please try to raise the bar on the quality of discourse around here, or is that asking too much?
Yes, many people think he's sensationalist, wrong, bigoted, irresponsible, etc. etc. etc. In the absence of a Frequently Posted Comments List we'll have to rely on commentators and moderators to think, if only for a moment, about how to improve the quality of discourse on Slashdot, so we aren't wading through small variations on the standard replies everytime.
This has been a public cry of annoyance with a command Slashdot malady, also known as FPC #27.
Wow, Katz certainly tugs the chains of FUD like the best of them - quoting Shelly like a madman.
I, however, see wonderful applications of this knowlege - first create the simplest organism that can live. Then start adding to it - add the genes for producing Insulin. Grow the microbes in huge vats - poof! Insulin by the gallon, for pennies per gallon.
How about figuring out a carbon sequencing gene set? The "programming" of it would be maybe the greatest intellectual challenge we've had recently, but in the end - poof! microbes that can produce petroleum products. Where we need them. No more supertankers, no more oil wells, no more pipelines. Make it where it's used. (Of course that will cripple the economies of dozens of countries around the world... side effects are unavoidable. On the good side, it will probably take years, so there will be plenty of warning for those smart enough to take the hint)
Or how about a microbe that binds carbon out of the atmosphere? Convert CO2 to O2 with super efficient microbes - poof! space travel just got a whole lot easier. The greenhouse effect could be reversed. No wait - better than reversed - regulatable. No more Ice Ages while we're around.
And the downside? People will try to kill off diseases, resist pests, etc. The problems we have now with breeding resistant bugs and germs will only accelerate. It's been a brush war so far - soon we'll be bringing in the heavy artillery. We're pretty tough - I think we'll win in the end. But there will be quite a bit of "colateral damage" to the environment.
How about AIDS? Maybe the solution isn't killing the disease, maybe the best solution is to alter our genes - raise a new generation that AIDS can't affect at all.
In all this though we'll do it because we can - there will always be a soft spot to open the door to this research ("But we can use it to cure Muscular Distrophy! Surely you can't be against THAT?"). And it will happen - moral discussions are irrelevant. Whatever is "decided" the research will go on. Pandoras box cannot be closed again.
We just have to make the best of it.
Right now, all geneticists can do is cut and paste existing genes, not design new ones. What will really be interesting is the possibility of making entirely new genes. This will require simulations of protein folding, as well as other biological processes. IBM's Blue Gene will be a start, but it will take a machine many orders of magnitude faster to make this a practical possibility (maybe 10-20 years later).
-- THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK -- --
This assumption is false. What Christian and Jewish leaders think of genetic engineering is as meaningful to me as what the Spice Girls think about it.
These people don't have any particular insight to lend to the debate - if their basic message is that its "against 'God'", then that isn't a message at all. It has no implicit or explicit meaning.
"The future is a scary place! The world is on the cusp of something terrible!"
Guess what? The world has always been on the cusp of something great and terrible. Especially in the 20th century, there has been something at almost every moment that, given a few years, has the potential to change human (i.e. modern and industrialised) society drastically. Some of them happened. Some of them were passe' by the time they arrived.
The debate over bioethics has been going on for decades, in the industry and in the halls of governments around the world. The fact that it's only now making the news is pretty much irrelevant to how much (or to be fair, arguably how little) thought and discussion has already gone into it.
Or, more to the point, JonKatz is half a day late to the docks again, and trying to make up for it by throwing around vague, emotionally charged fluff. Again.
Totally off topic now, I followed a link from the suckdot parody of slashdot, and discovered that JonKatz is a professional (meaning "he gets paid") journalist. All I can say is scary.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
We've been attacked as being closed-minded, and unwilling to let science to it's job - that of exploring knowledge.
It's not rational to object to technology simply because it brings us to the unknown, or because it challenges long-held beliefs. God gives us the capabilty to gather knowledge about the universe in which we live, and that's a GoodThing TM.
There are areas of genetic reseach that are rationally opposed. For example, fetal tissue research that gets it's raw material through unconscionable activites like partial birth abortion. The only way to get to the start of that sort of research involves killing babies. That's a Bad ThingTM.
Let's no longer be associated with those who would suppress Copernicus. Let's look to gather knowledge about the universe in which we live!
BTW - I'm a "fundamentalist" in that I believe in the fundamental truths of Christianity. I belive that evolution as origin of species is irrational, and as much a religion as Christianity. I also believe that the earth was created in seven days by an all powerful Creator.
Merry Christ mas
Jesus is the Reason for this Season!
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Project Gutenberg just published Chromosome 22 in ASCII, and they have all 24 (23 + Y)) planned to be published by June 2000. Of course these are available in probably more useful form from the Genome Database. But hey, the source code is out there - the hacking can start!
Energy: time to change the picture.
I believe that following this line should be continued. For one, they may be able to decode the RNA strands that make up various Virii that cause everything from the simple cold, to HIV. To use the human genome to help mankind fight disease is an excellent thing, and I fully support it. Being able to create organs from a persons genetic code would be terrific, and there are so many other things that could benefit humanity including curing some birth defects before the child is born.
I say go for it. I believe at some point people will probably start cloning themselves, but the better something is, the fact that someone will twist it around for 'evil' (so to speak) is inevitable. We, as a society, should simply try to keep a hold on such things.
As for religious implications, I've studied Christian theology, and I find nothing about this a problem in a religious sense.
I think Jon may have rambled a bit here and skewed from his original point, but it definatly gives us something to think about. Good one Jon.
-What have you contributed lately?
I don't mean to be unreasonably critical, as some others apparently are, but it seems unclear to me how this gibes with the overall theme of the site. While I am versed in computing and perhaps some mathematics, ethics and genetics are outside the province of my specialties as well as my interests, and probably those of the general readership here as well. I don't mean to be narrow-minded, and I do have interests outside of computing, yet ethics and genetics are not among them.
Of course, this site is not targeted toward me specifically, but there seems to be a general outcry against the atopical articles. As I understood it this site was primarily about computing. Broadening its scope to every technology under the sun is probably spreading itself thin, as well as diluting the core content directed toward the common interests of the readership.
While I can't unequivocally recommend a better course of action, I can say I'm not particularly happy with this turn of events.
Bill
Great rant, but light on solutions. So you don't like genetics? What's your solution for curing all the various genetic disorders then? Is it ethical to say, "Well, give it another couple of years research and our scientists could cure cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease and spina bifida. But we don't think it's right to let them do the research, so we're going to let you die, and instead we'll spend the money on financing heart transplants for obese smokers who've got themselves into their situation." ???
I find it quite funny that on SlashDot you find a comprehensive flame of the Y2K disaster movie extensively, but articles _for_ the genetic "Frankenstein" hysteria! I think it just goes to show, ppl are only scared of things they don't know anything about or can't understand, and that software folk are as prone to irrational paranoia as anyone else. And that well-known ppl are just as prone to the hysteria as us mere mortals...
If the "point" of Frankenstein could be packaged in a nice, neat, little /. post, then Mary Shelly wouldn't have had to write it.
The novel is a novel because it needed to be. She couldn't have told the story, or made the "point" as well with less words, or in a lesser art form.
And since you asked, The Stand means nothing to me.
It really bugs me when people take this particular pot-shot at religion: And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history? Please, get your facts straight. The 20th Century atrocities of Hitler, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, et. al., far, far surpass anything, including the Inquisition, that religion has ever done throughout history. And most Christians would tell you that things like the Inquisition and the Crusades were not representative of Christianity at-large, but rather isolated incidents done by a few who perhaps didn't think things through very clearly. Religious people are also human beings. That means they'll not always act according to their belief system, though that's what they strive for.
Please read it. You are allowed to bash anybody, but please don't waste everybody's time for that:
Jon is contributing to the discussion and you're not.
Cheers,
Me
Running around squalking and flailing your arms over your head are not going to do much. In my mind, that places you right next to all the "newsie" TV shows that annoy me beyond tolerance. Figure out a way to respond to this other than slamming your fist into the panic button, please.
That said, I agree that we (as a society) need to do some serious soul searching with regards to this particular direction that technology has taken. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen. A quick glance at U.S. history will show that we are perfectly capable of using technology before we understand it's implications and consequences... Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a human race, we managed to survive that one. I might be being far too optimistic, but I like to think that a few folks managed to learn a lesson then. I do not think we shall be so fortunate with the issue of creating life. This one will catch us before we get the chance to learn the lesson.
We shall be our own undoing.
My goodness, where to start?
Genetic research (or, indeed, any research) does not automatically produce oppression. Science produces technology which is then able to be used for good or for ill. To imply that we should arrest or repress scientific inquiry because the fruits of that inquiry might someday be used for wrong is not the sort of thing that I would expect to hear from Jon Katz, it's the sort of thing I would expect to hear from somebody like Pat Buchanan or the Taliban.
Recently a group of bio-ethicists met with a panel drawn from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant faiths and concluded: "There is nothing in the research agenda for creating a minimal genome that is automatically prohibited by legitimate religous considerations." So what? Is that the only major ethical issue?
You imply that there are other major ethical issues. I'd be interested in hearing of any "major ethical issues" not addressed or at least recognized by any of the major world religions.
And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?
Actually, I think that human beings are responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history. But that's beside the point - are you actually advocating preventing somebody from discussing the ethics of something because of the actions of their ancestors? I thought the point was to not discriminate unfairly?
Apparently you believe that society's ethical decisions should be made only by people who are part of disorganized religions? "The world would be a much better place if my minority were in charge." Right.
In any case, it is the organized religions who spend most of their time thinking about ethics. Who better to provide a baseline (from which we may vary our own opinions) for judging whether a new thing is ethical?
To stop the research would be to deny one of the noblest traits of the human character - to figure out the world and make it better.
At least you haven't completely lost your mind.
I think that this is an amazing revolution in that feild and this research should continue, but we have to thing about the ethics. I can just hear the team now...
"Please let us do this. LET ME PLAY GOD!!!!... I mean, please?"
I think that Einstein was onto something here.
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity."
--Einstein
Think of the benifits... think of the wepons that could be made. Does one outweigh the other? This is the true question.
If you truely love the memory, you must set it free().
If there was a cure for all illness through Gnetic engineering there would be a slight problem; Less people would die when they should therefore we might have a slight problem with the world population and all be eating "soilent green"
And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?
It's interesting that JK is keen to lay the blame for the deaths of many people killed in the name of religion at its door, yet (as implied by his comment above) he is unwilling to lay at the door of atheism the far greater number of deaths for which it is responsible.
How is atheism responsible for deaths? If you do not accept God, you can make no claim that one moral framework is any better than another. Therefore,you are perfectly within your rights to develop philosophies such as those of Stalin, Mao and Hitler, because any moral philosophy is as good as anyother. Their killing was a natural progression from their Godlessness - a far stronger link than that between Christianity and those who distort its message to one of murder.
So let's have no more of this "religion is responsible for more bloodshed and cruelty..." nonsense, please.
Gerv
Prick us, do we not bleed?
Why is it that whenever we look to the future, we see only the horrors brought about by societal manipulation gone wrong? Sure, Gattica was frightening in its way. Sure, Brave New World didn't leave much hope for the masses. But why MUST the future be that way?
Why do we never see the brighter future offered us by a full understanding of life? Robert Heinlein wrote thousands upon thousands of words, even more than Jon Katz, about the future. The difference is, quite simply, that he LIKED our prospects. Sure, there will be troubled times. But then, when haven't there been? Does Katz suggest that the prospects of a disease-free, longer-living humankind are so bleak? From a purely cynical view, think how much money would be saved on health care! On Medicare! Billions of dollars annually, all of which could be turned to, say, interstellar exploration, to get our newly-bolstered race off this rock, and onto ones a few lightyears next door. Takes 200 years to get there? No problem for a race with a 500 year lifespan!
Stop the rhetoric. Put an end to the ungrounded fear. Nietzsche condemns those who use the past as an excuse to avoid the future as noxious weeds. I say they are balls and chains, holding man back from a better tomorrow.
Caterpilars ... pass. I live in the UK but I haven't heard about this particular experiment. Cites, please?
A GE experiment in Australia went disasterously wrong, when a whole load of plague-carrying rabbits escaped to the mainland, from the place they were kept. Aside from utterly wiping out the rabbit population in the area, Australia was very lucky and no other casualties occured.
Not true. The rabbit incident was simply a repeat of the use of myxamatosis (in the 1950's) to control Australia's rabbit epidemic, using a different but entirely natural disease organism. The rabbits "got loose" mostly because farmers suffering from an extreme rabbit infestation took matters into their own hands and removed some infected cadavers from the island where the bug was being tested.
The genes have not yet been completely mapped in anything other than VERY primitive organisms, and even there, as much as 1/3 are not understood and an unknown amount is "junk" (read: they don't even know if they don't understand it).
The first human chromosome to be completely mapped was announced a week or two ago; the rest are partially mapped, and should be nailed down within five years. Several single-celled organisms have been mapped, too, and there's also the Canine Genome Project in progress -- expect GP's for all major domesticated (and experimental) animals within the next year or two.
As for junk DNA, why does this surprise you? Genetic algorithms produce messy code. If some junk sequence doesn't actively impair the reproductive fitness of the organism the genome expresses, there is no selection pressure to remove it from the genome. What's interesting isn't how much of the genome is junk, but how well-understood bits of it are already.
And the real Hard Question in biochemistry, the tertiary/quarternary protein conformation question, is due to come under attack for real in another few years when IBM's Blue Gene comes on line. (Now there is a topic for Katz to rant about!)
Overall, you have some valid questions. Questions that should be discussed and approched very seriously. I just feel you should take the time to write something serious instead of this fluff.
My most serious concern, as of now, is that corporations will take over the Genetic Code of humanity. The moral, economical and intellectual implications are simply staggering. Read "intellectual property, gene patent and corporate destruction of democracy" there and you have it in a nutshell.
That's all for now. This opinion is worth exactly what you paid for it... =)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
science can never explain the primal causes
And neither does religion. If you have such a problem with the universe existing by itself without a supreme will (AKA 'God') creating it, then, personally, I have a probleme with a supreme will existing by itself, therefore it has to have been created by something else, probably a metagod, which would need in turn a metametagod etc ...
This is one of the main fallacy of religion: the need for a first cause.
Excuse me, but it strikes me that a good chunk of the /. readers are just as bigoted and intolerant of religion and religious people as they claim religion is. I myself am a practicing Catholic, and the only thing I find really disturbing about this post is the usual Katz drivel:
misinterpetations, blind prejudice, stupid assumptions, etc.
Religious people != Luddites. Why did this news not cause much of a ripple? How is it inherently different from any other genetic manipulation? We've been doing that for millenia. This is just a new twist.
Mike Latiolais (too lazy to log in)
mpl8925@ksu.edu
Eh? What are you on about? Setting the actual subject matter aside for a moment and looking at any scientific advance we have made in the past, or are making at the moment, public debate among groups such as /. is exactly what is needed.
Encryption and those technologies that allow eavesdropping raise major issues in the field of privacy, and I consider myself extremely lucky to be part of a debate in which I benefit from the input of many who know so much more about it than I do. Even from my technically less competent standpoint, I have ethical and social input into the conversation. Privacy is just one example.
Coming back now to the matter in hand, we've got in the first few minutes of this article's existence, a bunch of statements that provoke thought, a couple of scare stories and a bunch of neanderthals posting "first-post" and flamebait nonsense.
This article is heavily biased towards the "it's such a terrible idea" side of the argument that it doesn't really provide a solid base for the discussion and it's provoked a bunch of criticisms of Jon Katz, this is not really a good thing, because it distracts from the debate.
What is clear is that whilst it is very unlikely that comparisons such as "Gattaca" are spot-on, they serve to illustrate the kind of fears that some individuals may have.
Personally, I don't think we're doing ourselves any favours by using Frankenstein's Monster and Gattaca as references in this discussion, because they shape the way we think, and we end up debating how close or far from reality they might be, what a logical extension of the storylines might lead to, and how terrible that really is. Much more interesting would be a less hysterical discussion of the pros, cons, benefits and costs of the use of such technology, steering clear where possible (at least at first) of comparisons with deities from various religions and panic attacks regarding races of clones genetically engineered to buy from Microsoft etc. I'd have hoped that a site whose tagline is "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" would be capable of
1. Seeing with excitement the possibilities of such technology.
2. Coherently arguing the case for and against without resorting to religion.
3. Not leaping to the worst possible conclusion every time.
4. Providing clear informed discussion on the real, tangible and likely risks.
Sorry if that sounds combative, it isn't meant to be, but most of the articles I initially read either criticised the original author, or leaped so far to one side or the other of the argument as to add very little other than a little more panic to the debate. Apologies to the two or three very notable exceptions.
Salocin.com
One thing to remember with cloning and the creation of life, is that while it is easy to assume that this might turn humans into "expendable life forms", none of this technology can replicate the things that formed the PERSON inside. All the influences of growing up. Even if you could genetically engineer someone who was really intelligent, there is no guarantee that they will actually use that intelligence. Less anything that they specifically want the person to use his/her brains for.
Would there be a two-tiered class system of "valids" and "invalids" as in Gattaca? Not very likely, because if there is ONE thing that science has proven, it is that what is first considered a bad thing is turned around five months later and considered a very necessary thing and therefore a good thing.
Perhaps the engineering of a human might actually prove once and for all that it doesn't matter how "perfect" the species is in the eyes of that specific scientist, there will never be a perfect human, and it will never turn out exactly the way you wanted it, because biology is only one tiny blipp of what makes a human.
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
Listen up JK: Normally I don't comment on these articles that you write, since some are good, some are not, and the hot-grits people usually have all the criticism you need.
"Knocking the religious on their antiquated behinds?"
Do you mean to say that ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE are living in the past? Could you have possibly offended more people? You have simultaneously offended all of the major religions at once, JK. Way to go. That's it, drag the fucking ratings in for Andover, and make that IPO paycheck gleam. You have just invalidated any respect I might have had for your journalistic prowess.
Hemos, CmdrTaco, we had a debate about AC's yesterday, and how to decide whether or not to let them participate. Can we have a poll put up to decide whether or not to let JK participate?
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
Good joke,
and it really has a lot of truth to it, you have to create life from your own dirt, to really call it your own.
This made me think about how we can go about and create life from cratch. We would have to create our own matter and own physics before we can do anything.
Then I asked myself, haven't we done this already? Haven't we created our own physics? Haven't we used our own physics to create life already?
I think we did. We have created our own mathematical laws, and used those laws to create our own mathematical life. From a very small set of values (0, 1) and rules (AND, OR), we created dynamically interacting entities (programs), that sometimes even recreate themselves (virusses).
So all you programmers out there, keep on creating those programming perls.
Johan
Science should be free
The evil comes when religious types want to interfere with freedom of speech and knowledge. RELIGIONS DON'T HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH TRACK RECORD IN THIS RESPECT. For as long as we know, religion has been the main source and/or accomplices for commiting the worst crimes.
That's still true now, take the assaults on abortion doctors.
This is such nonsense, I can't even dignify it with a response. (Hey Jon, did you run around after seeing Jurassic Park yelling "dinosaurs are real! and chaos theory makes 'em dangerous!"?)
A question for Rob: How bad does Jon's writing have to get before you actually reject an article?
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
Another Jon Katz article you might have missed:
Up to now, the fact that the world has not been connected by a vast electronic network had made it possible to keep large numbers of people in the world, myself included, from realizing one of the biggest secrets in human history: that we as humans have, and always have had, the ability to create other humans. If this sounds like something out of "Three Men and a Baby", I assure you that it is real and true.
And it seems that reproduction of human species forms is somehow linked with sexual attraction. This is a truly insidious development. In the not-too-distant future, it may be common that people actually produce another human being unintentionally, just because of this powerful and not-well-understood sexual phenomenon. What is society to do with accidental offspring production? Should there be legislation to curb this sex thing before it gets out of hand? I uncovered evidence at a local all-night book selling establishment that if people had sex as much as they wanted, they would produce enough other humans to cover the entire planet. I'm talking billions of people, not just millions.
The implications of this are much more dangerous than we imagine. We have no way of knowing who might be using this strange power to reproduce. What if someone wanted to take over the world? They could have children, and those children could have children, and so on. Do the math! We go to bed every night thinking the world is safe, but elsewhere, in beds just like the ones you and I are sleeping in, people are engaging in sexual acts which seem innocent enough, but are really causing more humans to be produced in an explosive, uncontrolled fashion.
The really scary part is that our government doesn't seem to even be that interested in regulating these practices. When I contacted government officials about what controls exist regarding human reproduction, he said that the only real rule was that men weren't allowed to give birth. In fact, my extensive research at Blockbusters video found no examples of men giving birth. Very strange indeed.
Furthermore, plant and animal breeders have been creating "new species" in a rather more piece-meal and haphazard fashion for the past few thousand years. Oh, and clones (aka idential twins, and at a pinch, any creature which happens to reproduce asexually) are all around us. Does this spell doom and destruction for all of us?
All that hysteria does is prevent rational discourse about the important issues. There are privicy issues that are going to arise about the use of genetic details obtained about individuals. However, many countries (esp in the EU) already have a legal framework in place to deal with the disemination of personal data collected by companies to third parties.
The completion of the human genome project is not going to spell the end of civilsation as we know it. Firstly, a genetic sequence is just that, a string of letters. Actually finding out what a gene does, let alone working out how to modulate it function is not a trivial task.
Another question you might like to ask yourself is why is genetic manipulation seen as an automatically bad thing? Is having gene therapy to control chronic obesity worse than getting liposuction? Or altering the genes that control nose shape worse than having a good, old-fashioned nose-job?
What is needed is a lot more thought when someone mentions genetic-engineering, and a lot less hand-wringing.
Professor Rappacinni examines and manipulates plants for his studies of poison's and thier use in medicines. He is immersed in his study and is blinded to the moral ramifications of his creations. He creates a garden, filled with genetically altered plants that while beautiful are filled with the deadliest poison. He raises his beautiful daughter, Beatrice, in the garden and as a result poison flows throughout her whole being. Rappacinni planned this result because he wanted to give his daugther a weapon with which to better fight the dangers of the world. One day she meets a young man, Giovanni, and they fall in love. But he is tormented by the fact that all she touches dies. A rival professor, Bagglioni, convinces the young man to give her an antidote to her poison so that they might live happily in the outside world. This professor knows that the antidote could work, or might kill her, but he provides it nonetheless out of a quest for political power and partly out of a maliciousness. When she drinks the antidote she is killed.
What does this have to do with Katz's article on Planet Gattaca?
Rappacinni's not the vilain in the story, and his creations aren't evil. He gives Beatrice her poison nature out of good intentions, he wants to protect her. Had she stayed in the garden, she would never had died. We are led not to blame Rappacinni for creating her the way he did. The individuals responsible for her death were Baglioni and Giovanni. They knew the rammifications of their actions and proceeded regardless out of their own selfish reasons.
Currently most genetecists are working on trying to understand the building blocks of life to make our lives better. They aren't the ones who will be making the decisions to use/missuse their discoveries. We need to be more concerned with those that will try to use their discoveries for socio-political gain, namely governments and corporations. If we try to apply moral control at the scientific level, we will just cease to hear about such discoveries. I'd rather that they do the research first and then ask about it than make the decision to proceed, or not, privately.
These are the kinds of things that make me wonder if Slashdot's moderation actually works. There's several comments much lower in the thread that actually provide information, or rational analysis of the situation, and this shit (if you'll pardon my language) gets marked "insightful." ??
Huh?
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
The most interesting part of this article was the mention of the Human Genome Project wanting to map the gene pool in Iceland. I lived in that country for a year and a half during my eight years in the Navy. Iceland would make an excellent choice for such a project due to it's "stagnant" gene pool. Just about everyone in that country can trace their common ancestry to everyone else. The Icelandic government is so worried about their gene pool that they are encouraging families to adopt children from foreign countries (a lot of them from asia.)
Hopefully the Genome project can help Iceland to get a grip on their gene pool problem before some really serious health issues come up.
Now if someone could just take care of thier Thoroblot problem (yearly festival where they serve such wonderful cusine as fermented shark, blood pudding and goats heads, among other delicious foods.)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Mycoplasma genitalium, sequenced by Fraser and Venter, is in principle a deletion mutant of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, sequenced by people from the group I'm in. That means, it lacks a few genes M. pneumoniae still considers interesting for general survival, but all in all those two species are highly similar, with the same genetic apparatus etc.
Both species can be subjected to random transposon mutagenesis - you shot at the genome with a tiny little thingie called "transposone", which randomly destroyes some gene. If the gene destroyed is important, such a cell will not grow and reproduce. Therefore in the mix you have only mycoplasmas, whos important genes are preserved, will grow. You can then use the Polymerase Chain Reaction to amplify and examine what genes specifically got destroyed - that means, which genes are not necessary to grow ...under laboratory conditions, of course. And ceteris paribus, that means - all other conditions being equall. Especially, other genes being intact.
Venter tries to a) make the impression that he did the work b) he's got a strain with xxx genes "switched off", which is not true. We only know that all of this 150+ genes are not needed for mycoplasmas to grow if other genes are intact. The way to constructing the "minimal cell" is long, if you want, I can get into details.
By the way, this information has three to four years, and Venter started talking about his "custom-made" M. genitalium about two years ago.
The whole project will make huge publicity and a very little contribution to science. First, "essence of life", my foot. A piece of RNA with a couple of molecules surrounding it is perfectly capable of proliferating, evolving and making you deathly sick, providing it finds enough cells to proliferate within. Intact mycoplasmas need a lot of organic substances in their growth medium - you have to add bovine serum. Essentially, the border between something quite inanimated like virus and a living cell is smooth. Next, this "crucial genes" will be different for different systems and assemblies. Finally, you have assembly this living cell out of "living" molecules - it needs polymerases, ATP, lipids, synthetised DNAs and RNAs and so on just to start living. Ian Wilmut put dead DNA into a "dead" (unable to proliferate, without genetic material) cell, so did he created new, artificial life? Bulls..cience. Artificial life will be when you start with natural, inorganic and simple molecules. Assembling existing parts has not much in common of finding an existing formula of life, especially because it will not help you understand how those parts work! And this is a different research (proteomics/transcriptomics) and it is really a way to go before there will be an appriopriate article on /.. By the way, /. publishes lately a lot of cheap sensations. Sorry to say it.
Regards,
January
(from the JanKatz-Falls-For-Every-Commercial-Trick-Dpt.)
That's an understatement. Finding the formula for life would dwarf almost any previous scientific achievement that comes to mind, not to mention knocking conventional religion and theology on their antiquated behinds. What is a theologian supposed to tell some kid who can read the recipe for human life? If we can make it, doesn't that raise certain ultimate questions?
Could someone explain to me how this knocks anyone on their antiquated behinds? I guess it provides another smidgen of evidence for evolution...I hardly think that's necessary at this point (and I don't think anyone here wants to debate it). But does Katz mean to say that by mapping the human genome we disprove the existence of the human soul? I sincerely hope he's refering to something more logical than that. I'm simply at a loss for words trying to understand what on earth he is refering to. What ultimate question is he referring to?
But where is this debate supposed to occur? In Threads on Slashdot? In the United States Congress, whose idea of technological debate is requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools? Or in the American media, still stuck on hacking and cracking, e-commerce, or whether or not Johnny will sneak onto the Playboy website?
I really don't think the proposals regarding the Ten Commandments were intended to have anything to do with technological debate.
Why do you call for a public debate and discussion on a technological issue(that seems to be the only positive statement regarding the issue in this whole essay), then procede to mock such discussion when it occurs?
And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?
I suspect you've confused religion with socialism, given the tens(hundreds?) of millions slaughtered by Stalin and Mao alone.
Dr. Venter has only to log onto the discussion that will follow this column to get a realistic dose of just how likely it is that a rational, coherent public discussion of "scientists-playing-God" will take place.
Or he could just read your article, and see why such discussion never takes place here. I actually agree with most of what you wrote here, but the way you keep taking all these random off-topic snipes at religion and democracy really destroys your credibility.
My views on the subject? Well, I agree that it's inevitable (or I'm willing to assume that for discussion). I have to say, cloning doesn't really frighten me all that much. Parents will have more control over the genotype of the childrent they have. I don't really think this will result in more uniformity in the children we see--who wants to have children that look just like everyone else's children? I certainly don't. Do you? And I don't think everyone will want to have shallow, obedient children either--if there were any danger of parents thinking ahead to the inconvenience that children present, I imagine there wouldn't be too many children born at all!
The prospects of some central authority having complete control over the genotype of the entire country kind of scares me, for obvious reasons, but I think as long as control of the genes of offspring is placed in as many hands as possible, diversity, for all social purposes, will be assured.
Genetic testing (like Gattaca) worries me a bit more, I suppose, but I've babbled enough for one post.
It is pretty funny to read anyone claim the outstanding power of science fiction to accurately predict the moral and social issues around technology. It makes me think of the depiction of science and technology on Star Trek, where much of what is shown is hopelessly outdated a decade later. Or all of the alarmist stories and movies that have come out with each no technological breakthrough in the last hundred and fifty years that have failed to live up to their doomsday cries.
Also, I am insulted by the insinuation in this, and all similar alarmist propaganda, that and sort of progress should be feared as heralding great evil. Katz doesn't show any specific example of misuse, he just cries wolf about things that might happen, or applications which could exist, citing ridiculously alarmist movies as his only proof of danger.
Gattaca, just like the previous slew of alarmist pictures in the 'cyberpunk' vein, evidence a lack of any sort of thorough thought on the topic being criticized, as well as a real lack of understanding of the technology. As I pointed out in my response to his previous article in this thread, there are very few universally desireable traits and most of them have to do with health. Given this, it is fairly ludicrous to imagine that improving health is going to result in discrimination against the sick. If our society was predisposed to oppressing people with illnesses or disabilities, why doesn't it do so now, on an institutional level? Katz seems to suggest that the development of genetic research is somehow going to rob us of our moral sensibilities, causing us to lose all progress we've made towards protecting individual rights.
This is precisely why this is alarmist, because of its narrow vision and skillful exaggeration. Katz ignores the social truths of our society while stressing extreme possibilities based on pure speculation. This is the same sort of doomsaying which ruined the nuclear power industry in this country and which currently advises our national policy on medicine, condemning thousands of people each year to death for lack of treatments not yet approved by massively inefficient government agencies.
And since Katz also raises the spectre of Victor Frankenstein, let us not remember the lesson of that story. It was not that science is evil, that technology is destined to get out of control or that progress is an affront to God and should be squelched. No, it was a story about individual responsibility. There was nothing evil about his creation. In fact, in many ways it was far superior to God's creation. However, it was his lack of responsibility for it that drove it to do evil things.
And, just to be obnoxious, since the religious angle gets brought up, too, it should be noted that Frankenstein wasn't an indictment of science, it was an allegory for man's alienation from his own God, who seemed to have abandoned his own creation.
Eric Berg
Wow, this hurt to read. Not only was it too dystopian for a Tuesday (this was pure Monday in a can), it was yet another inaccurate rehashing of Gattaca, apparently Katz' raison d' etre.
Dude, switch to latte or something. Lighten the fsck up. You can only parrot the same hackneyed line so often, and twice in two weeks is -way- too often. (My connection sucks, so digging up his last article is beyond me at this point but folks should remember his diatribe on this same exact subject last week or the one before.)
Gattaca was about (Jon, listen, please) segregation based on genetic makeup. . . NOT about making better people. There were flawed people in first-world countries, even in the "upper" class.
Please draw an accurate analogy. Or do everyone a favor and expand your video/dvd library to include another movie or two. . . like, say, "Dark City" so you can bemoan the march of technology as it pertains to construction.
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
Let me start with the Iceland research. I saw a TV special (Nova? PBS is waaayyyy better than network TV these days ;-) a few years back with Alan Alda hosting that went to Iceland to talk about the research being done there. They've been doing research for YEARS there - it's not like they're just starting. Also the reason they're there is because the population doesn't move around the world or anything very much, and they can trace their ancestors back to the very first Norse boats that landed on the island, and even back to the mainland. Not just some of the Icelandic population - ALL of them! Geneaolgoy (sp?) is a big part of their culture. Because they can trace back so far, they make ideal subjects for tracing genes in order to help find cures for many diseases, cancer, and genetic disorders. Apparently the research has been going well and is among the most promising out there.
The vague paranoid notions that doing such research will lead to a Gattaca-esque world is very hard to imagine. Yes, I do think that genetic research, cloning, and genetic manipulation should be monitored and regulated, but in and of itself it's not bad. I personally don't think cloning should occur, even of animals, and would push for legislation outlawing it for any commercial or government use, but doing some research to help understand how animals (and therefore us) work isn't the end of life as we know it.
I think you went a bit overboard Jon. You would make a wonderful fiction author, should you decide to write novels like Shelley's or Wells' books that you mention. I think your thoughts on the subject would be better presented in that fashion, rather than a sky-is-falling article.
Thus, ethics as they pertain to genome research are just strategies which, if used by everyone, will benefit everyone, just like many religious beliefs.
But someone will always defect. In our current climate of populist interests pitted against corporate interests, corporations are moving toward a strategy of ignoring some of the ethical issues.
The problem is not the corporations, however. As many on Slashdot have pointed out before, it is the irresponsible cluelessness on the part of the patent office (and the courts that enforce patents) that have driven the system to its current state.
Amazing magic tricks
i seem to remember something about an earth worm or something being completely catalogued. I can't rember if it was 30 or 300 genes.. this shows how good my memory is, but i know it was a worm, much more substantial than a virus. eh.. *shrugs*
Some religious movements have been Very Bad, some scientific movements have been Very Bad. In both cases, it is because the beleif (whether scientific or religious) JUST HAPPENED to help justify someone else's Ulterior Motive (tm).
If you want to keep slaves to ensure your economic prosperity, and you happen to find a passage or two in the Bible that can be used to support argument, suddenly its VERY CONVENIENT to call yourself a Christian.
If you want to exterminate a certain race, or get rid of people who are "ugly", suddenly it's VERY CONVENIENT to support Eugenics and Genetics Research.
Nevermind that in both cases, there are huge groups of people who belong in both groups who a) don't support slavery and b) don't support the mass extermination of races, or the killing of mentally handicapped people in the name of genetic purity.
Nevermind, because there are always people like Nicolas Monnet who are willing to paint entire groups with the same brush, simply because there are some people in that group that he really doesn't like.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
I'm new to this John Katz "slamming" but there are points that have been stated and should be examined. Genetic Engineering has its good points, but it's the bad points that have me worried! Point number 1: Only scientists, programmers and biologists understand it enough to talk about it, anyhow. This is very true! Most people, even us geeks, don't fully understand what the possibility of genetic engineering means! However, I AM a scientist, and it scares the hell out of me! Sure, I would like to see cancer eradicated. Sure, get rid of as many diseases as possible (I'm sure there are more genetic diseases than all others combined). But I'm also intelligent enough to know that Mother Nature does it best! It always has, and it always will! All it takes is reading a book by Charles Darwin and opening your mind to what it all means! Diseases just didn't occur out of nowhere...they are the direct product of Mother Nature! It is strength through diversity...what doesn't kill us makes us stronger! And now, we are going to say that we know better than Mother Nature, what is right and wrong for us? Yeah right!!!! Point Number 2: And it is not wrong to say that Gattaca is Future Nonfiction! Somebody wants to do a full genetic study of the entire population of Iceland! Screw that! Why? Because it will be interesting? What if some Hitler wanna be gets ahold of that information and doesn't like Icelanders! Bye bye Iceland! There are genetic characteristics that are unique to that culture, that location, that population! There is a type of substance in Chemistry called an Intercalating Agent. It is molecule that can be designed to attach itself to a very specific sequence of genetic material. So what right? Well, what if I were to attach another molecule to this Intercalating Agent such that, when the Intercalating Agent attached itself to the genetic material, this other molecule was released! Congratulations, I just released a foreign substance into an individual of my choosing! Intercalating Agents exist! And this is very easy to do....even today! The "other" molecule could be a toxin, or a virus that would start to replicate itself within the host! Any number of things are possible! So how difficult would it be to wipe an entire civilization with such knowledge? Not very! Screw the religious implications of genetic engineering for now! It's the moral that have me worried! In a society where information is power, and information over a single individual is ultimate power, genetic engineering is a weapon of the worst kind. Just think about it! Open your minds! A little paranoia never hurt anybody and I'm not one for paranoia! I'm merely an individual who can see and understand the negative impacts of such technology and information! And don't think your Government doesn't know! Sure Congress has a lot of intelligent people, but none of them have the knowledge to know how this information can be used for wrong! They're lawyers for God's sake! Not Scientists! They don't have a clue! But don't think for an instance that somebody else doesn't know!
. . . I think that the cottage industry surrounding the "ethical implications of the genome project" is a bunch of hooey.
Background: In the Federal grant for the HGP, about 2% was set aside for considering the ethical implications. As you math-heads may have figured, 2% of a whopping great number is a pretty durn big number itself.
I attended a conference on the subject (partially funded by your tax $$$; thanks, everyone!), and yes, they discussed many important issues such as the implications of genetic testing.
But IMHO, the anti-genetic-testing faction ruined their credibility with their choice of speakers. For example, one guy thought he was carrying a horrible time-bomb of a genetic disease, and so he lived his life as if there were no tommorrow. He racked up huge amounts of debt, failed to maintain interpersonal relationships, etc.
Long story short, he got tested and discovered he doesn't have the disease gene, and he was pissed off about it! He was suddenly faced with the horrifying prospect of having to deal with the consequences of his nihilistic behavior, and he blamed genetic testing!
Sigh. I do see the arguments against genetic testing, but couldn't they have gotten somebody better?
whuppy enjoys smelling like diesel fuel
I did, in fact, read it and I didn't think he did contribute. "The Sky Is Falling!" is not contribution.
Perhaps I was a little nasty (if so, I apologize Jon), but I wanted to point out that fear mongering and paranoia don't accomplish anything. Jon made that point in his 'Y2K Feature'.
I wasn't bashing him personally, just critizing are article that needed critisism.
Dana
I would think that a group like the Church of All Words might better be able to make an informed comment on this than most of the popular churchs of this day. A science fiction fan probably has a better chance of making intellegent comments on this than a member of those same popular churches.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
It pains me to see scientists who are looking for "ethical" advice to go religious sources. As if western religion hasn't already screwed up our judgement enough. Besides, most religious zealots are extremely uninformed, and won't be able to provide any rational points against it.
It pains me primarily because there are plenty of valid (scientific) concerns with genetic engineering (GE). Not with the knowledge mind you, but with the actual restructuring of DNA in nature.
The points I can come up with, on the spot, right here are preaty obvious ones:
* Corporations will be the major developers of
genetic engineering technology. A corporation
is not inherintly "bad" but its goal is to
make money, do the intrests of corporations
ever conflict with the intrests of the people?
Yes. Frequently. Right now there are almost
no regulations on what a corporation can do
with genetic engineering. We can not trust
companies to make good software, so how can
we trust a company to reliably engineer life?
* Genetic engineering is often hyped as a way
to end suffering and pain of people, eliminate
disease, make a happy society. But no one ever
wants to think about the side effects. Its
hard to determine how a new creatures biology
will interact with the rest of the world. Its
not to hard to imagine some conflicts that
would arise when adding a new species to our
ecosystem.
Again, I'm not saying that the knowledge is "bad" but, if we are going to proceed with doing GE we need to have strict regulations set by comittees. Forget "ethics" we should approach this from the standpoint of where we are, unknowledgable but curious.
But that is a problem we have to face anyway. Lifespans have been rising, infact mortality rates dropping and genetic engineering can't be blamed for that. Better living conditions and better medicine are far greater contributors.
In fact, some folks are geneticly engineering cows that produce more milk, more productive strains of crops, etc. (Although that has raised an big set of health issues that probably my biggest concern about the whole 'Gattaca' issue)
Dana
Even if scientists can find out everything about the human genome, which is the genetic code that makes us what we are, there would be many diseases that would remain uncured. Cancer is not a programed genetic defect but a mutation caused by environmental conditions. However, I will admit that the potential to eliminate retroviruses such as H.I.V. means that there is a valid reason to continue the research.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
your statement about maryland demonstrates only your ignorance. I don't live there, but of all things you could have picked at in the article you choose this? i realise the freedom that not having to converse with /. peers face to face presents. I've been to LUG meetings. i know that only he who is most comfortable with his sweats, voyager shirt, and general malaise associated with not bathing, can openly zing his comrade in geek in front of an audience. see stereotyping and ignorant biggotry makes every perpetrator of such look like an ass. Even me! so do it RIGHT next time! at least make fun of a southern state that isn't on the atlantic seaboard! :) xoxo, irony as bittersweet as teardrops on turkish delight...
GENOME SUCKS. KDGENE ROCKS!
"I think if we could get down to the point of truly understanding and having one of the formulas for life..." Don't you get it? With a sentence like this Venter is clearly a self-publicist trying to cash in on the press's liking for way out statements. Nobody I know in biotechnology would ever dream of releasing a statement like this. His proposed experiment is much more modest than that and `optimised' viruses are already commonplace in the lab. The whole idea of getting the churches involved in an experiment to delete genes is purely a publicty stunt. It's a pity there appear to be few competent biotechnology people posting to Slashdot to give this news its proper perspective.
-- SIGFPE
Clearly, Katz is a moron who fears the unknown, truth, or something, but why? and it is not just him.. all of holywood seems obsessed with the idea that ``we are not ready for it yeat'' or ``this technology is dangerous and should be abolished'' I watched an Earth Final Conflict Episode within the last year where the hero (Liam) blew up a super advanced alian race's Library because he didn't want anyone to get at what was inside.. needless to say I will not watch EFC again.
Why are these people so fearful of the unknown or ideas that chalange their religious crap? I suspect that they think of science and technology as possesions whichthey know they will never have because they can never understand them. They must not understand the nature of knowledge. that is you share it and find out new things. If somethings are dangerous you call up the Gov. and have them regulate them.. or you create a code of ethics yuorself. Generally, scientsts develop a much stronger code of ethics then any of the morons like Katz who attack the research it's self.
Finally, these people do not seem to understand that we really need our advances in any field of science.. including genetics. If somne else starts genetic engenering their kids and we do not then we will be the third world in 100 years.
Anyway, this sort of mindless fear of the unknown and fear of understanding is one of humanities few truly evil traits. We are ready for genetic engenring.. not because we will do everything correctly.. but because we will fix our mistakes.
I guess the good news is that social evolution is an active part of modern society. Like the people who do not believe in evolution.. the people who oppose genetic engeneric will eventually force themselves out of an importent aspect of modren life.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Katz, Generally I enjoy reading your pieces, but I'm growing tired of your constant barrage of attacks on those who follow a form of organized religion. You speak of how many millions of people have been killed in the name of organized religion, yet I cannot believe that you haven't heard of the Nazi purges of the Jews, Stalin's purge of millions of Russians, the purge of millions of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge and countless other mass killings by other non-religious groups just to stregthen a given organization's power base. Why don't you keep your religious stands at the door and report on what is pertinent to society, instead of showing your intellectual hypocrisy?
(I apologize first off if I leave anything too implicit here or do not fully draw out my conclusions. I do have to get back to work soon, you know).
We have for too long ignored the warnings of the past. They didn't come true because the technology never came about. But all of the sudden, it is coming around, and as a collective society we have forgotten that which the prophets of future doom warned us about.
America was shocked at the initial reports of cloning. Why all of the sudden doesn't this bother us? I suspect that Panamon777, the last poster at this time, has it right--we don't care about bacteria. Period. Well, perhaps we should. Someone will always manage to one-up the other guy someday, and if one person manages to create bacteria-like life, this just opens the flood gate to higher organisms. And though some think that this doesn't need to be discussed, there are in fact many people who are bothered by the idea, and thus it does need to be talked about in the public forums.
"...knock conventional religion and theology on its antiquated behinds." That is, CONVENTIONAL, WESTERN religions. There are religions out there, such as the Baha'i Faith and most of the Eastern Religions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) who are either not so antiquated or not so "conventional" as to be able to deal with this.
Where, indeed, is this debate going to occur? This is a valid question, one which applies not only to the debate on life, but on many of the topics which have come up around here lately. I think we've all begun to see that the traditional media can't handle these things very well any more. Forums like this may soon be the only legitimate playground for reasonable, unfettered debate. Maybe the time of Locke and Demosthenes is coming*.
Some may take issue with JonKatz's journalistic ability. I find that his editorials do what they need. This is not investigative reporting--it is an editorial, where someone makes strong opinions known. Editorials generally assume that you get it or you don't. Some details are left implicit. Maybe they could be drawn out more--but then again maybe we don't have the time to read a whole treatise on the subject.
I applaud JonKatz for bringing to the fore some real issues and helping to shape/define/concretize a growing new ethic. Maybe some here do not believe in this ethic, but I believe that he, as much as anyones, speaks for many of us out there.
If nothing else, its certainly refreshing to read a technology-oriented editorial of this quality instead of the same old tripe that the ZDNet guys always talk about.
* If some out there don't know Gattaca, they may not know Locke and Demosthenes. To forestall some question: they are assumed "net" identities in Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Read it...How is atheism responsible for deaths? If you do not accept God, you can make no claim that one moral framework is any better than another.
BZZT! WRONG! Not believing in God does not automatically disqualify a person from a moral debate. God is absolutely NOT necessary for morality, especially the Judaeo-Christian god. There's a lot of Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Pagans, Satanists, and people who worship Alan Greenspan (not necessarily in any particular order) who would disagree. They all have a moral framework, and they don't believe in God.
Therefore,you are perfectly within your rights to develop philosophies such as those of Stalin, Mao and Hitler, because any moral philosophy is as good as anyother.
Therefore, you are completely wrong. Any arguement from a false premise is a false arguement. Or have they stopped teaching logic at Oxford?
--GPIn the movie Frakenstein Unbound which I admit I liked (though strays far from the novel, which I have read), there is a single line applicable here voiced by Raul Julia's Victor Frankenstein when he says to another character, "The soul is a crutch for weaker men than you and I." That's why he's evil, because he's mister-know-it-all, he doesn't worry about things like morality because he believes "man is the measure of all things."
I believe there is a moral order to the universe, that good and evil exist outside the will of the human race. I even think Jon Katz must believe this on some level, else why shouldn't it be "Do what thou wilt be the whole of the law?" Why bother with morality if it does not exist in nature? If we can make better humans, as Jon suggests, and there is no morality save that which humans impose on the universe, then why not do it? I think history has proven the answer to this, no human being, however bright he/she thinks he/she is, can see the whole picture or the whole truth. People make decisions based on frailty, image and weakness, unfortunately, which is why we need morality to guide us.
Of course, the reason why Jon is able to make these claims is because the banner or religion has been taken by people who treat scientific knowledge as the enemy of God and a tool of the Adversary. This is sad and unfortunate, and something which religious people who also have scientific educations ought to take up.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I am going to play a bit of the devil's advocate here (no pun intended).
Religion is just about as old as man, maybe even the same age or older. Let me qualify this. We are all familiar w/the black box limitations as so eloqunently stated in the "God" joke, but religion has always compensated for this and thus will always be with us in some form or another (I can expand on this but I won't it would be an infinite digress;-)).
I think the thing that Katz might not understand, and I may be wrong about him, is that there are lots of people that "think" about religion a lot more than other people (myself included). Some of these people are very intelligent, smart, clever (or whatever you mental qualifier maybe) and have an uncanny habit of adapting their doctrine read memeplex to whatever "life" (I love this!) throws at it.
Genetic manipulation has only just begun while memetic manipulation has had quite a head start. So yes there will be some tough questions to be answered but most cutting edge theologists have already dealt with these issues and are up to the task of dealing with the "man creating life" scenario. Like anything else the sensationalists get most of the media attention in spite of the fact that there are going to be people that have a doctrine for the kid that has the recipe for life.
Now I am neither for or against religion it is a tool as are computers. It was here before I arrived and will be here when I am ->/dev/null. Nothing is good or bad until we get a hold of it and then history must make it's judgement.
Right now we can speculate about the good or evil of genetic manipulation but I think the actaul debate is over human nature and trust.
nothing excels in every environment
2)slams organized religion as being responsible for more bloodshed and genocide than any other force in history. (Like, Communism was a bad dream or something?)
Umm.... I challenge you to find ANY examples of communist bloodshed/genocide that measure up to the Crusades, jihad, Inquisition, etc. I mean, communism has only been around for the last 3/4 of a century!!! Compare that to your 2000 years of dogmatic bigotry. Any "evils" of communism were not a result of the philosophy, but of nationalism and ruthless individual leaders. You have fallen victim to Western anti-communism (McCarthy) propaganda.
Organized religion has a long history of foolish dogma. I doubt highly that you could realistically call that "two millenia worth of thought and reflection on life and morality" - the basic tenets haven't changed AT ALL. Given the trouble various scientists have had with organized religion in the past (Gallileo) - well, it doesn't really support your statement.
BTW, loved the ad hominem you pulled on Katz for his ad hominem towards religion.
Of course, there tends to be a very Western spin on /. discussions. Nobody has brought up Shinto, Buddhism, or even Muslim viewpoints. At least, I didn't see them.
Unfortunately (since they are widely respected and heeded) religious leaders are often wide of the mark, especially on stuff like this. Society is moving forward at a rate religion cannot reconcile. Not a good thing for an institution that is - by definition - already lagging behind.
While Jon didn't really say anything new here, the use of Gattaca and Frankenstein serve only to sensationalize. Creating (maybe) a single-celled organism is a far stretch from a genetengineered society. I can see no harm in proceding - yet.
Cheers,
Brian
I am a devout Catholic and I think the church generally considers experiments with and manipulations of human life to be immoral including the various types of artificial fertilizaiton. But I don't think manipulations of a bacterial genome create nearly the moral concern that many of our other human activities do. The far greater sin lies in our cold hearts that cause us to look away from those others who share this world with us and who need our love.
"Humane Genome Project", eh?
Do your research Katz (or actually bother to watch the film.. ) - the person who killed him was Vincent's mission director, desperate that the mission would go ahead.
Vincent was implicated in the crime because his eyelash was picked up, scanned and was found to belong to an in-valid. As Gattaca was a high-security establishment (blood checking on entry, etc), they assumed that the in-valid *must* have done it.
Did you watch the film, or just quickly read an (incorrect) plot summary?
qube
Bah, If you're truly worried about over-population then it's not genetic engineering you should be trying to curtail. You should be trying to screw up the sewer system to sharply increase the death-rate. The lowly sewer inspector/engineers have prevented more disease than any other category of worker.
Yes, I think OP is a problem. Will genetic engineering aggravate it. Possibly. Will it make it possible so a lot of people who would normally have a lot of health problems would be perfectly healthy. Yes. Think about this, instead of people with diabetes, gauche disease, multiple schlerosis and other genetic disorders racking up huge amounts of medical bills, these illnesses will be able to be cured. They will be able to go on and lead more productive lives, not burdened down by medical debt and sickness.
I have to admit, I haven't seen a fundemental disconnect between reality and genetics this broad since I last listened to Jeremy Rifkin talking.
Katz, you missed the point. Completely. Totally. Nothing you are saying has any relationship or relevance to what's happening.
Gattaca was, indeed, science fiction. It was *fiction*. This is not how we actually behave. It is not a way we would behave even if we did have the genome mapped.
If genes determined everything, maybe we'd have a little reason to worry. They don't. I'm not talking about "how you're raised", I'm talking unexpected variances in hormones, I'm talking plain old random outcomes.
Genetics is a tool. If you angst about it, well, fine, whatever.
But please, don't talk as if you know what you're talking about. This is probably the least sanely written slashdot piece it has ever been my misfortune to come across.
You had no point, you had no evidence for your point, you had no conclusions that followed from anything you said. This piece read like a dumbed-down version of _Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity_.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Unfortunately Jon Katz is on the wrong track, going in the wrong direction, and doesn't even know where he is headed. Recalling horrific examples eugenics has had without taking into account the enlightenment of later 20th and early 21st century, citing false arbitrary, scientific or religious fears, or using neo-Luddite movies like Gattaca as an example as Jon Katz does, only detracts from the discussion.
:). How end of the world for _us_, is in our hands.
T ranshumanism/) give the big picture, which is way beyond the scope of this reply. Next is the necessary research, experimentation and implementation of the new technologies. And hopefully a thriving human race, which can reach new height of intellectual, emotional and spiritual heights through augmentation by machines.
These examples are provoking, but not necessarily thought-provoking. Blaming, accusing, painting dreadful scenes of utter destruction of moral and ethical principles, civility, society, even human race is not conducive to critical thinking and constructive debate.
By denying genetic research or experimentation would not stop anything. There will always be somebody who is willing to do the tests regardless of international laws or ethical concerns. That is exactly why we should have debate on the implications of gene research, encourage responsible experimantation, and make researchers accountable for their findings.
There is so much potential in gene research that its importance is hard to exaggerate. Maybe the most important and far-reaching is that understanding genes might be the only way we can prevent machines dethroning us. AI will become self-conscious due to advances in AI and brain research and Moore's law, a singularity in technology is achieved (that's when technological progress-curve is nearly vertical) in the next, say, 50 years. This means "the end of the world as we know it" (sing to the tune of REM
We can use our new knowledge of genes to enable us make human race better. Transhumanist ideas (http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Philosophy/
--
MotorMachineMercenary
add the y to my nick, and you have my @hotmail.com address!
"Mister rabbit says, 'A moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers.'"
- Mickey, Natural Born Killers
"We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
Seems like a previous post I made.
In fact, I thought this was the point of the first article, though this one less vaguely mentions gattaca.
Lowmag.net
...was crack. But I could be wrong.
Jon Katz, a man who likes to pride himself on his open-mindedness and the wonderful open cultrue of the internet--religious bigot extrodinaire.
Go ahead, moderate me as "flamebait". This article pisses me off, and I plan to sound off even if it bans this post to -4.
Jon Katz has an obvious anti-religious bias through out this entire article. I think it is pretty damn hypocritical of him to sit there and lambast organized religion as if it were a den of hate-mongers and murders waiting to unleash itself up society. Take this quote for instance:
Recently a group of bio-ethicists met with a panel drawn from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant faiths and concluded: "There is nothing in the research agenda for creating a minimal genome that is automatically prohibited by legitimate religous considerations."
So what? Is that the only major ethical issue? And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion--the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history
Well golly, who died and made you judge? Little known fact, Katz: more people have died in this century to war and persuction than in all the previous combined--yeah, on the order of MILLIONS. Do you know what the primary philosophical motivator was behind all these deaths? Not religion. Modern philosophical thought: take the Nazis and Cambodia as prime examples (although Stalin and the purges of the Chinese revolution also qualify). Nietzche was the inspiration of Hitler, Sarte the *mentor* of those who implemented the killing fields of Cambodia. A hail modern progress! It has definitely got a leg up on organized religion when it comes to ethics and human rights issues! Yes, a lot of evil is done in the name of religion, but it is in no way isolated to ignorant bigots who claim to follow organized religion. Even enlightened modernists can be ignorant bigots who inflict equal if not greate amounts of evil on their fellow man.
I agree that we should open this up for a full public debate. I agree that asking religious leaders is not enough. But leave your religion bashing at the door. Your bigotry does not suit the level of discussion we seek in these forums.
Man, you piss me off.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
Well, maybe not EVER, but I haven't laughed so hard in a LONG time. Wow.
-n&p guy
We're one step closer to viable sexbots, and Katz just can't wait to get his hands on one. BTW, when are we gonna see that Katz story defending Patrick "Naughty" Naughton?
Sorry for being nasty myself, but the comments I was seeing were : People bashing Katz for saying genetics is kicking religion's butts, and people bashing Katz for saying genetics is bad. I must admit there was a lot of 'the lightning is coming' in his post, but I think he meant that we must be very careful with the things we release into the world, lest them bite us bad. I mean, genetics in itself isn't good or bad, but it sure can be powerful, and as such its (mis)use can have very profound consequences. Just remember that pointy haired bosses are everywhere: imagine Microsoft delving in genetics (shudder).
The problem with the Iceland episode, wasn't the fact that the entire population was being used for genetic research, it was the fact the RESULTS of the research were going to be licensed to a single company.
While I am sure that to someone this seemed to be good idea (probably a stockholder), apparently a large enough fraction of Icelanders disagreed.
These are the kinds of things that need to be debated. Why is this being done? Who benefits? How will future generations be affected by the information uncovered? Who gets to decide if good points outweigh the bad? How do you prevent the information from being missused?
We are starting to see more and more of these types of issues coming up. The FBI wants to have genetic material from every person arrested in america!! My HMO knows more about me that my parents, but they won't let me check it!! At somepoint in the not do distant future everything you do will be in someone's database!!
Where is the forum for dealing with these issues? How do you compete with multinational companies with their massive media machines? Sure I can call my representatives at all levels (local,state and federal), but a vast majority have no interest (or understanding) in the issues we are talking about. How do I explain to my Mom that the stuff she sees on TV and reads in the magazines and newspapers isn't the whole story.
As always, he who has the power (money) makes the rules. That's where Katz needs to focus, find out who is paying who for our future!!
I see someone's overestimating COG and CAW...
Slashdotters like to whine... (Thank god they are not intellectuals :)
In any case, this is just typical whining by somebody who doesn't like the answers he's getting from organized religion and therefore assumes that there are no good answers.
Yeah, and definitely you do not get your answers from Jon Katz.
Actually this was a quite polite comment in style JonKatzIsACompleteIdiot. But hey, this is what we deserve! Most original articles on Slashdot come from Jon Katz. (ee, or is it half? ee, anyway quite many.. ;) Seems like he is one of the few contributing more than a link-with-a-smart-comment or comment-saying-you-dont-have-a-clue Yeah sure, he is not perfect. But if you feel his articles are clueless/incorrect/he-made-no-research-type, then do yourself some research and compose a groundbreaking (heh) article yourself. Slashdot standars are not that high that you should worry about rejecting.
You are afraid that some AC will say you-dont-have-a-clue? (heheh)
I mean: we see that so-called mainstream media is quite clueless about some topics. But only thing on slashdot is commenting about them? (Mostly whining though) What about original ThisArticlTalksTheRightThing type articles? I can understand that this kind of a articles does not sell on mainstream media. But why-oh-why they do not appear here? Nobody likes to write them too? But then you get what you deserved.
Maybe we should apply some show-me-code principle here too? Or is this only for those weird-ass-kernel-developers?
On slashdot there must be some clueful people who have something to write about. Or are the responses Jon Katz recieves horrifing them away?
(Yeah here it goes: Where are you own articles? - I am not a article-writer type. I am no comment poster either. But here definitely are persons who are. (JonKatz is proof) (Those hundred good comments are also proof.) I try to encourage them.)
--
Yeah, this comment sucks.
It is not my fault, anyway.
And this is as much english as I managed.
I won't even get too much into his horribly inaccurate sysnopsis of Gattaca (I wonder if he's actually watched it, or just read some reviews).
But let's discuss this notion of creating life briefly. To me, it's not terribly amazing. Why? Because we're not creating life. We're just taking an organism, seeing which genes are absolutely necessary, and erasing the rest. This really isn't so amazing if you think about it. It's nothing more than trial-and-error really. Well, a bit more, but even still. We're doing nothing novel. We're not making these genes from scratch; we're just playing with what's already there.
But as I said at first, there really is a good point buried down there. That is about really honestly considering the full implications of it all. DDT would probably have been a good example, but Gattaca was not. I loved the movie, but it was just a movie. It was science fiction, good science fiction, but it was not a documentary, no matter what JonKatz says. --Frustrated Reader
Except keep in mind that to the eyes of some folks, genetic engineering is extremely dangerous, destructive, and could cause the end of the world as we know it. Or have you forgotten Monstanto's terminator seeds?
Why people worry about genetic engineering in general is that it introduces a new organism (by tinkering an existing one, granted) which had not existed before. The worry is that someday we'll create an organism for which there is no viable preditor, and it'll get released into the biosphere and like Kudzo in the west, will wipe out whole species and clog large chunks of the biosphere. Or worse: given that many organisms share genetic material (that is, many organisms will cross-swap DNA strands), we'll create an organism which cross-swaps it's DNA with other species and create something truely horrible.
It's the latter that's got everyone up in arms over terminator seeds, by the way: they're afraid the gene switch that makes the resulting plants sterile will swap into otherwise viable crops, rendering whole third-world farms sterile. And that's a bitch because in the third world, they use the seeds gathered from last year's crop to grow next year's food.
I could have told you it was steamed crabs with Old Bay, a cold can of Natty Boh, and listening to the Orioles get the tar pounded out of them on WBAL. Of course, since these researchers are based in southern Maryland, they probably had different results.
When I start to get into a 'The Sky Is Falling' mood, my biggest fear would be a Brave New World situtation.
I mean, not *everyone* can be a 200 IQ movie star/super-model/neurosurgeon/nuclear physics researcher. There still has to be people who work crappy menial jobs (and there will for a long time, in fact some people suggest many jobs will get more menial and more crappy in the near future). So, only a select few get to be the Alpha Class (from Huxley) and most of the rest will be genetically engineered to *like* being burger flippers and what not.
I like to think that society wouldn't allow that to happen, though!
Dana
I you ever saw Gattaca, Vincent never killed his superior. He was blamed for it, for being a "NOT VALID" specimen ; ironically, a "VALID" specimen, his boss, later confessed the crime, eventhough he said he had "no violent genes". Another human spirit feature perhaps ?
Lets see how silly this parable is shall we?
Pretty silly story eh? We're digressing now, but your parable is berift of anything other than a funny antecdote and proves nothing. The real point is even more important: Religion, unlike Science can never and has never explained primal causes. Its tried. Its tried and failed miserably every time. Science has replaced everything religion has attempted to explain. The origin of life, the shape of the earth, the age of the earth, the origin of woman, the causes of disease, the weather, ad infinitum.
It is religion, not Science that can never account for the ultimate origin of anything. Through mythology alone it tries to explain everything, all at once, once size fits all - the ultimate UCT (Universal Conspiracy Theory), while proving nothing. The failure to prove everything in one fell swoop, unlike religion, is one of the tests that proves the validity of the scientific method. No real scientist would claim that we have explained everything or try to explain everything in one book! No such claim has been made by Science. But that doesn't change the fact that Science is the best and only method we have for understanding our world.
Not to get off on a tangent, although I think we already have, the key difference is that religion is the stuff of myths and stories, science is about the discovery of truth no matter where it takes us. Religion forces, Science persuades. The real issue at stake with genetics is that its exposing truths that make alot of religious people very uncomfortable, and thats too bad for all of us. A new chapter in scientific discovery is being written and some would rather burn the whole book, because it goes against their cherished and sacred beliefs.
--
Python
Python
Not that I disagree, but why cannot science explain the primal causes?
A simple statement is worthless, you need to explain WHY.
I'm tired of religion being used as a point in debates. We can no more use religion as a rule than we can use opinions... there are too many of each, and all seemingly conflict. In the end, it's a matter of personal choice. Now, Katz has the habit of making things quite melodramatic: yes, it's terrible what's happening to nerds in schools today, but three overwrought stories? Okay... But this life-creation thing, IMO (there we go again), is a non-issue. Since we can't use religion as a base (even though they all would probably oppose this, there are aethiests, too) for this discussion, it becomes a matter of common sense. Listen closely: If we don't do this SOON and properly, others will do it SECRETLY and improperly. I think this life-creation thing should happen now-now-now. If not, we risk foreign countries or government agencies (tacky, I'll admit, but you never know) misusing the technology. I'm not proposing that I think a Jurassic Park situation would occur, but do you really think everyone's going to say, "Oh, well religion doesn't like it, so we just won't do it...ever!" Hell, no. Actually, I believe they've already done it. I think they're now opening the debates, but I believe they've already created life...they just don't want anyone to know they have. If we do it in a proper, public way, we can all together SEE what they're doing. Wouldn't you rather that be the case? I don't like the idea of shady agencies or private labs making this endevor. In essence, if life isn't created shortly, someone will do it and risk screwing something up, whether it be an unstoppable genetic freak (video game storyline), or morally-bankrupt experiments (cloning human fetuses and then killing them without a care). This needs to be done NOW. Humans NEED to have their curiosities satisfied, and if we can all be witnesses to it, then there's a much better chance it won't be misused. This WILL happen, and may already HAVE happened. Nothing anyone says will change that.
In any case tinkering with existing organisms is IMO more likly to cause problems then creating new, and very primitive, organisms. An existing one has been fine-tuned through millions of years of evolution and has a much higher chance of doing damage then some scientists creation that was lucky to even reproduce.
As for terminator genes that would cause plants to become resistant to the effects by evolution. Assuming such gene-swaps can happen in the first place.
And most seed can't even reproduce anyway. Non-viable hybrids are very popular. Nor does your average farmer use his or her own seed. Aside from the developing world, which doesn't use modern seeds, they all buy new seed every season.
There seems to be a bit of a misconception as to what the Human Genome Project is doing, from what I can gather from the posts I've read.
The Human Genome Project was set up to sequence a specific set of DNA. Sequencing has absolutely nothing to do with decoding. In other words, what they're going to have when the finish is not a map that says this strand of DNA produces this result, but rather they'll end up with a list of Gs,Ts,Cs, and As.
Even if the Genome Project was able to completly decode an entire genetic sequence, that does not mean that they would be able to take a peice of DNA and explain what the result would be. The problem is that the DNA does not directly create a life form. RNA "reads" off the DNA, and protiens fold, and during this process, which we don't funny understand, life eventually gets made.
What makes this even more difficult is that fact that there is no "normal" gene for several traits. For example, there are about 500 different types of hemoglobin. Of these, about 450 of them actually work, IIRC. (The rest are in someway deficient) Not only that, but due to genetic polymorphism, several different strands of DNA could produce the same type of Hemoglobin.
This makes it very, very, very difficult to take an arbitrary strand of DNA and predict the outcome.
As such, it would also be very hard to create a strand of DNA that would produce a certain effect. Even if scientists find a certain DNA sequence (say, to produce blue eyes) there might be a problem with a population that shares too much DNA. Sort of like how the farmers who use all the same type of seed can loose everything to one obscure plant desise.
This makes a "Gattaca" type "build-ya-own-baby" very unlikely. The more interesting option is "Brave New World", where instead of genetically creating new humans, a certain fertalized egg is divided multiple time. These "Bokanovsky Groups" are all genetically identical, and are pre-ordained to become a certain class. During their growth that would normally be pregnency, the lower classes are treated with alcohol to prevent mental development.
Everyone is trained to enjoy their job, and thus everyone is happy to do the job the were created to do. IIRC, the entire reason the society became this way was that people were willing to give up certain rights in order to be safe. (Was this from a massive war, I can't remember)
In any event, I don't see too many people who actually want to have kids, and who are able to have kids, going to a clinic and having one designed. I think we need to worry more about Big Brother than we do about a bunch of guys who will have an undecodable list of Gs, Ts, As, and Cs.
Ok, before I go with this, I'm going to state for the record that, while I have studied a lot of religions and religious mythos, I am neither Christian, Wiccan, nor any of the ramifications thereof (satan worship, neo-anything, etc). I speak for myself and only myself, and everything in this post is my own damn opinion - if you don't like it, reply with intelligence or ignore it, as you choose.
:P), people will use it. Some of them will be good people, who will use it to cure cancer. Others will not, and will use it to discriminate against - or to eliminate - entire races or groups of people. We will almost without doubt begin to see 'genetic diseases' (ohhh, what did I say about disease being the end of the world?). We will also likely see genetic cures for those diseases. However, since cures always come slower than diseases, we'll likely wind up in some insane scramble to repair the genetic damage before our species gets wiped out - or mutated to extinction.
Religion usually involves one or more gods or goddesses, embodiments of whatever qualities we most want to see in ourselves. If you worship a god you can't identify with, chances are your religion isn't the right one for you. We generally want to be _more_ like our gods, not less. This is why Christianity and Wicca and things like that are just not for me - their gods don't agree with my stomach. So, in any 'religious' debate, the only thing we would wind up debating is personal opinions of the SOCIAL ramifications of genetic engineering.
From a scientific viewpoint, it's an amazing discovery. The ideas it brings up - the ability to cure cancer, the ability to FIX MY DAMN EYESIGHT so I can see things farther than a foot away! To be able to get rid of arthritis, saving so many people from pain they've simply had to learn to live with every day. These things would be amazing.
Not all of them are worth it, however. For example, we already have tests for pregnant women for some genetic problems. There is a blood test which is given (optional, you can refuse it, which I did) to pregnant women, which can detect spina biffida and a few other birth defects which can be seriously problematic. However, this test checks ONLY for the _gene_ for it. It can't tell you whether the baby actually has any problems. You have to wait to find that out, either through amniocentesis (you Do NOT want to know) or through the sonogram (ultrasound) later on. The tests also can't help you actually do anything about it. For some children, something can be done post birth, but nothing in the prenatal stages. So, what's the point of this test? Frankly, the only reason I can find for it is so that mothers who wouldn't want the baby if it was potentially 'defective' could have an abortion. Stupid test, it doesn't help anything, and it's just one more reason to poke you with their damn needles. 'But it's scientific!' they yell - too bad science hasn't solved everything yet.
Debating it all from a social standpoint, we have to sit back and take a hard look at human nature, without the padding of our optimism - or pessimism.
If this sort of genetic mapping and creation of life becomes available (and it _will_, science can't be stopped even if you don't like what they're doing - if we don't, someone else will, and humans LIKE to be first to do something (witness the stupid First Posts). It's an Alpha thing.
Genetic research is both a good and a bad thing. I don't want to have to submit my hair to get in to work in the morning, but I also don't want to see my children die of cancer. Perhaps this sort of mapping and altering could have changed my cousin's life. She had a heart defect. She was supposed to die by the time she was four or five. She lived until she was a few weeks short of 21. If they had only been able to correct the gene that gave her that defect, she could have lived to a ripe old age.
On the other hand, many of our greatests artists of all mediums - words, pictures, math - have been VASTLY mentally ill. Are we, then, to genetically remove all of the artistic talent from our species? Where does our artistic talent come from? Which gene represents that? Is it the same one that causes alcoholism and drug addiction and depression? How do we know?
And when we do know, what should - or shouldn't - we do about it?
I don't know anyone who can answer those questions in a satisfactory manner for anyone but himself.
So many people protest against genetic engineering. Its unnatural, its un-Godly etc. Humans have been engineering for quite a while, dogs, ferrets, cats, almost every fruit and vegetable you eat has undergone thousands of years of tweaking. The real dangers are found in the effect upon the environment; in the case of DNA profiling, the effect upon Man. The idea that it is just somehow unnatural or sacrileges is idiotic.
You're putting words in my mouth. I claim that 'religions' don't have a good enough track record to be able to point the 'good' when THEY, as religions, have done so much bad.
I don't think anyone has even sat down and seriously calculated how many people that have died as a consequence of religion in one form or another, but I'm sure it's quite a few, and that's probably the only thing Katz wanted to point out. That religion has caused more wars than "any other force in history" can, at least, not be argued with, and that is, at least in my eyes, just as bad as being responsible for the greatest number of deaths (although I'm rather convinced religion beats communism on that point too, since people have been dying in the name of some god for thousands of years, while communism is something that hasn't even been practiced until quite recently).
However, the point is that religion has some blood on it's hands and nothing more. There's no point in starting going on like a madman just for some slight exaggeration (because that is indeed what it was!).
If H.G. Wells thinking have less depth than various religious leaders or not is something I will not discuss, but that this opinion of yours is highly subjective is rather obvious. It's ridiculous to blame Katz for not doing proper research just because he don't think much of religion. I suppose you, like everybody else, are painfully aware of the fact that religion never have done science anything but harm, so there's really no point in start listing examples, but there must be obvious even to an intellectual giant like yourself that people could have the opinion that religion simple have burned it's ships when it comes to deciding what areas of science should and should not be avoided (and I'm sure Galileo, for example, would agree with me there).
Jon Katz may or may not be able to think clearly, but meticulous bureaucrats like yourself should in either case nonetheless stay quiet.
My point is'nt actually that you'd need another prime cause for 'their' 'God'. My point is that, if they can so easily get rid of their first cause for 'their' 'God', well I don't need a first cause for 'my' 'Universe'. The first cause requirement is a logical fallacy.
After all, many different religions advocate
different moral systems, and some don't
advocate a moral system at all. If you have
a given set of morals, you can probably
find a religion that's ok with them, making you
no less free than if you were an atheist.
Atheism, like theism, is a broad category of
beliefs, and it's difficult to generalize about
either. Mysticism, materialists, some forms of
humanism, and various other philosophies all
fit under the broad banner of atheism, just as
christians, hindus, believers in the greek gods,
and many others fit under the broad banner of
theism.
To directly respond to your paragraph arguing
"How is atheism responsible...", if you're
religious, there's little difference. You
find the moral framework you like, then find the
religion that can justify it. Accept god? Which
one? It doesn't seem clear why jehovah is really
much of a better candicate than zeus, krishna,
or various other supposed deities for worship --
there's no evidence for any of them existing,
there's a good reason to believe that they all
were made up in order to secure social order,
and they're all described in fanciful texts with
plenty of things that we now can scientifically
verify as error.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Let me be brief. Are you comparing communism to religion? I would hope that the "large number" of smart religious people you refer to would never make or support such a stupid, unfounded statement. Let's see: Communism = 100 years. Religion = 10000 years. All in all, I think your punishment should be: Death by History Lessons. At least somebody should confiscate your keyboard. Idiot.
This is false. On average, only about 25% of sequenced DNA from organisms that we sequence right now is connected to actual genes. The rest of it either codes for genes for which we have no idea of their function or it codes for nothing -- so-called 'junk DNA'.
'Junk DNA' is postulated to have a benefit for organisms that can devote resources to replicating it, repairing it, etc. because it statistically reduces the effect of mutation on necessary DNA.
As an aside, if you want the best crab cakes you've probably ever tasted, check out Timbuktu Restaurant at 1726 Dorsey Rd. These things are the size of softballs. Amazing. Be prepared to wait though, that place is almost always packed.
Throw out religion, throw out ethics, throw it all out, and just look at the root of it all: science.
We're a culture of science. If you want the culture of religion, go back to Salem, Massachusetts in the 17th century. So, let's look at science:
The scientists don't really know what is going to happen, which is why they carrry out the experiment, but just removing possibly unneeded genetic material from an organism is no where near creating life.
EXACTLY! They don't know what's going to happen, so instead they have to DO it to find out. Except, are they mother nature? Have they been around for umpteen million years to know what survived and what didn't, know what code worked in this world and what didn't, know what could happen if they reintroduced certain genetic code?
Here's a what if (and the one I'm most afraid of): They create life that has just the minimum amount of genetic code to live. Do they know exactly what'll be created? What if...it was a virus? What if it might kill its creator? What if it adapted? What if someone decided to take this technology to manufacture viruses more powerful than Anthrax?
To create life and yet not know what kind of life we're creating is the most dangerous thing of all. It took mother nature MILLIONS of years to learn that dinosaurs were dumb, that saber tooth tigers needed smaller teeth, that bacteria need to change their code to survive... And we humans say "It took God a day to create humans, now watch us do it in an instant!"?!?
We should be saying something more along the lines of "It took God six days to create the Universe, now watch us take six days to dismantle it!"
doesn't that raise certain ultimate questions?
WOW, you actually almost kinda slightly hinted at maybe considering heading toward what could possibly be construed as not quite but almost that which resides in the area of what some might call a potentially thought provoking question! I'm really impressed Katz. Someone get this man a gold star!
In other news, Hell is experiencing a cold front.
Warning: this may be slightly offtopic
The interesting thing about this article is how Katz is trying to say we need to have a moral discussion about this research because it may fundementally change some of the 'truths' we've taken for granted. And when such truths are changed, there tends to be upheaval.
(cue Bicentennial Man/Heinlein tie-in)
What if the genetic research we're doing now leads to a real form of immortality? They're regrowing brain cells now. The actual ability to transplant a brain cannot be a medical impossibility. Perhaps it's a generation away, but we'll get there. So what if 100 years from now people (rich people, probably) have the ability to clone themselves from birth a million times and make those clones basically brain dead. Then, when their current body gets old and broken-down, they transplant their brain into a new clone, a younger clone, and go on living.
What does this mean for wealth accumulation? What does it mean for family life? (if my dad was 'younger' than me, thanks to this procedure) What does it mean for the entire set of instutitions that are setup around the idea of man being mortal? Afterlife? The afterlife is the body I keep in the clonebank.
The upheaval of such a thing would be incredible, considering the implications for rich/poor class conflict or north/south global conflict.
THIS is the kind of thing Katz is talking about, IMHO. We could discuss these long-term implications now, maybe find some kind of consensus or compromise among people today, before the people of tomorrow start killing each other over them.
IMHO.
This is in response to Jon Katz' article on genetic tampering and on many of the responses already. (if I am sending this to the wrong place, just let me know)
I believe that Katz's article was very enlightening and thought provoking, though I have some other places we can look for examples of genetic engineering. One example of genetic engineering is Jurassic Park, either the book or the movie. Scientist there played around with genes just as much as the prople in Gattaca did, only in Jurassic Park they brought back creatures that were 65 million years dead, as opposed to affecting living creatures. Jurassic Park shows just how dangerous genetic engineering tampering can be. No matter how careful we think we are, somethin can go wrong and get out of hand. So what if Dr. Ventor is able to make a new life form from the genes of and old and helpful bacteria. One little change in the genetic sequence can change this helpful guy into a horrible bowel eatting diesease that will kill every one. Maybe some smart person will manage to work out how to kill the disease before the human race is wiped out; but how long will this take? With the creator of the new disease being the first to die, someone else must learn all that he already has.
While society today is working on wiping out prejudices, the Gattacan society creatted the biggest prejudice of them all. Not only are prople looking at the color of Vincent/s skin, but they test blood, urine, hair samples as well as every little flake of dead skin that falls off. So what if he has a heart condition. Agreeably he should not be placed in a situation that could provoke his heart condition, but is sitting in a room with a computer entering data going to provoke a heart attack? Instead of this safe job, "his kind" is put to work as janitors, a job that is much more physical. This type of discrimination already worries people today, as employers will not hire prospective employees because they may have to pay more money for a genetic diesease that was not their fault in the first place. People should not be judged by a medical illness that could not be prevented. Really, how does a heart condition effect typing on a computer?
We should not 'play' around with genes of species "because we can". These are the famous last words of many who have payed for their mistakes. Once we are that shallow that we do something on this magnitude "because we can", many other factors are introduced into research and developement. Politics get involved, "hey vote for me because I can make every woman look 25, thin and blonde," and money becomes an issue. When this happens, the scientist are no longer researching for a better society, but for the higher paycheck. Another problem that gets involved is the possibility for the information to be used as weapons. Once an evil hand gets on the information, no telling what will happen. I'm not suggesting that we do not use genetic engineering, in fact is has been used for many years in agriculture to help produce food, I am just saying that we need to put a limit on how far we should go and that creating another species is over that limit. Helping cure AIDS, MD and other genetic diseases is research that is within the bounds and should be encouraged.
As to the religious involvement in this matter, I think that the religious officials should have some say in this matter, they should be able to give their opinions on the matter, but they should not have the final decision. The final decision should be made from a committee of scientist that have a good knowledge of the subject at hand but have no personal commitment in the case. Then they should hear debates from all sides and then decide whether or not genetic engineering on a certain topic should be attempted. This decision should be based on the possible outcomes of the experiment and the possible consequences on society.
Finally, science fiction has a lot to tell us and we can learn a lot about the possible future if we only listen. As stated in the article, it has already predicted genetic engineering, missions to Mars, and manned space flight. Science fiction shows us the possible ups and downs that are associated with a possible experiment. If this is scientifically sound, then all that is left is the question, "Can society today handle such an idea?"
This is in response to Jon Katz' article on genetic tampering and on many of the responses already.
I believe that Katz's article was very enlightening and thought provoking, though I have some other places we can look for examples of genetic engineering. One example of genetic engineering is Jurassic Park, either the book or the movie. Scientist there played around with genes just as much as the prople in Gattaca did, only in Jurassic Park they brought back creatures that were 65 million years dead, as opposed to affecting living creatures. Jurassic Park shows just how dangerous genetic engineering tampering can be. No matter how careful we think we are, somethin can go wrong and get out of hand. So what if Dr. Ventor is able to make a new life form from the genes of and old and helpful bacteria. One little change in the genetic sequence can change this helpful guy into a horrible bowel eatting diesease that will kill every one. Maybe some smart person will manage to work out how to kill the disease before the human race is wiped out; but how long will this take? With the creator of the new disease being the first to die, someone else must learn all that he already has.
While society today is working on wiping out prejudices, the Gattacan society creatted the biggest prejudice of them all. Not only are prople looking at the color of Vincent/s skin, but they test blood, urine, hair samples as well as every little flake of dead skin that falls off. So what if he has a heart condition. Agreeably he should not be placed in a situation that could provoke his heart condition, but is sitting in a room with a computer entering data going to provoke a heart attack? Instead of this safe job, "his kind" is put to work as janitors, a job that is much more physical. This type of discrimination already worries people today, as employers will not hire prospective employees because they may have to pay more money for a genetic diesease that was not their fault in the first place. People should not be judged by a medical illness that could not be prevented. Really, how does a heart condition effect typing on a computer?
We should not 'play' around with genes of species "because we can". These are the famous last words of many who have payed for their mistakes. Once we are that shallow that we do something on this magnitude "because we can", many other factors are introduced into research and developement. Politics get involved, "hey vote for me because I can make every woman look 25, thin and blonde," and money becomes an issue. When this happens, the scientist are no longer researching for a better society, but for the higher paycheck. Another problem that gets involved is the possibility for the information to be used as weapons. Once an evil hand gets on the information, no telling what will happen. I'm not suggesting that we do not use genetic engineering, in fact is has been used for many years in agriculture to help produce food, I am just saying that we need to put a limit on how far we should go and that creating another species is over that limit. Helping cure AIDS, MD and other genetic diseases is research that is within the bounds and should be encouraged.
As to the religious involvement in this matter, I think that the religious officials should have some say in this matter, they should be able to give their opinions on the matter, but they should not have the final decision. The final decision should be made from a committee of scientist that have a good knowledge of the subject at hand but have no personal commitment in the case. Then they should hear debates from all sides and then decide whether or not genetic engineering on a certain topic should be attempted. This decision should be based on the possible outcomes of the experiment and the possible consequences on society.
Finally, science fiction has a lot to tell us and we can learn a lot about the possible future if we only listen. As stated in the article, it has already predicted genetic engineering, missions to Mars, and manned space flight. Science fiction shows us the possible ups and downs that are associated with a possible experiment. If this is scientifically sound, then all that is left is the question, "Can society today handle such an idea?"
I don't really think that Gattaca was some social critizism of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering was more of a tool used to tell a story about the human spirit and the adversity that it can overcome. There were many different thing that makers of that film could have used, race, gender, or whatever else has been used historically to hold people down. But in using a futuristic senrario, they are not tied by historical and politcal issues. Also, by using a currently popular topic like genetic engineering, they capture our imagination and draw us in. We are able to relate to the story, understand its message, without some social prejudice like race blinding us.
Also how the hell can Katz know that the movie is really a documentary of the early 21st century. I didn't know that he was an oracle.
Humanity will muddle through these isssues, just like it always has. This new knowledge will be used for good and evil purposes, just like any other technology. And in the end mankind will create a morality for it's use, just like it always has. And people will have debate about this stuff. And finally, religion may change but it will never go away, for it is also part of human nature.
"Attention Citizens, 2+2 now equals 3.947547175. Please recalibrate your equipment now" --The Computer
I seem to be hearing a lot of people talk about modern genetics and biotech and usually they use some Frankenstein metaphor and end the article with some obtuse reference to how this is a big moral debate and how we much be careful. But, I have yet to see anyone bring up any specific problems other them, "people might do bad with this knowledge." I'm not sure there has been a single fact in human history that people haven't done bad with. This is powerful stuff, biotech. You could use it to completely revolutionize the world in a billion and two ways and you could also use it to make weapons and terrible social conditions. The real question isn't about God, or people playing God or God play people. The real question is should we do this or not. Does the possible good out weight the possible harm? And truth be told we don't have a choice. Because its going to happen no matter what you and I say. If it can be done some one will try it. But these statements apply to all new technologies. My point is unless you have a specific problem with some new piece of biotech information don't end you articles with ambiguous negative statements.
Even if scientists can find out everything about the human genome, which is the genetic code that makes us what we are, there would be many diseases that would remain uncured. Cancer is not a programed genetic defect but a mutation caused by environmental conditions. However, I will admit that the potential to eliminate retroviruses such as H.I.V. means that there is a valid reason to continue the research.
Cancer is caused by many, many different things, some of them indeed being genetic defects. In these cases, gene therapy would be very useful for preventing cancer in prone individuals and in some cases, fixing the defect causing the cancer (for instance, unrestricted cell proliferation combined with tissue invasiveness).
Gene therapy for treating HIV isn't really an option, since its not a genetic defect per se, but a viral infection. I could be proven wrong any day, but I don't really see the gene therapy mechanism that will prevent clonal selection on T-cells, which is the (last I heard) primary kill mechansim of HIV (one of the HIV proteins binds to the T-cell receptor, blocking its function in immature T-cells, and the body prunes these out as defective, and this protein is recycled, much like chloro-flouro carbons toasting the O3 in the atmosphere...a little dab 'll do ya).
Regarding the proposal to create a bacterium, I just have to ask: what ethical issue is there? Or more clearly, what is there about synthesizing a bacterium that raises any new ethical issues?
"Creating life?" Where, specifically, is the ethical issue? Why is it any different to line up some bacterial genes in a cell than, say, inject a cell with a nucleus that is created from living animals? That's how cloning works. And that's how some fertility treatments work, too. And how is synthesizing a genome significantly different than randomly cutting out bits and/or adding them? We can do this now, too, and it is done routinely to bacteria to see how they work.
"Will it be a horrid monster capable of destroying humanity?" Answer: no. But in any case, this issue is already present: biological weapons. We are already routinely deploying biological weapons, not to mentions other weapons of mass destruction. Even if it is ethically wrong to do so, then the ethical issue is about imposing risks on others, not engineering. And we have dealt with this: imposing danger on others is OK up to a certain level, and practically speaking "national security" seems to justify a very high level.
"It is OK to kill it?" Answer: yes. We kill off entire species every day, no sweat. And indeed, some are almost certainly better off dead: consider smallpox.
So? Where's the beef?
All this concetration on genetics and philosophy has caused you to stray from your one true cause: Columbine! WHERE IS THE ACRTICLE ABOUT THE VIDEOS????
heh.
Blar.
> Are we meant to create life? I don't think so.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Nature allows us to pro-create: We create another organism anytime a mother (human or animal) has a child.
Cheers
"God" flew about in a space ship, started a science experiment a few billion years ago to prove it could create life. Maybe "God" is especially long lived (not unreasonable when you've reverse engineered life) or has since died. We're whats left.... Once life has been reverse engineered next comes the universe. (The universe K6 -- it's "Our universe compatible, only $99 at WalMart)
I wonder if the laws of various countries against reverse engineering apply to the genetic code?
Getting lots of interesting e-mail, thanks. As usual, many of these posts suggest I'm too ignorant to engage in a discussion like this. But this is the problem. This discussion shouldn't be in closed circle..geneticists, biologists, clergyman and rabbis..It should include nitwits like me. When you start talking about creating life, or altering life -- sometimes obviously worthwhile things to do, as in eradicating disease -- everybody should be invited to the table for a huge discussion. I reject the patronizing suggestion that only trained ph'd's are smart enuf to to get into this discussion. That's the problem with science, if you even glance at its history. Scientists make great things that often have horrific consequences..just look at much of the 20th Century (the Net and the booming economy isn't the only story). I refuse to back off of conversations like this because ill-tempered elitists say nobody but them is really qualified to participate.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
This is total BS. I said no such thing.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
In the spirit of Christmas, I've started the Help Jon Katz Foundation.
All proceeds will be used to buy Jon both a Clue, and some Writing Talent.
You CAN make a difference.
The only risk of early genetic engineering is to create a new organism that other life forms aren't
able to defend themselves against. But this risk will go away once we start improving the
security of our immune system.
If we could improve our immune system, we could protect ourselves against any disease that already
exist or that we could accidentally create. Surely we could "program" it to be more intelligent
and aware of certain diseases like aids. Instead of getting vaccines we could get
"anti-virus updates".
Some people see genetic engineering as a screening of unwanted genes in unborn children. The fact is
we won't have to use this morally questionnable technique. We will probably be able to take some
genetic stuff from the mother, some from the father and the parts that have been engineered.
As for those who say that only rich people will have access to it first, I don't a good enough
reason to stop this research. Should we have stopped learning because education was given only
to rich people? Should we have stopped to learn about the human body because medecine was available
only to rich people? No. If GE children are engineered so that even if they mate with a non-GE
their good genes will be passed on, eventually everybody will benefit from it because rich people
don't always stay rich. Anyway, by the time this is doable, I seriously doubt, and hope, we
won't be living in a capitalist society.
Finally, I'd like to point out that engineering someone to be smart is not as easy as protecting
him from aids since we don't even have a good definition of what intelligence is.
Bob B.
I think you need to dig a bit deeper than that. Saying "That religion has caused more wars than 'any other force in history'" isn't exactly correct. In some cases it's the action of the people that follow those religions, but not the religion itself. (atleast, in the case of say, christianity.) If you look at the Gospels, the general message is of forgiveness, and *not* waging huge bloody wars for the sake of defending your position. It's not the actual religion then that is then causing the war, but the followers willingness to put the belief on a pedistal. This enables them to completely disobey the teachings of the religion to "protect" it. The religion is a belief and concept, it can't do anything of it's own power. I don't believe it's correct to say that it has anything at all on it's hands, because it isn't capible of doing anything. Christians do have blood on thier hands, the same as everyone else, which is what is really important. People need to recognize that everyone does to a certain extent. Christians simply beleive that it can be washed off by grace.
> In fact, I've seen some recent scientific discoveries and theories that to me, PROVE the existence of God.
Like what?
I don't think it is possible to confirm (or deny) existance claims.
If you mean Science's inability to explain WHY the Universe formed, or WHERE the Big Bang matter came from in the first place, then I agree with you.
Cheers
Are you thinking of Christian Scientists, dude?
This article seemed quite uninformed to me. It had a lot of misconceptions that the general public has about genetics and science. I think if Jon Katz wants to look at these issues, he should spend a serious amount of time researching them, instead of writing a fluff piece that tries to stir up fear, just like mainstream media.
This is all is too far away to worry about, they squawk. Or it won't really happen. Only scientists, programmers and biologists understand it enough to talk about it, anyhow.
Instant science does not exist. Although mapping the human genome sounds fantastic... it doesn't necessarily mean that you understand it completely. I think people have seen too many movies that contain Instant Science(tm) and they think that happens IRL. The thing I am thinking of in particular is movies like Outbreak, where some new disease is found, and during the course of a few weeks, days or even hours... they manage to create a vaccine to save the main character who is dying. This does not happen in the real world. From knowing which genes are necessary for life, it's quite a step to be creating it yourself, I'll bet.
And since when do programmers know all that much about genetic science? People spend years studying it in university and will often only work in a specialized area. I admit I don't know all that much about it myself. I do, however, know someone who works in the field (admittedly, they work in plant genetics). And I think that I have a bit more balanced view of genetics than the average Joe Schmoe.
What's so bizarre about "Gattaca" is that it's not really even science fiction, but an early documentary of the 21st Century.
Um... right... I think we're still a ways from a society that buys genes for their kids. Comparing current research to that is like comparing a horse drawn wagon to a car.
But where is this debate supposed to occur? In Threads on Slashdot? In the United States Congress, whose idea of technological debate is requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools? Or in the American media, still stuck on hacking and cracking, e-commerce, or whether or not Johnny will sneak onto the Playboy website?
Why is Jon Katz *always* so USA-centric. When this debate becomes necessary (I think it's still a bit early on to really know what we can do), it should be held at the UN or on some other similarly global level.
And as for the religious issues, I'm sure the various religions will work it in and change their interpretation of things, just as they have done through out history. People who go on faith are most likely to argue about it a bit and then find a way to incorporate it into their beliefs.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
It certainly does raise those questions, but they're not the shocking new questions the authors (including Mr. Katz) are so pleased to be raising, but rather they're the same questions that have been thrown back and forth since the publication of The Origin of Species, now rediscovered in a new situation, i.e. man creating new species rather than good old evolution doing the work. This is not to imply that these questions aren't worth considering, but rather that this is simply a new facet to a century old debate.
There's also the matter of everyone speaking about "life" as if it had a concrete definition. Religious and scientific authorities both find themselves at a bit of a loss for words when asked, "What do you mean by life?" In the absence of such a definition, any debate on whether moral lines are being crossed will be fruitless. There are immense differences between creating a new bacterium and creating a new mammal. Though, come to think of it, we did that back in the day.
So stop your mule-ing and give us something to talk about.
Jonathan
"Oh, gee, we didn't represent with the chaos!" -- Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle
While I was reading this article, I was thinking "this is so stupid, i'm sure that it's by Katz" and guess what? i was right. Sure, me and the Katzster share the same ideas on religion, but his ideas on genetic research are dumb. He likes to pain the picutre that scientists are these emotionless robots who have no conern for the world at large. Scientists are motivated by their need for answers, and also, their sincere interest in making the world a better place.
Here we have a common misconception. There need not be anything before the Big Bang, because there is no 'before the Big Bang.' Time is not something which governs the reasons behind the Big Bang. Time is of necessity a dimension within the space/time continuum. Hence Time only affects those things which are within that continuum. Our entire existence, the entire existence of the universe, everything is simply one slice of that continuum.
I agree, WHEN are people going to learn that Science and Religion answer DIFFERENT questions.
5 7/qid%3D945198336/103-8446442-0345409
;-)
Science is great at telling us HOW, i.e HOW the universe formed, and Religion attempts to answer WHY, i.e WHY the universe exists at all.
Science and Religion are NOT mutually exclusive, and I'm tired of the 2 extremes of people beating their chests with:
a) the science of religion dogma (aka theosists who take opposition to science), and
b) the religion of science dogma (scientists proclaiming they don't need a God to answer any of the Universe's question, since emprical knowledge is all we need.)
i.e. Science just hand-waves where the orginal Big Bang matter came from, and rightly so, they CAN'T answer that. The religious sect are just as guilty with the saying "God just made the universe, you don't need to know how". Uhm, no, humans are curious by nature, and want to know HOW the universe works.
Personally, I would say sciece is just re-discovering existing laws, and providing a better understanding of how the whole darn universe works (allthough gravity still throws us for a loop, pardon the pun.)
Scientific knowledge is limited, and CAN'T answer all the questions. (How do you perform repeatable and verifable experiments on the meta-physical, aka spirtual realm?)
A GREAT book which goes into an in depth analysis of this "debate" is "Fire in the Equations."
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/08028435
I believe in the rationality and logic of Science and Religion. Does that make me crazy?
Cheers
I met one once whilst in EUrope. Blond, tall, blue eyes, gorgeous in every way. We need more of them! Clone, clone clone damnit!
Technology has advanced to the point (or more specifically, is now advancing at a such a rate) that we've lost "control" of it
I've seen a lot of smart people express this same vague feeling that technology is out of control. None of them can back up that assertion to my satisfaction. I think this goes back to C.P. Snow's 'two cultures' concept - that our society is split between the scientifically literate and those who concentrate on non-scientific matters, and the two sides are not talking to each other much. The non-scientific side really HAS lost control of technology, because the other half of the culture - us - have it in our grasp.
The description of the current state of genetic engineering reminds me of the state of computing technology around the start of WWII. We're taking a look at building the first steps in what will probably become the "next big thing" technology in the 21st century. Maybe in another 4 years all we can build is a simple, single celled organism that sits in a jar and feeds itself, maybe producing something useful as a waste product. But I think that very quickly we're going to build on that development, the same way that we built on the very first and most primitive designs of computers and adding machines. There are bound to be advances, and there are bound to be mistakes. I think this is why it is clear that this is the proper time to start discussing the implications of this sort of technology. I don't so much see the ethical problems involved, unless we're talking about large scale genetic testing and screening that could be used in a descriminatory fashion. Frankly, to my presonal and religious beliefs, a genetically created/cloned/vat grown organism is not any different or more spectacular than any other sort of organism. But the impact on the ecosystem is a very real concern; we are talking about organisms that will be interacting with the world in a completely novel way. I think that great advances will be possible, even safe advances, if scientists exert proper caution and care.
the moderation system needs some work -- crap like this should not happen. i'm sure a dozen people have come across this post and said "that's not funny..." but none of them could do anything about this. i'd really like to see how the who-wants-to-be-a-millionare-the-audience-is-never -wrong effect works on slashdot.
-- Adam
....Why, game theory, of course!
Joe and Ed are stranded in the wild, with few resources between them and no hope of rescue. What's their best hope for survival? Well, Ed could kill Joe and take all his stuff, yes, but what happens when Ed twists his ankle or needs help cutting trees for a shelter? So it's in Ed's best interest to keep Joe around and on friendly terms....but Joe isn't going to be all that helpful to Ed if Ed doesn't return the favor to Joe, right? It's got to be tit-for-tat, or it just doesn't work. So Ed and Joe need to work out a division of labor and agree on exactly how far each is willing to go to help the other ("I'll risk my life to save you from wild animals if you'd do the same for me!") because it's to their mutual benefit. Of course, Ed may take it into his head to claim he'll help but not stand up to his side of the bargain, thus gaining the best of both worlds....for a while, anyway, because Joe will eventually catch on, and then it's suddenly in Joe's best interest to whack Ed and take all his stuff and try and get by on his own. And so a moral code is born.
Scale this up to encompass thousands or millions of people, add in the complexities caused by success being measured not on personal survival, but on how successful you are at passing on your genes to the next generation (putting the thinking firmly in Darwin's hands), and you get a situation where the best survival strategy manifests itself in moral codes that the majority live by and a minority occasionally stretch or break for the promise of immediate gain while risking the benefits society can provide.
Altruism, moral codes, law, the precedence of family over friends over community over society at large, are all explained by game theory and genetics working together. :) (And, to tell the truth, I'd much rather see altruistic behavior as a function of selfish genes than a result of all us inherently bad-nasy people cringing in terror of some almighty overlord waving a bolt of lightning at us and booming out "Behave!" as he scowls down upon our reprehensible hides, hey?)
"...the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?"
This proves Katz is an ignorant bigot.
If what I said is nonsense,
I'm making a point with it.
If what I said makes perfect sense,
you obviously missed the point.
Hi All,
I find it rather amusing that they would have to consider a public debate and consulting about the morality on the basis that religions find it a problem. But who's religion? Are we only referring to those who read the Bible or are we taking into account more than that?
Everytime someone announces a scientific discovery, people have cried God. Much like how Peter cried wolf. They say the scientists are trying to play God and that is wrong.
I'm sorry, but that is total bullshit. When the first surgeons operated on corpses, that was considered playing God. Their techniques and knowledge saved millions. When people covered the topic of artificial intelligences, there were people who screamed that they were trying to play God once again. When abortion issues came up, once again, the cry of playing God. And with artificial insemination to help infertile couples have children, people claimed they were playing God again.
When the cloning of sheep took place, people were outraged that these scientists were playing God. That what they were doing was wrong. More bullshit.
Now, when scientists have discovered a means to assemble a living thing from the most basic components to help further science, they feel they have to ask for religious consultation.
I don't think it is the fear of God, but the fear of Man. The fear that _WE_, could be the next test subjects. That if life can be created in a hospital, a laboratory, a test tube... that it would somehow debase _OUR_ lives to that of mere science. That _WE_ are no longer the center of the universes. That we are no better and no worse than any other life on this planet.
And what is wrong with that? Aren't we flesh and blood? Aren't we destined to die and return to the Earth and to be recycled? Aren't we subject to the same birth and death cycles as any other creature on this planet is subject to?
Yes. We are. The only difference, I think, is that now, the test subject is ourselves. Now, we feel we are placed under the lens and the knife. It is personal now.
And that worry is fine. But don't make it a religious burden. Don't claim people are trying to play God when all they are trying to do is save lives and further our knowledge.
When you have people dictating life and death over all others, then you are confronted with a person who is playing God. When you see a person working to unravel the mysteries of life, you are seeing a scientist. Try not to confuse the two.
I'm surprised no groups have complained about AiBo the AI-dog or some of the simulation games where the player actually plays a God. It just reinforces the notion that people don't fear God's wrath, but fear their own sense of self being violated.
Peace to all and Happy Holidays!
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Why must people insist that "God" is someone or something more than an idea. A way to control the ignorant masses. Question: If all "believers in God" died, would god continue to exist? Answer: In my opinion, the answer is "no". Why? Because "god is only an idea". It is a lazy answer to how the universe and life started. Since you can't confront god, this mystery provides the necessary fear to control the ignorant masses. Now that isn't so much an insult as it sounds. Even today there are people that can't think well enough for themselves, that the use of religion and a god works well to keep them on the right track. It is much easier to tell them not to eat pork than it is to tell them how and why it needs to be cooked properly.
All, This issue comes toward this single point: It is not wether it is right or wrong for whatever reasons.... it is that humans are curious and will continue to investigate and often do so more rapidly when told not to. I agree that some of it could be used for negative purposes, but I won't stop the research because I can grasp the positives AND I know that it is not impossible to stop. =>Pandora's Box is already open. It is a question of IF it can be stopped if deemed bad... It can't. In a crude analogy, it is like losing your virginity... there is some new knowledge that you cannot forget or lose even if you wanted to.. Instead of debating the ethics, it is more productive and practical to establish a highly functional mechanisim for regulation and standards within. Now that's hard to do $$$. People (public) have to want it =spend $$$ to protect genetic rights. By the way, we pay for much of it already. http://www.ornl.gov/TechResources/Human_Genome/hom e.html Gattaca, Blade Runner, Alien Ressurection, the past scholarly works cited in this Slashdot column, etc... The same thing ensues. Technology is beginning to get bigger and more powerful and difficult to manage for even the US government. (DO a search on NSA and cryptography... you'll see.) It is here, it has happened, and it will happen much much more. If you want to be in the 'New Priesthood', learn computers, biochemistry, and nural networking. -These are the future fields that will change more profoundly in the next few decades than the alchemist took to become a pharmacist or how a barber evolved to a orthodontist over the last two centuries. -Joe R. 12-14-99 joerickets@hotmail.com Here is a good link of resources: http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~baker/biomedic.html
Umm.... I challenge you to find ANY examples of communist bloodshed/genocide that measure up to the Crusades, jihad, Inquisition, etc. I mean, communism has only been around for the last 3/4 of a century!!! Compare that to your 2000 years of dogmatic bigotry. Any "evils" of communism were not a result of the philosophy, but of nationalism and ruthless individual leaders. You have fallen victim to Western anti-communism (McCarthy) propaganda.
Any "evils" of Christianity were not a result of the philosophy, but of nationalism and ruthless individual leaders. You have fallen victim to the Antheist anti-Christian propaganda.
The actions of a group are almost never the result of a concious decision by that group but of powermad leaders that have managed to sieze power some how. I imagine that BEFORE they were whipped into a frenzy by some dictator the citizens of a certain country had no problems with a certain ethnic group and had no desire to dump said group into gas chambers. Christianity as a whole has never embarked on a Crusade, several political leaders who had been granted power over the church proclaimed a crusade, and many blood thirsty Christians used that as an excuse to loot and pillage a neighboring land in the hopes of salvation in a Jihad, not to mention bringing home a big pack full of gold.
The actions of these few however were not indicative of the entire community any more than Gritsboy and that guy with the stone fetish are indicative of this community.
to address your next point, I don't believe we have any Shinto, Buddhist or Muslim followers in the discussion right now. If there were I should hope they would share their views.
As for religious leaders being wide of the mark, at least they make scientists stop and consider the social ramifications of their discoveries instead of only the technical ramifications.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
There's life in maryland?
Now *I* need a martini...
<relurk>
Usually, it's Jon Katz who is the one guilty of techno-determinism; this time it's his critics.
It is not inevitable that the human genome will be decoded.
Likely? Yes, if things continue. But there's nothing inevitable about it. Y2K or a stray asteroid could wipe out technological society before the HGP completes. The governments of the world could stop funding HGP and outlaw further experimentation. All of the scientists involved could have a change of heart and abandon the project. The future is not know to us, and the progress of the HGP is due to deliberate human effort, not some force of nature.
No, the first question is whether this is worth doing at all. That is what Katz (in his unfortunately flame-baited style) is pointing out.
Only after the first question is answered does the second become relevant.
I suppose you will point out that the HGP will almost certainly complete no matter what public debate happens at this point. This is probably true, but it hardly reassures me that my voice is going to be heard on whether the results will be patentable.
O, what hubris!
A familiarity with software, and an agreement with the principles of open source, does not confer any special understanding of ethics and especially bioethics. This is arrogant (to think that because we know software, we are better equipped than the biochemists to know what they are doing) and elitist (because I Am A Technologist, my opinion matters more than my mom's).
We're talking about two millenia worth of thought and reflection on life and morality here, Jon, not some Johnny-come-lately spawn of the so-called Enlightenment.
...
So, four centuries since the Enlightenment aren't enough? Christianity was starting to go mainstream after four centuries, and had already laid down all of its fundamental doctrine and philosophy. IMHO it hasn't produced anything interesting since.
As far as bodycounts, I think you're falling victim to ahistoricism. The 20th century has been bloody but there was lots of violence and genocide before - and for the last two millenia most of it has had a religious element. When you mentioned Communism you hit on the only ideology which can compete with Monotheism in terms of bodycount, but religion has too big a head start to overcome (I think - I haven't totaled the numbers, either.) Stalin's purges? Thirty Year's War. Great Leap Forward? Conquest of America. Cultural Revolution? Pogroms and the Holocaust. We can play this game all day, but ultimately there's no point.
Whoops, I implicitly made a Nazi reference. Now the flames really start
"It seems the 1997 movie "Gattaca" wasn't science fiction at all,"
Definitely! It was total SciFi if you ask me. Ya know, if you like peanuts, you'll LOVE SciFi (with all due credit to HE)...
"but an early documentary of the 21st Century."
narrated by the disembodied head of Montgomery Burns?
"Geneticists are hard at work"
Day trading, web browsing, playing Freecell..."on the Humane Genome Project and want to map the gene pool of Iceland."
But unfortunately, since they're all guys, they're too proud to ask for directions.
"They also claim they've found the essence of life in Maryland"
And here I thought they found it first in their bedroom, under the covers one night, shortly after hitting puberty.
"and hope to create a completely new species"
I've managed that several times just by leaving take out food in the fridge too long. Now where's my Nobel prize, huh? huh?
"after a full and public debate,"
on the Jerry Springer show.
"of course."
Yep, you're the man.
"If we're creating life, doesn't that raise some loaded questions about history and religion?"
And more importantly, when we create history and religion, doesn't that raise some loaded questions about life?
"And where, exactly, is this debate (which Victor Frankenstein's monster started 200 years ago) supposed to occur?"
You mean Victor Frankenstein's monster was the founder of the Toastmasters? Wow!
"Slashdot's Threads? Congress? MSNBC?"
JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!
"No subject sends the techno-ostriches ("we-just-make-this-stuff, we're-not-responsible-for-it") rushing angrily for their holes in the ground faster than any suggestion that genetic research, increasingly computer driven, is proceeding more rapidly than any consideration of the staggeringly complex social, moral and ethical issues it raises."
You mean like trying to blame violent behavior on video games and rock music sends a disparate but spiritually similar crowd off on a mad dash for those same holes? Nah, of course you don't, that would be the same sort of scapegoating you crusaded against just a few short months ago.
"This is all is too far away to worry about, they squawk. Or it won't really happen. Only scientists, programmers and biologists understand it enough to talk about it, anyhow."
You mean we really ought to work out a simple test to delineate safe "scientists" from potentially dangerous "scientists"? Perhaps some sort of "scientist" profile that anyone can understand?
"But 1997's eerily"
slow
"prescient movie "Gattaca" proves once more that science fiction does better peering into the future than scientists themselves."
Yeah, posers like Isaac Asimoc, Arthur C. Clarke, Linus Pauling, Hans Morevec, Eric Drexler and Carl Sagan didn't have a thing on GATTACA, go Johnny go! Teach those "scientists" a lesson just like in that eerily prescient mini-series, _V_.
Or perhaps you measure prognostication proficiency with your a Thurmanometer in which case I plan to head for the hills when all that stuff in _The Avengers_ comes true!
"In that movie, whose ads included a line that says: "There is no gene for the human spirit," Vincent (Ethan Hawke) a young man of the future, wants to travel in space,"
Spaceboy zoom, and his wonder doll, Uma!
"but he can't because he has a heart condition. So he can't pass the genetic screening tests that have turned humanity into a two-tiered class, the perfect and the others. Vincent is one of the last "natural" babies born into a sterile, genetically-enhanced world, where life expectancy and health are determined instantly at birth. Myopic and slated to die at 30, he has no chance of a prestigious career in a society that no longer discriminates because of race or gender, but because of genes."
I prefer to think of this movie as an eerily prescient view of the parallel universe where Apple computers took over the world and Steve Jobs became president.
"He assumes the identity of Jerome, healthy at birth but crippled in an accident, who provides Vincent with hair, blood and urine samples"
the essence of life
"to he can get through checkpoints and pass the astronaut's screening tests. Vincent plans to voyage into space in only a few days if he can avoid the gene police, who are trying to track him through an eyelash he left behind on an office floor after a superior who discovered his secret is found dead."
Of course we shouldn't let the whole technological absurdity of trying to avoid said genetic screening whilst being physically present coupled with the simple fact that a country that has $h!+ fits over irradiated food would never let this caste system get established ruin a good story, eh?
"What's so bizarre about "Gattaca" is that it's not really even science fiction, but an early documentary of the 21st Century."
Oooohhhh repetition of a central theme yet again! I can't wait for the third time you say this! I hope you remember to say it differently!
"Genome research is now going on all over the world, the idea that we can unravel the essence of life enthralling scientists, who believe they may at long last be able to eliminate mental and physical disease, prolong life, and greatly ease human suffering."
If this means you're actually going to research a subject before you post about it in the future then I'm all for it!
"In all this enthusiasm, there is less consideration of the nature of a world in which there is no human suffering, or what, precisely, suffering even means. Or in which whole categories of humanity - the mentally and physically impaired, the short, the ugly, the rebellious, the depressed, the addictive - may soon begin vanishing from the earth."
Of course, let's not even bother to ask the mentally and physically impaired, the short, the ugly, and oh wait so how did we suddenly make the jump to mental screening? Sounds like a cheap ploy to get us all back to thinking about how this relates to Columbine. Ha, you didn't fool me!
"There isn't much talk either about the social implications of a reality in which this high-powered genetic screening capabilities are available only to technologically-advanced classes and cultures."
Perhaps that's because a free market will open up too many opportunities for that to ever happen?
"News of Gattaca Nation projects roll in almost daily. There is the Mother Gattaca Project, the Human Genome Project, stumbling but well on its way to cataloguing all the DNA strands of human existence sometime in the 21st century."
Headed of course by Dr. Emma Peel, late of that tragic weather control project that claimed the life and sanity of James Bond, agent 007, who commenced work shortly after having her "perfect baby".
"Last week, a genetic research company announced it planned to map the genes of the entire Icelandic population and to beginning drawing DNA samples there. The 275,000 mostly homogeneous residents of Iceland are considered ideally suited to genetic study; according to Wired News"
Wired News: if you heard it here, post in on Slashdot!
"researchers believe that creating a massive genetic database could lead to the discovery of disease patterns and new drugs."
Oh the horror!
"Last Tuesday, microbiologists at the University of North Carolina said they had examined two of the smallest known bacteria, a kind known as Mycoplasma. Their minimum set of genes -- the ones needed to survive and replicate in a nutrient-rich environment -- from 265 to 350, said the researchers, who told reporters that building a cell from scratch no longer appears impossible."
More importantly, how long will it be until they create an army of genetically enhanced Slashdot posters all in the style of Jonathan Katz?
"Elsewhere last week, the BBC"
The BBC: if you can't trust the science news from the guys who brought you _Monty Python's Flying Circus_ and _Doctor Who_, then who CAN you trust?
"reported, scientists working at the Institute for Genome Research in Maryland announced that they believe they have found the essence of life - at least on a genetic level - which comes down to about 300 genes. This is the minimum set of molecular instructions required to build a living organism. "It [the building of such an organism] would clearly be creating a new species of life that does not exist," conceded Dr. Craig Venter, founder of the Institute for Genetic Research (TIGR) and the head of the Celera Genomics Corporation."
So they're going to create a new life form, but it's not actually going to exist? Wow, that raises some pretty loaded questions about philosophy, doesn't it?
"Dr. Venter is unequivocal: he now has the ability to build a living organism - a new species. This statement ought to have rocked the world, sending journalists, ethicists, scientists, lawmakers and politicians scurrying to figure out what that means for humanity, good and bad."
And miss out on the VA Research IPO? You M U S T be joking!
"But apart from links to a few websites (including this one), it barely made news at all."
But that VA Research IPO sure did! I think they're the ones who REALLY created life!
"The lessons of technology - that it is inherently unpredictable, and even the best intentions often unleash unintended consequence - ought to make us wary of this runaway genetic research."
In much the same way that we should we wary of asking Aunt Minnie to install Linux on a FAT16 partition?
"Dr. Venter made a point of telling reporters that there will be no effort made to proceed with this experiment until there has been a "full and public debate.""
Ooooh two themes repeated now! Damn you're good!
"But it's worth noting that Dr. Venter and his team want to study the ethical issues after, not before, his team in Maryland has already pared down the tiniest-known living organism, a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium, to its essential genes."
Yeah, we really have to do something about all these "scientists" being so darned inquisitive! Maybe if we gave them ritalin...
"It's dubious this secret will be kept for long, no matter what the result of this "debate." If these findings weren't troubling, even to the scientists uncovering them, why the need for a debate at all?"
Indeed! Let's skip right to the executions!
"M. genitalium, says Dr. Venter, lives in the human genital tract and lungs, causes no known disease, but has fewer genes than any other known living thing."
Smug little creep!
"Humans have beetween 80,000 and 140,000 genes, say geneticists, but M. genitalium has just 480."
Just remember, it's not how many genes you have that matter, but rather how you use them.
""I think if we could get down to the point of truly understanding and having one of the formulas for life - and you have to understand that there are thousands if not millions of different formulas - it would be a profound breakthrough," Dr. Venter told the BBC."
Duh?
"That's an understatement."
Duh^2?
"Finding the formula for life would dwarf almost any previous scientific achievement that comes to mind, not to mention knocking conventional religion and theology on their antiquated behinds."
Yawn. You really ought to start reading books published _after_ Louis Pasteur disproved Spontaneous Generation...
"What is a theologian supposed to tell some kid who can read the recipe for human life?"
If he does it, he'll go blind?
"If we can make it, doesn't that raise certain ultimate questions?"
Damn right like why didn't we come with built-in routers and 3D displays?
"Dr. Venter says that "we are not going to carry out this experiment until there has been a broader debate on this issue," a common refrain among biologists and geneticists."
Hey you can let up on Dr. Venter now, that's one "scientist" who won't be troubling the world any more thanks to you! Now let us press forward to the rest of those so-called "scientists" up to no good supposedly trying to cure diseases, save the environment, and increase food supplies!
"But where is this debate supposed to occur? In Threads on Slashdot? In the United States Congress, whose idea of technological debate is requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools? Or in the American media, still stuck on hacking and cracking, e-commerce, or whether or not Johnny will sneak onto the Playboy website?"
Wow, THREE whole repeated themes! And if you say them all THREE times then I bet you'll bring about the THREE horsemen of the apoca... no wait oh never mind.
"Recently a group of bio-ethicists met with a panel drawn from the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Protestant faiths"
in order to come up with some new jokes.
"and concluded: "There is nothing in the research agenda for creating a minimal genome that is automatically prohibited by legitimate religous considerations."
But since these guys don't post to _Slashdot_, read _Wired News_, and watch the BBC, they don't know anything!
"So what? Is that the only major ethical issue? And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?"
Let us not stop with the "scientists"! Onward to the priests, ministers, and rabbis! No one is safe from the Inquisition!
"Dr. Venter has only to log onto the discussion that will follow this column to get a realistic dose of just how likely it is that a rational, coherent public discussion of "scientists-playing-God" will take place."
Oh yeah, Slashdot is a paradigm for reality all right. Did nursey forget to give you the blue pill today?
""Gattaca" wasn't the first crack that culture took at this issue. Mary Shelley published her brilliant take nearly two hundred years ago in the novel "Frankenstein", which found in the discovery and taming of nature's most powerful secrets a hidden agenda for trouble."
Oh so that's who you were talking about back at the beginning and here I thought you were talking about that Mel Brooks movie!
"Victor Frankenstein didn't like being questioned"
Sounds familiar, eh?
"about the morality of the things he made and the secrets he unlocked any more than his successors do. When his own monster challenged him, he called him a fiend and a freak and told him to get lost. He paid for it dearly."
Yeah, he missed out on BOTH the Redhat AND the VA Research IPOs!
"H.G. Wells, who helped invent science fiction with publication of his first novel "The Time Machine," foresaw that the future could be a dangerous place,"
Hey, I saw that movie too! Aren't you glad they took care of Jack the Ripper before he could prey on our society!
"and was one of the first novelists to place his characters in the context of technological and biological evolution."
And there's NOTHING worse than being quoted out of context let me tell you!
"But despite his own training as a biologist, Wells never imagined the discoveries that would create the new science of molecular biology soon after his death and dominate the landscape of biology into the next millenium."
Didn't you see that Brando flick a few years back? Sheesh...
"The issue with these Gattaca projects isn't whether or not they should proceed. Only the most fanatic Luddites could seriously argue that understanding the secrets of human existence and eradicating disease ought to be - or even could be - forbidden?"
So uh what exactly was your point then?
"Geneticists believe human cloning is only a few years away, legally authorized or not. About all we can do is hold Dr. Venter and his colleagues to their word, and hope there is some rational discussion somewhere before the corporate lawsuits and patent issues are resolved, and the first genetic research lab starts peddling perfect, cheerful Icelandic babies around the world."
Oh my god! we're all going to be perfect Icelandic babies in a few years! Head for the hills!
"To stop the research would be to deny one of the noblest traits of the human character - to figure out the world and make it better."
So why the "scientist" polemic then?
"But Victor Frankenstein's problem is our problem."
We're all dead fictional characters?
"Victor would be having the time of his life in the modern world, where his kind of research is no longer even considered controversial,"
Digging up body parts and stitching them together has been legalized?
"where corporations dominate regulators and lawmakers, and where experiments that play around with human life don't have to be conducted in remote, crumbling Gothic towers, but get the enthusiastic support of venture capitalists and punch-drunk, morally-oblivious technologists."
Down with LINUX, Down with Windows! Up with the Abacus!
"But the words of Victor's creation are even creepier in l999 than they were when Mary Shelley first wrote them:"
"You propose to kill me," thundered the monster when Victor threatened him if he didn't go away. "How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.""
Are you suggesting that ESR will go on a killing spree if the LINUX stocks drop too far?That's pretty scary stuff.
If William F. Buckley is you ideal of a great thinker, you must not think very often.
The point is not that genetic engineering can help; we all know it's supposed to be a 21st Century panacea, and there's no denying it can be used positively. But science for science's sake or non-altruistic ends is by far the most dangerous. Spurred on by the war mongers, the lead researchers in the Manhattan Project could not guarantee that the chain reaction they were going to create wouldn't propogate through the atmosphere and immolate the entire Earth, so they just set off thier bomb and hoped for the best. Of course we all know the bomb worked as they had hoped, but how many close calls do we get until a real doomsday device or Ice-9 is unleashed unwittingly?
This is not a call to halt progress, but simply make it accountable before something terrible happens. If you can't see that you've missed Katz's point entirely.
Colin
Thank you for pointing this out. I'm really sick of that "things man was not meant to know" bit.
Frankenstein's "monster" started out intelligent and compassionate, suffered the worst kind of rejection and abuse, and reacted in a supremely human way. The people who point to him as a "mistake of science" are (I bet) the same people who think that a clone is somehow fundamentally different from a twin.
'organized religion [is] probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history' Hello??? Have we been sleeping for the last 70 years or so, Jon? Can you say 'government'? I knew you could...
Now, Jon Katz places himself in the same intellectual league as Mr. Quayle. Victor Frankenstein wasn't real, Jon, and the author was luddite scum. (Luddite scum, like damn yankee, is one word.)
Why is Mr. Katz so up on computers and so down on genetics? I suspect it's because he understands and is comfortable with computers, and with their likely social impact, but is less well versed in genetic science -- since his primary sources are movies and novels, not scientific journals.
(As a PS, does Katz remind anyone else of those overaged teachers who kept trying to prove they were still 'groovy' and 'hip to what you kids are into, dig?'?
1 Now Dr. Venter was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD JonKatz had made. He said to the woman, "Did JonKatz really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to Dr. Venter, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but JonKatz did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" 4 "You will not surely die," Dr. Venter said to the woman. 5 "For JonKatz knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like JonKatz, knowing good and evil." 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD JonKatz as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD JonKatz among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD JonKatz called to the man, "Where are you?" 10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." 11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12 The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13 Then the LORD JonKatz said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "Dr. Venter deceived me, and I ate." 14 So the LORD JonKatz said to Dr. Venter, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 16 To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD JonKatz made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD JonKatz said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." 23 So the LORD JonKatz banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
--or 'katz bashing & the nature of the debate'--
What is to be gained by criticizing an article on how it fails to inspire you to join a debate? Clearly a lot of people who are posting have lots of thoughts on the matter of a Gattaca-style future and genetic engineering, etc.. But for some reason they'd rather fill their comments with nit picky attacks on how this article reaches a bit beyond its grasp and doesn't present the issue precisely how the poster would present it. A lot of posts are arguing that "scientists should go ahead." Wow. Great idea. Why didn't I think of that? Other posts flesh out the position to "scientists should go ahead, screw religion." Aha! Now we're getting somewhere. Please people, why do we insist on framing the debate in terms of whether this should happen? That's not at all the point. It is happening, and the question is precisely "how can we ensure that this technology is handled responsibly, for the benefit of all and not just a privileged powerful some or few."
Personally, I'm afraid that we cannot -- that capitalism doesn't allow morality to place checks on greed, and that to the extent that genetic engineering/profiling becomes profitable & useful to the transnat'l corporations, we are in for a hell of a ride.
Surely someone has some thoughts on the matter, which can be moderated higher than a stale joke and a lot of Katz bashing? Another poster related the Human Genome Project to the Open Source movement -- perhaps there's some good discussion going on over there. I certainly hope so.
On that note (but first this note: no more Gattaca content) it really disappoints me to see rabid anti-Katz sentiment get moderated up where it interferes with my desire to read thoughtful discussion of the issues Katz raises in this article. Nevermind how well it's written, nevermind whether Katz himself provides enough details and a complex enough analysis of the big picture -- in fact, that's what I read the comments hoping to find! Instead, posters who are usually quite thoughtful and articulate would rather tear apart an article written for a general audience as though it was written for their approval.. or something.
I don't know.
What I DO know is that those who complain that Katz dilutes the quality of the slashdot experience do no better when they post less than interesting/insightful diatribes at the sight of his byline.
What boggles my mind is how those who have accounts and proclaim all of his stuff to be drivel refuse to simply edit their preferences so they won't be presented with his articles.
To be clear, I'm not referring specifically to the post I'm replying to here.
-- Adam
Dr. Venter has only to log onto the discussion that will follow this column to get a realistic dose of just how likely it is that a rational, coherent public discussion of scientists-playing-God" will take place.
Well we all know what /.ers think of Katz, now we know what he thinks of us. If we're all such idiots, why don't we just get back to our stuffed penguins and forget about it? But seriously, since apparently Katz isn't doing this to get us to debate, he must believe the stuff he sticks on this page.
His points, especially in this article, tend to be either obvious (there are ethical questions in genetic engineering, geeks get beat up in high school) or absurd (a Hollywood movie will actually happen, The Man is out to turn geeks into trendies). I'm really getting kind of tired of it.
It's not that philosophical rather than technical discussion has no place on Slashdot, quite the contrary. I think we should turn this sort of thing into an Ask Slashdot kind of deal, where someone writes a short little piece about the debate and maybe the news that spawned it, and then the rest of us see if we can get some karma. As it is, these ethical debates turn into "Is Katz Nutz?"
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -Carl Sagan
...not "over 200 years ago." The moral dilemma of the story is not whether it is right to create the creature, or whether it was wrong for Dr Frankenstein to reject his creation. The moral question is whether man should "play at" the role of god. The subtitle of the book, "A Modern Prometheus," pretty much gives it away.
"In your why ask why?" - you make the misconception that why and how are different questions. From a scientific stand point, the two are synonymous. Why does a plane fly and how does a plane fly both address aerodynamics. Now I agree in some contexts they differ (why does the pilot fly the plane vs. how does the pilot fly the plane) but scientists are as obsessed with the "why's" of the universe as people of a more religious bent.
:)
The crux of the argument is that scientists aren't tackling the biggest how - HOW will this knowledge be used? In the seemingly blind pursuit of knowledge, they seem to ignore the implications of what they are doing.
As for religions being based on fear - uhm, I'm not sure which religions you've been exposed to, but it has been my experience that most religions are based on hope and an attempt to find inner peace...but then I've only been exposed to a few religions Shinto, Hindu, Buddism, Islam and 6 flavors of Christianity that I can recall off the top of my head. Sucks being the product of a "fearful, hateful" Catholic education.
As for your list of the "Christianity's Most Wanted...", I think you've been hanging around with the wrong croud. I'm not positive, but that sounded like the manifesto for the KKK, not any of the Christian groups I'm aware of (other than the KKK itself - but I don't consider them to be a true Christian religion).
I find it sad for someone that otherwise seems to be a rational, thinking being uses such stereotyped, biased and otherwise skewed facts to base their logic upon. In the words of Sun Tsu (actually a paraphrase): Know the terrain, know the enemy, know yourself. To know all of these is to ensure victory, to know two of these - victory is uncertain, to know one of these is doubtful, and to know none of these is failure. I think you know yourself, and the terrain (argument) but fail to know your enemy (organized religion - fill in the blank here).
As I close, I leave you with the irony part of my retort. Do you realize where your sig came from? As I seem to recall, that quote would have to be attributed to one St. Thomas Aquinas - a Catholic theologian.
The Doctor is Out...(Fighting his way to the 19th hole...)
Or is it that man created God to have someone to blame when things go bad,or when things happen that the man cannot explain ?
It is an interesting thought isn't it?
Would the idea of God exist if man was not to be?
Although i do believe in a "bigger force" i tend to call that simly "the universe". Not god not jesus or anything else.
Considering that organized religion was the cause of the worst attrocities ever commited on this planet in "the name of god" it really makes me wonder."How can God let these things happen in his name?". That would be a very uncaring god imho.
Now we have to stop tech. advancements on his name again?
When will this crazyness stop and when will the human race open it's eyes?
That is a far more interesting question that wondering what will happen if we create a cell...
The superior (I believe he was the "Mission Director" or something like that) hadn't discovered Vincent/Jerome's secret. The only people who found out his secret were his girlfriend and his brother near the end of the movie. Oh, and the doctor (who apparently knew all along but kept it quiet for his own reasons).
I wonder if Katz has seen the movie since '97?
Or how about a microbe that binds carbon out of the atmosphere? Convert CO2 to O2 with super efficient microbes - poof! space travel just got a whole lot easier
Actually we have these. They're called plants. The problem is that the reaction is endothermic, so they need light to pull it off. Nice try, though.
Godel mathematically proved that it's impossible to fully describe a system without stepping outside of that system. Translated to the real world, that means we can never fully model our universe (and thus fully understand it) as long as we are actually in it and limited by its physics.
I read an article on the sceintists from Maryland that stated that they were not going ahead with creating the new organism due to the religous implications. There was even a quote from one of the scientists stating that they wanted to wait for the issue to be throughly debated before proceding.
And why put this discussion in the hands of scientists and members of organized religion -- the latter probably responsible for more hatred, bloodshed and cruelty than any other single force in human history?
Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. Organized atheism, with leaders including Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. have easily outdone any evils perpetrated by organized religion by a hundredfold.
--LP
Katz and other intellectuals love to bash on Fundamentalists and Catholics as if they were all educationally stunted retards, which is a symptom of their own inability to deal with the arguments resented by those people. (It's called an "ad hominem" attack.) pointing out the logical flaw followed by: The fact of the matter is that Catholicism, Judaism and other monotheistic religions include large numbers of people whose brainpower makes Katz look like the tenth-rate scribbler he is a logical flaw of his own and... In any case, this is just typical whining by somebody who doesn't like the answers he's getting from organized religion an ad hominem of his own. typical religious zealot.
If one believes there is no God, no ultimate Accountability, no one who can judge them, then it becomes that much easier to believe that might makes right ..
.. not because he knows the pain and suffering that he will cause the victims and their families, not because he knows that he will be punished (right here! on Earth!) by the authorities, not because he knows that he will destroy people's lives .. no, it's because he is scared that an all-powerful god will "get him" in the afterlife. Do you people have any idea how frightening this argument is?
So in other words, a Christian who is considering going on a bloody gunfire rampage eventually decides against it
Now if you want to subscribe to the notion that "all atheists are godless immoral scum that must be butchered in accordance with the Scriptures," then be my guest. I do feel it is my duty, however, to point out that the notion is bullshit.
This has been one of the worst JonKatz pieces since he first used the word "geek" in vain. Watch Gattaca. There are 2 issues:
Katz may be somewhat confused about this, but these two are entirely different issues which have almost nothing to do with each other. How close are we to these goals?
How close are we to genetic selection of ideal children? Sure, eventually we'll be able to remove physical defects, tendencies to some diseases, etc. from our children. This may happen in the coming decades, even. Is this bad? Maybe questionable, but overall it's a great achievement for humanity, just like penicillin. How close are we to making super-intelligent children? That will never happen, let alone in the "early 21st Century" as Katz describes. No amount of genetic research will ever find the key to people being born intelligent.
But lets say genetic engineering did have some undesirable consequence in the next century. This would be the fault of the evil Human Genome Project. WHAT? Idiot. The Human Genome Project is about learning, information, and adding to the amount of data available to humanity. If Jon Katz believes learning information can be dangerous he is the Big Brother of his own personal 1984, not the scientists of the Human Genome Project. He would just as quickly be the person to blame gun manufacturers for genocide.
What about using a person's DNA to identify everything anyone needs to know about them? DNA tests are nothing new. I seem to remember something about a highly publicized trial and a retired football player. They'll get faster, and more common, and maybe somed day we'll be taking DNA tests to use an ATM. DNA tests will never be sufficient for job interviews, as is the case in Gattaca, because DNA will never be an indicator of how intelligent, knowledgeable, or talented a person is.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
You xtians are such fools. Anything worthwhile you just dismiss as hubris. You know what? It is hubris of an even worse kind for you and yours to tell me what to think.
Regards,
January
Katz and a lot of people are missing something very vital: science has nothing to do with what is done with science. Why? Because science is simply a search for knowledge. What is done with that knowledge is a very different issue and is the responsibility of every person to decide from a ethical, legal, and moral standpoint. This has two important implications:
First, science cannot be held responsible for what is done with scientific knowledge. Knowledge is neutral in a moral sense. The "rightness" or "wrongness" of an action is wholly based on the action, not the know-how one used to perform it. (This should be very clear to people here - the knowledge of how computer systems work is completely separate from whether one uses that knowledge to hack and damage systems.) The only responsibility scientists acting as scientists and not as people with opinions have is to keep us informed.
Second, science can't be used as a touchstone for whether Things May Be Done. Science isn't ethics or morality, it's just study of reality. This is not to say that scientists aren't to be allowed to contribute to any debate (scientists have a wide variety of opinions on ethical or moral views, and should chime in), but just the opposite - scientists can't be the only people in on the debate.
So what does this mean? Well, very simply, that the responsibility for the ultimate social effects of what's going to be done with genetic engineering (whether wonderful or horrific) isn't anywhere near the scientists who make the discoveries that lead to those effects, whatever they may be. The responsibility falls on the people in the social and political system where it happens.
Let's take the idea of a society stratified by biological engineering, which has been used in stories almost since science fiction came about. If genetic engineering and analysis becomes advanced enough to let us detect and eliminate almost all genetic/physical degects, and we then set up a caste system based on degrees of genetic perfection, who is responsible? Not the scientists who sequenced the human genome, but the politicians who passed such discriminatory laws, the special interest groups who persuaded them, the courts that didn't throw out the laws, and the citizens who supported the laws or didn't bother to oppose them!
Let's take another example: clones. Suppose human clones become second-class citizens or slaves in the future... No, let's not even go that far. Back up. "Become"? Even the wording of that old idea squirms around how it happens. A living, breathing, thinking, clone of a human being is a human being. If that human being is denied his or her due in the forms of the essential rights and liberties of a human being, it's not some accident, it's an intentional choice! Someone passes a law, someone points guns at clones to limit their freedom, and some mass of people supports it or just lets it happen.
So, what's my point? Well, unfortunately, that this debate must (really, will, one way or another) take place in Congress and every legislative body in the country, sooner or later. It must and will take place in the courts. However, serious, informed, intelligent debate really must take place in the homes and restaurants and online forums and other places people talk.
What's the real danger? That the kind of power-alcoholic politicians who brought you Great Stuff like the Alien and Sedition Laws, the New Deal, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the CDA are going to tell you what Great Things they are going to do with genetic technology...and you're going to go along with it. Why? Because our society pays only lip service to freedom and worships as panaceas the various heavy-handed "fixes" and "adjustments" to society handed down from on high by politicians and appointed officials. In my opinion, a society that wants a law or a government program to fix every percieved problem is just the society that can lead to a Brave New World or Gattaca - type scenario.
So, what do we do? I say, fix that problem, pay attention to science so we know how upcoming advances may be used, and proceed from the rather comprehensible principles of human rights and liberties. (Hmm, put that way, we may be doomed. Oh, well. Have to try.)
I would like to make a few comments. 1- The only similarity religious and scientific questions share in this discussion is how they spell the word life. Biologists are intrested in the material componets that allow for life. Questions about the meaning of life are for theologins. An understanding of the basic genetics of life have no colflict with any religious questions. Genes encode proteins which can be thought of as functions that operate on biological matter. An understanding of the basic functions a genome must perform to sustane life is equlivent to the basic conditions and interactions that must occur to sustante any other physical reaction. Explaning what conditions are needed for some physical propertity to arise does not address any issues aobut why that propertity exists and what it means. Any scientist who claims to have answers to these questions is a con artist. 2- The creation of new species of plant or animal is not new to the human experience. Since the day we left our hunter gater ways we have sucesfully and safely engaged in breeding for both form and function. It is no more an inherent moral issue today as it was then. However, moral issues arise when amoral companies, governments or individuals engage in breeding/genetic engenering. We must address the moral issues of those who weild the power not the power itself. Thanks -Alan
Thank you for pointing out this web site. It shows that sickness and depravity on the internet knows no bound. If people don't have anything better to do with their time than to jab at people's religion, then maybe they shouldn't be here at all.
i do not understand what the big deal is about creating a new species. cows dont walk around in the wild. you can't go to the jungles of africa and find cows roaming around. that is because we made cows. those toy poodles and what have you, they aren't going to be found in the woods foraging for food, because we made those too. in fact, dogs in general are not found in the wild. we made dogs. dogs and cows are new species of animals. biology students make new strains of bacteria all of the time. pop a gene in, take one out, hey it is not terribly difficult to do. if you go look on the US patents page there are about 239875239858275295 new strains of bacteria made by humans to do specific things in the lab, some of which wind up being very major modifications to the bacteria. these researchers are guilty of making a mountain out of a molehill. it is similar to the researchers who made a big deal about global warming and ebola. do you remember when the whole earth was supposed to raise by like a half a degree a year or something like that? has it happened? no. ebola was supposed to be this big scary virus and wipe out the world. has it happened? no. do you hear about either of these anymore? no. they were not terribly huge problems to begin with, but you can bet scientists working on global warming and ebola have enough funding to give them a lifetime of research. they gave us the worst case scenario, presenting it as what would probably happen, and then raked in the grant money from the public scare. i am not suggesting they are not problems at all, but they certainly were not of the magnitude that was presented to the press. to bring it back to computers, it is analogous various news articles that appear discussing amazing new AI technology or something that sounds absolutely ludicrous due to the language that is being used. people have made claims such as "this program makes analogies between the planets rotating around the sun and atoms rotating around the nucleus of an atom", which certainly SOUNDS fantastic, but when you look at what is actually being done, you discover that the program is not making analogies at all, but just recognizing similarities in structure. a blitzgargs around b and c blitzgargs around d so a and b are similar to c and d!. an analogy is made, sure, but the wording made it seem a lot more advanced than it wound up being. these scientists are referring to what they are doing as "creating new life" because they know this phrase will engender a massive amount of media attention, and secure them an affluent scientific future. but in reality they are doing nothing new, and are "creating new life" as much as farmers for hundreds of years "create new life" by breeding or high school biology students "create new life" by inserting a few genes into a bacterium. sure, they are working on a larger scale of gene insertion and deletion but they are still not doing anything particularly special. i mean, JESUS, they are calling for a RELIGIOUS discussion about this. how much more obvious could it be they are just begging for media attention? it is cool that people have stripped down a bacteria to its essential elements, i will grant that it is newsworthy, but it is also cool that people have written AI programs that find structure similarities and try to make analogies. hey, put a little blurb about that on the news - they are neat. but to claim that the AI program is striking at the core of human intelligence and will cause us to be usurped from our cerebral throne on earth is just as ludicrous as claiming stripping down a bacteria to its essential elements will cause us to be able to reach up into heavens and throw god/allah/whomever off of his/her throne.
Earth was clean, unpolluted, and disease-free. The human inhabitants were, by and large, attractive, intelligent, healthy people. There was an active space program sending manned missions as far off as Titan. The bar was raised in all fields of human endeavor.
Certainly, genetic discrimination seems unfair. But, unlike the racial, gender and class discrimination rampant today, at least there's a grain of rational basis to it. So NASA doesn't want to spend millions training an astronaut and shipping him on a year-long voyage to Saturn because there's a good chance his heart will explode on liftoff -- can you blame them? And nothing at all prevents Vincent from becoming a great architect, computer programmer, sculptor, or anything else he cares to be. Besides, we enact laws against discrimination all the time, and the burden of proof is usually on the employer.
More to the point, Vincent, despite his genetic baggage, succeeds in the end. The whole point of the film is that will and determination are, and will always be, more important than an exceptional rack of chromosomes.
Of course, what with the advances in psychopharmaceuticals, will and determination will be available in over-the-counter chewable tablets any day now...
--
perl -e '$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00";
s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72,
$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00"; s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72, (74..76),(78..80),(82..85))[hex $1]/eg;
I follow God because I love God.
:-D
Wonderful! Why do you feel the need to remind Slashdot of it over and over and over to nauseating extremes? Is there an eleventh commandment about being annoying? Look, I'm not trying to flame you or anything, but as an independent-minded agnostic, I've got to honestly tell you that you come off as being self-righteous, and you don't make a particularly compelling case for Christianity. Do you think you can exercise a bit of restraint when it comes to preaching to the unwashed masses on Slashdot? (The same goes for the militant anti-theists that jump at every opportunity to bash religion.)
Shape up, all of you, or I'll have to open up a can of whup-ass.
The UN is currently pondering out how to make the internet censor-friendly on every possible evil axis - political, sexual, social, etc. It has anti-drug resolutions calling for the banning of speech or writing that promotes drug legalization or questions the international war on drugs. It administers sanctions and blockades to starve the people of countries run by dictators that the UN dislikes. (And this is all publically stated, not some paranoid "fight the black helicopters" conclusion.)
The UN strikes me as the last body that should be settling this.
There is no leaving religion out of science because the two are so deeply intertwined in our minds...Science is the study of the physical as religion is the study of the non-physical. I'm not trying to start a flamewar, just to show a different side of the coin here. To me this isn't nearly as bad as what the Christian Right make it out to be, but it certainly IS scary. Who says that a few scientists won't master the fundamentals enough to create viable life? And life doesn't always mean large organisms. Viruses can easily be created, or tailor made if we know enough. But as great good can be done with this knowledge as well. We humans as a race should learn caution with what we tamper with...But not stop altogether.
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
The first time I read this, I thought you had written ".. humans sticking together a few legos to create a simple orgasm." And I was like, damn! Those Mindstorms must be a lot better than Legos used to be when I was a kid!
(Hope I didn't butcher this explanation too badly; I am not a physicist, and I don't even play one on TV.)
The context of this explanation was an audience that a group of cosmologists -- Hawking among them -- had had with the pope. His Holiness advised the assembled physicists that they could never unravel the mystery of the very start of the universe, since that was an act of God, and beyond mortal understanding. Hawking thought it ironic that the pope had ascribed to God a role which, by this hypothesis, didn't exist.
This is called "technocracy." It sounds good to many of us because, hey, it means rule of technology, right? And we all know technology rules!
But the word is far better used to describe the mentality that change is only good if it is perfectly understood before it is undertaken. Hence the seemingly-reasonable calls for "public debate" over these things. Technocrats are not really interested in public debate. First, they're technocrats -- the issues they deal with are not readily comprehensible to the public. Thus, "public debate" is code for "debate by experts" -- experts who aren't paid to be optimistic, since their names get splashed all over the headlines when a product they approve does something nasty.
Second, and more importantly, technocrats will not settle for anything less than some (usually government) authority to veto any technological innovation until its benefits are "proven" to exceed its costs. This puts a monstrous and unreasonable burden of proof on innovators.
The technocratic worldview is, imo, one of the strongest threats to progress and the improvement of the human condition we face today. Katz is one of its leading voices.
BBB
What would be quite impressive would be abiogenesis. But right now we don't even have the technology to chemically synthesize an entire gene, much less an entire genome, even of the simplest organism. So far, we haven't figured out how keep the base pairs from breaking apart in chemically synthesized, long DNA chains. We'd also have to figure out how to chemically synthesize proteins and long polypeptide chains, in order to generate the required replication, transcription, and translation machinery. Right now, we can't do much better than oligopeptides, and even if we could, things don't always fold properly in vitro. Finally, we'd have to figure out how to chemically synthesize a proper phospholipid bilayer, which is probably the most difficult technical challenge of them all. I'm not saying abiogenesis is impossible (it had to have happened at least once, right?), but we are nowhere near that, and until we are, how can we say we are creating life de novo?
As to the topic of DNA sequencing, perhaps this is probably closer to the idea of Gattaca imitating reality. Health insurance companies do already use data about pre-existing conditions to screen applicants. But I'm sure this has been going on since before we had access to sequence data. I don't particularly see what will change. The completion of the Human Genome Project will not be this magical key that will suddenly allow us to manipulate life at our whim. Aside from the arduous technical difficulties of genetic engineering, just because we have sequence info doesn't mean we understand what's going on. What will be more profound than the Project itself will be the research it will spawn. It will surely take much longer to understand the genome than it will take to just sequence it. The Project will mean nothing if this subsequent research doesn't happen.
As to the idea of mapping genes of populations, this is also nothing new. Mapping does not necessarily mean sequencing. (Considering how long the Human Genome Project is taking, it would take over a million years to sequence every human inhabitant of Iceland) We've been mapping genes even before we knew exactly what genes were, even before we knew how to sequence. This is basically what Mendel did, and is what Morgan is known for. This is what doctors do when they are screening for hereditary diseases--they try to construct pedigrees, and all the information in a pedigree is enough to make a rough genetic map. Indeed this is probably another thing that will be more profound than the Human Genome Project itself: merging our rough genetic maps with the sequence data, which will also take a considerably long time. And I can't see what is particularly nefarious about this. Iceland isn't run by a dictatorship, right? As long as that's the case, individuals would have to give their consent in order to be mapped. While there are ethical concerns with genetic mapping, such as revealing true parentage, or high probability of a fatal disease, I can't see how it will degenerate into a Gattaca-style world. It is quite obvious that we are more than our genotypes. For one thing, the things we die from have very strong environmental components. In industrialized countries, not counting auto-accidents, people tend to die from heart disease and cancer. While they do have genetic components, it is not a 100% guarantee. You can protect yourself by eating right and not staying out in the sun, for example. In developing countries, people mostly die from infection and starvation, also environmentally controlled. For another thing, we haven't even roughly mapped things like intelligence to the genome. And in any case, the environmental component of that is very sizeable. Important neural development such as myelination and activity dependent synapse elimination occur mostly after birth, in response to environmental stimuli. Genes undoubtedly set the stage, but they aren't responsible for the performance itself.
I think it makes a big difference that these things are issues of the distant future, meaning that we are still at least one paradigm shift away from having to consider these things. While I'm not saying it's useless to consider these things now, it doesn't have the urgency that things like gene patents or terminator genes do. For all we know, everything we are talking about now might be completely untrue. We might be like people in ancient days arguing over whether there was an abyss or a wall at the edge of the world. It probably was important, in terms of philosophy, but until they actually tried to find the edge of the world, it didn't really have much of bearing on reality, which turned out to be quite different. In the same way, these debates may be over something that isn't real at all, or we may end up overlooking some fact that will become painfully obvious. The point is, we aren't there yet, and until we do get there, everything we say now is completely up in the air and possibly quite useless in terms of defining public policy and ethical concerns.
But I think Katz is on the right track by mentioning literature, specifically science-fiction. This is precisely where this debate should be right now. This genre has traditionally been the forum for arguing highly speculative issues. Asimov long ago explored issues of robotics and AI, even though we haven't even gotten there yet. Clarke has perhaps been a strong inspiration for many of our missions to space, generating ideas we are still nowhere near attaining. Cyberpunk has perhaps anticipated many issues regarding our Net-connected world. Right now, these issues about genetic engineering are rife for creative exploration, and indeed there are many science-fiction stories written in this vein. But I think technology needs to progress a little further before we can realistically start debating actual policies and laws, and whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. How can we hope to correctly anticipate making a decision when we don't have the capability to make that decision yet?
Dear Mr. Katz, I am writing in response to the article you published on Slashdot titled "Planet Gattaca: God-Technology:-Building-the-Perfect-Human dept." After reading the article I was left with the sense that you have no understanding or appreciation of Icelandic character and had done little no research on Icelandic genome mapping. The mere title itself which includes, "God-Technology:-Building-the-Perfect-Human dept," smacks of sensationalism. I came away from your article with the sense that you had stigmatized the Icelandic people for their role in efforts to map the human genome. This is particularly evident when you say, "...and hope there is some rational discussion somewhere before the corporate lawsuits and patent issues are resolved, and the first genetic research lab starts peddling perfect, cheerful Icelandic babies around the world." Mr. Katz, research your topic thoroughly before you write such inflammatory material. As we speak, Iceland is in the throes of a national debate over this very issue. I quote an article from Anthropology Today, October 1999. "Understandably, Icelanders have been even more attentive. There have been some 700 newspaper articles in the press, 150 television programs, a series of town meetings and endless discussion and debate both within the Parliament and in the shopping centers, cafes and dinner tables of Iceland. Our institutes at Berkeley and Reykjavík have jointly established a web site -- http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/biotech/iceland/ -- where media material and public documents relating to the mapping of the Icelandic human genome are made available and on which a reflective and informed discussion about it can take place." http://www.decode.is/greinar/anthro.htm You, Mr. Katz, are a discredit to individuals in your "profession." You completely abandoned the rules of scientific journalism that demand accuracy and integrity. In the process you have stigmatized an entire nation of people and charged their complicity in "a plot to clone the perfect human." I demand a retraction of your article and at very least an apology to the Icelandic people who are well aware of moral impact of this activity and are very concerned about its consequences. I can recall a few instances in history where individuals were stigmatized because of their ethic origins and I find it hard to believe that you would play party to the same sort of nonsense.
Sometimes Jonkatz has something worthwhile to say. This is not one of those times.
... take over the world! ... does that mean you'll hit him on the head instead of me?
This entire piece is ludicrous. They're only creating a 300-gene lifeform -- who cares?? What is it going to do, kill us? Learn to think rationally with 300 genes? JonKatz draws incredibly far-fetched parallels with a novel written 200 years ago about an artificial *MAN*, not a 300-gene thing. This is not Frankenstein, JonKatz. Everyone will be amazed if it manages to wiggle a tendril or whatever, let alone take over the world.
We're not screwing with life here, JonKatz. When scientists finally document the last human genome, you may (finally!) have a point. But right now, this piece is alarmist and somewhat pathetic. Reminds me of Pinky and the Brain, really.
Pinky: What are we going to do tonight, Brain?
Brain: I was thinking of making a 3--gene lifeform that will evolve into our servant and
Pinky: Narf, Brain! No, wait
Wells also predicted more on the future of eugenics. He was a follower of Nichean (is this a word?) philosophy and basically predicted much of the eugenics programs used by the Third Reich. I think Hitler and his cronies even admitted to being fans of Wells' for such writings. Wells felt bad about it... maybe someone should sue his estate. I mean, if idSoftware is liable for a shooting in Kentucky, surely we should get justice from the man who initiated the Holocaust: Wells.
I would have to agree with you on this one, DanaL. I found the theses of the article interesting statements, but the evidence for them was sorely lacking. I am not always quite sure where I stand on most genetic research involving alteration of genes (i.e. genetically engineered crops, gene therapy, or creating new life using the 300 essential building blocks (genes that code the polypeptides absolutely essential for autonomous, open-system, cell function and replication) of life) but I do know that this research will go on in any case, because that is the nature of human society. If Craig Venter doesn't do "it", then someone else will, and not too long from now because science is at that point.
I feel that when arguments like this come up, however, at least the scientist have thought out the reasons for why they are doing what they are doing. Modern science may well be short-sighted in many respects, but science-fiction like GATTACA is so long sighted (and possibly just blowing smoke up our collective arses) that I can't believe its cautionary statements, like those loosely referred to in the article, are qualitatively better reasons to stop what we are doing than the short-sighted goals of understanding the next step in some obscure molecular pathway are to keep forging ahead.
Besides, Katz's research this time seems to be based entirely on what he has read in news releases, and he doesn't seem to understand the biology behind it at all. In fact, he might be shocked to know that many scientists consider viruses to be the most simple form of life, and reasearch teams have been constructing their own viruses for reasearch purposes from the known essential building blocks of that life form for quite a while now, with not much press or ill-effects. Or he might do weel to consider that GATTACA was way off base for many reasons, but the main one being that who each person fundamentally is, that is their phenotype, results from a 50-50 interaction of genes and environment. How one develops depends on your environemntal factors as much as your genes starting from day one (conception). He points out that Victor or whatever his name is is excluded from being an astronaut for having a heart condition - well big whoop, astronuats are excluded from going into space for this today, and weel they should be! If he only had a predisposition for a heart condition, then that is different, but things wouldn't be like they were in GATTACA because people with "perfect" genotypes would develop heart disease all the time, and non-perfects, like Victor, would be beating their odds, just like all of us non-perfect people do today. Also, scientists know that a homogeneous population is bad news, man, because it opens your population up to any disease that may come along - you may all be resistant to this new thing, or conversely, you will all not be.
My point is not that genetic modification is good. For goodness sakes, picking the genes for your baby is not just unethical, its downright retarted, unoriginal, arrogant, and an admission that you want to make some sort of super race just like Hitler. My point is, however, that you should understand what you're knocking before you ignorantly strike fear into the hearts of others.
Actually, you're dead on. I was comparing Communism to religion, since they do (regrettably) have a lot in common. I'm assuming you know enough about both to see what they are for yourself, so I won't waste your time (and everybody else's) by pointing them out.
Having said that, we could sit here and compare body counts -total, on an annual basis, per nation, whatever- and compare them to the amount of good done by the one as opposed to the other, and I think religion comes out way ahead on the scorecard. This may be entertaining, but it wanders away from the original point, which was that Katz and others like him reject what religion has to tell us about morality out of hand and then stand around whining about how there isn't any good moral guidance around for these scientists to follow...which is just dumb, imao.
As for not addressing what Shinto, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic or Santierist theologians might have to say on the subject, I freely admit that I don't know what they might or might not have said on the subject. Educate me.
Ah, Luddism. A protectionist, semi-terroristic economic movement that opposed automation because it would cost the members of the movement their relatively cushy jobs. Somehow, it got conflated, for good or ill, with an ostritch-like head-in-the-sand attitude of "we really shouldn't learn - bad things might happen." And digbats who think ripping off a certain comedian's Sledge-o-Matic shtick, just with computers instead of watermelons, is somehow profound and revolutionary.
Trying to stop science isn't going to do any good. Trying to stop invention misses the point. If you really want to stop bad things from happening, look out for the people who use or misuse inventions.
Fact is, we have no idea what happened before the Big Bang. Was the Big Bang the act of a god? Was it some super-entity sneezing? Did another universe exist before then, that had gotten all squished in the Big Crunch, only to evolve into our own universe? Science will never know, because we will never be able to observe what happened before the Big Bang. If you can't observe it, you can't prove it, and therefore science doesn't have anything to do with it. The Big Bang cannot prove or disprove the existence of God if you are being scientifically rigorous.
Religion established for humanity that there was nothing that it could not explain. It's all just a matter of 'listening to God'. It's just a matter of serving God the right way.
Then science came along and proved that there is more to this universe than religion can explain.
Then science said that there is nothing in the universe that science cannot ultimately explain. It's all just a matter of getting the numbers and theories down right.
Then God got sick and tired of this bickering and invented String Theory.
Jon Katz might be wise to realize that the best wisdom is to talk to God while mastering the microscope. If we master science without talking to God, we'll obliterate ourselves. If we ignore science, we're ignoring God and we will be obliterated by a disease, or by a comet. If we listen to God, however, we will master the gravitons, skip across galaxies on tachyons, and we will ultimately discover that science is God's law, not the proof of a godless universe.
Of course we can also use science and misinterpret God and blow ourselves to extinction in a nuclear holy war, too.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I agree that the scientific research being done is not dangerous, or morally wrong, or anything of that nature. But, it is not the scientists that will endanger our society as we know it, and it is not their research that will result in Gattaca and other science fiction horrors. Knowlege in itself is not dangerous.
It is the use of this knowlege that will cause problems. The common acceptence of genetic engineering will affect our society. What is wrong with using genetics to create life, to cure disease and to alleviate suffering? Much is wrong. When we create life, we begin a long journey that will end in disaster. We may forsee this, and we may believe that we know better than to misuse our knowlege, but someone will eventually have the ability to create a dangerous creature, and will, with malicious intent follow through. And when scientists join with physicians and work on curing disease genetically, other things will happen. It seems all very well and good that people will suffer less and disease will be lessened, allowing people to live longer. But Gattaca is just one example of what this sort of thing can lead to. Discrimination by genes, CREATION of disease, and all sorts of other problems will arise. I can hear you thinking that this is not true. This will only happen if we are not responsible. This is only a possibility if the wrong people get their hands on this knowlege and this technology. I tell you now. The wrong people WILL get their hands on it. It is only a matter of when and how. A disgruntled, out-of-work scientist may sell the knowlege, or he may use it himself to get revenge. It is not the moral problems that I am warning about, but the technological and the physicals problems that will occur along the way.
It is evident with all technology. Everything ever created has at one time fallen into the wrong hands. It is only a little more than luck and good fortune that all of us are here today.
Sydnalloh
The number of people who were showing up at city squares when witches were burnt and Inquisition-marked "criminals" executed, and who cheered during those gruesome events can hardly be called "few" or minority.
Now, whether people at large were responsible for being "put into frenzy" by their leaders, or whether they share responsibility with those leaders, that is a hard question. There is a saying that people have governments that they deserve. Tolstoy's thinking on that subject in "War and Peace" would indicate that any nation's endeavours are joint ventures of leaders and their flock.
As for communism being the source of all evil, I can hardly agree with that. I don't know the exact number that died in gulags but let's not forget many innocent people killed in this century's "justified" western executed or incited wars, coups and interventions either. There is no perfect system and I doubt so many people in west would find their lives comfortable today if there weren't for the threat of communism.
It is true, however, that religion didn't only promote hatred. Far from that. As an atheist, I was always fascinated with the percentage of great minds that believed in God. Almost every great writer had not only believed in God, but used his faith to elevate his work into higher spheres. Before I moved to West and started spending my time playing games instead of thinking, I was questioning my own lack of faith every now and then.
Most of the greatest achievements of human mind were inspired by faith. At the same time, most of the greatest horrors in history came from the same source. Make of it what you will, or read Clarke's "The Final Odyssey" for a very logical prediction of how technological advancement will shape the human civilization. But, I don't think religious leaders should be consulted about genome research. God forbid!
And, regardless of how scared am I about it, research on this or anything else will continue, and there's nothing we can do. That's why nowdays I play games, not read or think too much.
Ahh, to clean up the gene pool of invalids.
;-)
First thing's first:
I need my home neutering kit, and Jon Katz's home address. Anyone have that?
(This is, of course, a joke in poor taste
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Given the fact that this is a "News for Nerds" site, I'm under the assumption that many of us are scientifically oriented. With that in mind, what gives Katz the right to write an article essentially flaming science to an audience that loves learning about scientific things?
BAD ANALOGY COMING UP: :-)
It's like someone walking into the democratic national convention with a giant sign promoting conservative republican ideals. You just don't do it.
Katz takes a position very anti-science in this article and it appalls me that he tries to impart this editorial upon several thousand geeks who have loved and toyed with science for probably their entire lives.
I hope to pursue a career in biomedical engineering - does that mean I'm going to withstand the ridicule and hate from "anti-genetics" fanatics (not unlike doctors in abortion clinics today)? I certainly hope not.
Katz is attempting to stifle the scientific minds of the geek community - the exact same group of people he tries to NURTURE AND HELP in his new book.
Doesn't that seem just a bit hypocritical? :(
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
Supports of the ideologies of Mao and Stalin will quite loudly claim that both were opportunists who had no reverence for the ideals of their systems. Nazism as it was expressed became merely an apologistic attempt at combining a madman's ramblings with the philosopy of facism. So, it's impossible to claim that all these guys killed all their victims for purely ideological reasons (as opposed to paranoia and a desire to destroy enemies). You *might* be able to put Mao on that list, but he was a piker compared to Hitler and Stalin. Therefore, your demand for a reference for such a super-murderous Christian ruler who killed for purely "Christian" reasons is ridiculous.
Besides, what Christian ruler has had as much power over as many people as Mao, Hitler, or Stalin? The Pope couldn't start a genocide if he wanted to.
> existance of non-linear math and "Chaos Theory
Do you have any books / urls to recommend, as these sound interesting to read up on.
> Things which appear unpredictable and random are actually governed by hidden patterns and rules.
Funny you should mention that, as I have believed for years even before I knew about Chaos Theory. i.e. the universe is not really random, it just appears random because we don't have all the [missing] information. Its nice to see this hunch is being confirmed by others.
Nailed that one good, let us all remember that in science, religion, philosophy, or any other field of discussion/argument to remember logic. :) It's power...as a CS major, they drill logic into our heads ;)
Matthew W. Jones Mississippi State University http://snap.to/matman
I think that sooner or later thte question ,must arise, how you define life. A human, after all, is only a lump of chemicals, albeit a very complex one. A few months ago, a story was reported on /. I think) that scientists had managed to create a chemical that was able to re-produce itself. Then there was the story of the re-producing, mutating computer code growing into very stable programs (a BBC tech story if I remember correctly). Now it may be possible to make a cell - a new species, or even an existing species (as in reproduce an exact copy of a M. genitalium bacterium).
The way I see this last case is: on the one hand, whether you "breed" new M.genitalium bacteria or make them chemically, what you are left with at the end is the same....
On the other, whether one can ethically support scenarios like in Gattacca, I am in no position to answer, all I can say is:
I am glad to live in these times, there is a lot of exciting research, a lot of fascinating new technologies. Further I am glad not to live in a time where these technologies are already in widespread use....
The interesting thing is discovering these things. The dangerous thing is doing something with the discoveries!
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from - Bob Dylan
There is a difference between reproduction and creating life. In reproduction, we do not create anything. We merely provide a chance for sperm and eggs to join and carry on the normal course of events. These scientists are proposing taking a vat of chemicals, mixing it up, and out pops living organisms. Thats simplifying the process of course, but thats essentially what they are proposing to do. Taking raw, unliving chemicals, and making life. Is there anyone, other than our creator, who has that right? Thats the question. Life, as the most central thing in our existence, cannot be treated as a toy. We need as much debate and polling as humanly possible before this proceeds.
I mean, seriously, these people are a waste of space and air. "Who has tha right?" wahhh. He who has the might has the right. Same damn type of person was saying "who was a right to intrude upon the heavens by peering through a telescope" only 400 years ago they punctuated the debate with a few burnings at the stake here and there to properly motivate. I say turn about is fair play, burn your nearest religious zealot and do us all a favor.
But debate just happens! If people are concerned about an issue they will debate it. In all the venues Katz mentioned and more. Worrying about it will probably not substantially increase or decrease the amount to debate on any given subject. While his fretting article has spurred a raft of comments, most have little to do with the issue at hand (which is par the course). A better discussion might have followed from the article Katz cites, rather than twice-removed-from-source, fuzzy agitation.
Whatever each of us might feel is the appropriate venue for debate, rest assured! Religious types will debate it, regardless of their relevance to your life. As will Slashdot. As will the Congress. As will your local newspaper. As will Montel Williams.
Get over it: debate happens.
Madness takes its toll. Exact change please.
Ya know, some people wonder why a large body of us stick around and criticize Jonathan Katz rather than just go away. Here's why.
One, his Columbine columns were quite insightful and they raised the expectation that more insight would come from the individual who could write such material. Two, Katz is front page material here on /. and three, this stuff just gets more and more surreal with today's tirade against scientists and theologians as the source of evil in our society. Sound familiar anyone?
In reality, BioEthics is a well-established field. All of the questions raised murkily in this essay were long ago considered by theologians, bioethicians, and scientists. If Jonathan were to do a web search rather than go to Wired News or watch the BBC, he'd find the debate has been underway for decades.
And if he occasionally read a book (a non-volatile storage medium for you young'uns), then he'd even find out that some of those guys supposedly behind most of human suffering have been much too busy thinking about these very same subjects to subjugate humanity.
I believe that God gave us our brain to construct a better world for ourselves. Figuring out the "formula for life" is not becoming gods, it's mearly understanding one more mystery. My belief in God will not be shattered by any scientific discovery, if anything it makes it stronger realizing what he has created. I truly believe that the good far out weighes the bad in as far as genetic research is concerned. But I do agree society has to move one from worrying about Playboy and E-Commerce and move on to the issues that will matter another millenium from now.
..But the two go hand in hand! Maybe not under organized religion, so much, but enough so. Didn't Plato say that the greatest act any man can do is to "comtemplate the unmoved mover"... which is God? God started the ball rolling, knowing where it would go. God may have guided it; we would like to think that he made sure the human race developed, but that's not a question for this thread. Sure, religion seems antiquated to some people, but modern religion no longer brands things as heresy. Whether the Crusades were responsible for bloodshed does not matter anymore; nothing we say can change that. The Church is now a peaceable organization, interested in the development of mankind. Religion maintains that God is responsible in the beginning, and just becuase Man can modify genes does not make him God.
The Luddites maintained that the automation of their work would
- transform their economy from one of many small independant workers to that of a few owners running sweatshops
- result in a lower-quality product than what was produced previous
- and that ultimately this destruction of an relatively independant and self-sufficient community was a Bad Thing
Well, 1. and 2. certainly happened, so the only thing left to "debate" is 3., which, except for a few cranks, everybody agrees that it was a Good Thing that the Inevitable March of Progress (with the help of a few well-placed troops) destroyed the economic livelihood and self-sufficiency of a community.As for "semi-terroristic", please remember that the Luddites, when simple protests didn't work, destroyed the offending property. For this, they were hanged, even on suspicion of Luddism. Thus, history records that the Luddites were a violent sort, as opposed to the calm, dispassionate peaceableness of those who had them executed.
At least you've provided a fine example of the attitude that Wendell Berry described in my previous post. It is apparantly not enough that the Luddites lost their struggle to preserve their way of life; no, their name must be forgotten except for its use as an epithet.
should be a "blanket dog." Or pick a better name. It's flat and as big as a blanket, has a warmer body temperature than humans and you cover yourself with it on cold nights. It's tame and doesn't bite... and it's potty trained.
Oh, I'se so sorry! SORRY massa! Sho nuff dis be an issue with world-shaking consequences, but I done fogot, I'se way too stoopid to take part in decidin de future. I just gwine back to pumpin out dat ol septic tank, an leave all de thinkin an decidin to you PhDs.
In a pig's ass I will, you jerk.
Sincerely, WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Christians have been frequently accused of being closed minded, but the irony is, those who are secular only are the ones that are more closed minded. In the search for truth, Christians are free to explore the strictly secular data and data revealed by God that are not explainable in a strictly materialistic or humanistic way. If science is your only method for searching for truth, you are specifically closing your mind to God, and you have tremendous faith that science is sufficient and can explain all given enough time/effort.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
Genetic testing in general, of course, has some privacy and insurance implications. The best solution to those is to have a strong participatory democracy, create strong legal protections for consumer privacy, and consider nationalizing health care, since health insurance would likely be the biggest abuser of this kind of data.
BTW, genetic discrimination is already widely practiced: all sorts of inherited conditions keep you from doing all sorts of things or getting all sorts of jobs, in some cases without much reason (e.g., inherited myopia will keep you from becoming an airforce pilot).
If you had better read my reply you would have seen that I stated that HIV is a retro virus, which eans that it changes the genetic code of the cels that it attacks. If scientists knew what part of the virus' code changes the host cells code, then they could develop vaccines (this is the best word that I could find to describe it) that could stop the virus from changing the hosts genetic code, thereby stopping the virus in it's tracks.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Of course, you are welcome to believe whatever you wish. Doesn't give you the right to proclaim whatever morality you ascribe to upon the rest of us, though.
I even think Jon Katz must believe this on some level, else why shouldn't it be "Do what thou wilt be the whole of the law?"
Does it bother you that you're misquoting the law here? It's really:
Kind of puts a different spin on it, huh? There's an implicit morality there, that somehow you managed to leave out of your version. I wonder why?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Whoops - guess that teaches me to stay up til 2am watching "The Green Mile" (Excellent movie even at 3hrs 20min) and trying to post the morning after...
Thanks for the correction and the recommended reading - I'm finishing up Cryptonomicon and was looking for something new to tackle...
The Doctor is Out... (Like a light...too many hours... too little sleep...)
I'm going to say only one thing...
The universe has no morals, only laws that are not even remotely understood, we (Humans) are the ones that happily attach any morality to whatever happens and we can't explain.
I for once (I have a very strong reason for this) will like to see if over time someone clones/makes a human being and it ends up with feelings and emotions (Please don't give me any of the psychological crap about why we feel beforehand) then I believe most questions will already be answered.
In two millenia of sience and religion we still make mistakes and some can be costly for the people that are just standing by unaware of what we do. And that happens because we THINK we know some answers when we really don't know a damn thing.
I hate to agree with davecrazy but...
jon katz most of the time takes what is posted in the comments of a previous clumn and combines all of into the next one, wtf ?R$^?^
Fascinating discussions on Life - Wish I had time to read all the comments in detail.
My intellect and knowledge are not better than most here so I will keep my comments to myself. However, I am occasionally granted an interview with The Creator(tm) who has graciously allowed me to post my translations of his responses to my questions about these matters. Please forgive any errors in my feeble attempts to compose His communications into limited human language concepts! His thoughts/expressions/? were roughly as follows:
1) He has deliberately initiated these discussions at this time for His purposes and will initiate many more soon.
2) He is vastly amused at the arrogance of those who think they can replace Him with the childish games they call "religion", "science", "government", etc...
3) A man instantly transported from a primitive society to an advanced society to observe a functioning television set could easily conclude that the contraption of glass, plastic, and metal was somehow "alive". Primitives cannot readily distinguish between carrier/medium and content/message. The day will come when you can see beyond the primitive biological constructs which limit you for now...
4) Creating "life" is a relatively simple followup technique once you have figured out how to construct a "space-time-energy" continuum which allows "event sequences" to generate a "quantum wavefront framework" which can be "limitedly influenced" by "life-forces" to collapse into new event sequences. You are begining to see that each "particle/wave" is recreated billions of times per second continuously, but you have a ways to go to begin to really understand the creation called "free will", etc...
5) His response to identity queries remains the same as given Moses (at a certain "burning bush" meeting) - "I exist because I exist". No one else can make this statement because everything else has an external cause/source... Human reason will never approach this simple power!
6) Humanity killed it's replacement ("Homo Superior" aka "son of man") ~2000 years ago, but could not even make that stick because it has no real understanding of "life"...
7) His plans are not threatened by anything "mankind" could think, say, or do. Our plans generally remain foolishly centered on our own meagre clinging to "life" unless He intervenes!
Here is an idea for Katz, for all the people that bashed him, for all the people who said that logic conqured God, or that God transcended logic. For all of that. Especially for those that said that God was a logical fallacy or was lacerated badly by Occam's razor. Logic is a religion, just like Christianity, Islam or the Backstreet Boys. Christianity answers people's natural questions. So does logic. Logic is a tool for the quest for truth. Logic utilizes certain principles to explain things. So does religion. Logic helps people understand, and divine the nature of things. AND DON'T say logic is better because it does not rely on unprovable principles, faith, or a divine metagod. You got a problem with faith? IMHO, the assumption that your mind has the power to see reality and truly understand it at all is a great leap of faith, and an assumption. An neccesary assumption that we need to make to lead meaningful lives, but essentially an assumption. Hmmmm, a leap of faith we make to lead meaningful lives? Religion! Again! Religion is faith in a creator, or a divine force. Logic and science is faith in yourself, in your own ability to know whats up with the world and how it works. Or in the case that you have ever taken something you have been taught for granted (Relativity, Evolution, germs) that you have not gone out and proved for yourself, you are putting faith in some dude with a PHD. Faith! Both logic and religions make fundamental assumptions (humans can see the truth, and derive greater truths from it without deceiving themselves; There is a supreme Force) that are the foundation for their whole skyscraper. This skyscraper does lots of useful things, though. One might argue that this so called assumptive logic cured smallpox, made cars and contact lenses. But religion gave people HOPE, a creation that beats out Science. So, if we establish that logic is a religion because it makes assumptions and builds upon them, and is a useful method of thinking, there is a revelation. It reduces your quibbling about the "logical falacies", "Occam's Razor", and whatnot to the moral equivalent of a Christian saying "this is forbidden by the Ten Comandments, it therefore cannot exist.". Please people! Just because Occam says so does not mean it is! You have come to worship logic more devoutly than the worst religious fanatic. You can't even carry a concept that clashes with your way of thinking! If it isn't good with Thermodynamics or Einstein, its null and void. Even priests don't do that. The religious are willing to accept ideas that don't conventionally sit with them, why are you not? So, lets get real. Maybe God does not fit into your nice little box, the box that has carried you a long way and is quite useful. Thats OK. Cloning, the existence of antimatter, and other stuff dont sit well in other people's boxes. But if you form a belief that validates some information and excludes the rest, you are essentially boxing yorself into a way of thinking, a filter for ideas, a language of thought. A box is great; you can see what's inside the box really well, but it is still just a fucking box. There is the vast outside, the ideas that dont fit your filter. All the stuff you cut off with "Occam's Razor". All the stuff other people cut off with "God's decree". God, the truth behind Big Bang, and the fairness of abortion are all out there, outside. So I propose this..... Throw down Occam's razor, throw down the ten commandments, throw down the Koran, Throw it all down. Step outside. Meet people. Exchange ideas(logic is an idea). Think outside the box. Let those squirmy, uncomfortable ideas tussle in your cortex. Figure out what is for yourself. Maybe it isn't all like you thought it was. Make an informed decision. Or, in more scientific terms, "redefine your methodology of thinking with an increased data set." Allow more ideas and facts to come in before you pick up your tools (Logic, Law, Religion) and start hacking at them. Logic cannot explain it all, no single thing can. You must be multi-lingual in the languages of thought to get a cohesive, full picture. So dont get boxed in by logic. Think in different currents than your used to. It is, just like everything else in life, a matter of perspective. By the way, if you have any arguement, problem, comment or question on what i just wrote, i would love to get some feedback. Tell me what you think. make it intelligent i.e no "you suck and are wrong!". i am willing to chop this issue up and look it over. "When I look down, i just miss all the good stuff, and look up, i just trip over things"-Ani Difranco "The world is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we CAN imagine."J.B.S Haldane "forty-two"-?
"An it harm none" was added, by Wiccans, I believe, probably because they didn't like the implications of the original.
To go a little farther into the philosophy behind it. It does not mean "Do whatever you want." For Crowley, Will had a distinct magical meaning. Closer to discover you True Destiny and pursue that at all costs than to "do whatever you want."
An alternate phrasing that I've always preferred is "Thou hast no right but to do thy Will." Same statement, but the implications differ.
thejeff
Whether or not you (or me for that matter) like what the UN does, it seems like a more suitable body to decide on the issues surrounding genetic ethics, than some USA-centric (or anywhere-else-centric) commitee. If some other global group gets created to debate these issues, great... but I'd rather have the UN discuss it, than some non-global group. This issue affects all humans, not just Americans. That was the point I was really trying to get at.
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Genetic selection has been going on for 2000years at least. If only in the way you pick a mate. People will pick the things that they like or need in someone else to have sex with, this is a form of selection. If you only like a mate with blue eyes
and you have blue eyes, then your children will have blue eyes too. As for breeding for intelligance think about it if you enjoy a good conversation then you will find a mate that can fullfill this need, and quite possibly breed smart childern(though nobody has proven this yet). So all they panic about making super childern is not really a new thing the human race has been doing genetic engineering for at least 2000 years. After all we know the side effects of incest/inbreeding on humans and made laws and a moral code against it. So I feel that when we can start moving the genetic code around to suit us, we will make laws about what we can do.
Don't panic - Hitchhikers guide 2 the galaxy
(Disclaimer: I'm not an physicist)
Let me clarify what I was thinking. General relativity allows for time as a radial measurement; that is, the time of an event is the 4-D distance between that event and the Big Bang. (I don't know if this is required or just a possible geometry for the universe.) Thus there would be no 'time before the Big Bang'; that would require a negative distance. Something on the other side of the B.B. would still have a positive time; it would just be really far away.
I think you can get around the energy problem by rephrasing the law of conservation of energy:
The sum of the energy in the universe is invariant over the dimension of time.
As long as the total energy at the Bang equals the total energy later, you're fine. You don't have to worry about what came before, because there is no 'before.'
Under this scheme, the laws of physics cannot explain why the Big Bang happened, or why the universe exists, because physics (a.k.a. general relativity) only describes what happens in the space/time manifold. If there is an explanation it must lie outside time, in the realm of the eternal.
That, for me, is the best proof of the existence of a higher power that I've seen yet.
First of all, your argument above is invalid. Just because you see a shoe doesn't mean it is really there. You could be hallucinating, it could be a hologram, it could be a well-made fake.
'All conditions must be proven' = philosophic/mathematical method
'All conditions must not be disproven' = scientific method
The thing about philosophic/mathematical systems is that they all have axioms. Without first principles from which to reason they can't find any conclusions. Those axioms must be taken on faith. Attempts have been made to get around this, most famously Descartes' 'I think therefore I am', but they all failed miserably.
Poorly constructed logic is one thing, but everyone has first principles based on faith. If you dig through yours far enough you will find them. The only exception I'd grant would be people who truly accept the scientific method, and the best they can say is that the existence of God is unproven.
Nothing in the laws of physics as we now know them say that every event must have a cause. In fact, quantum mechanics holds that first causes are cropping up around us all the time. Certain subatomic events are not triggered by an outside interaction, but rather happen at random times. Every time a radioactive atom decays it becomes a first cause.
If you had better read my reply you would have seen that I stated that HIV is a retro virus, which eans that it changes the genetic code of the cels that it attacks. If scientists knew what part of the virus' code changes the host cells code, then they could develop vaccines (this is the best word that I could find to describe it) that could stop the virus from changing the hosts genetic code, thereby stopping the virus in it's tracks.
And if you had learned biology a little better, you might have learned what a retrovirus is.
*ALL* viruses (and yes, viruses is the plural) change their host's genetic code.
A retrovirus is an RNA virus (along with reverse transcriptase) that translates itself into DNA after penetrating the host cell.
Once again, the lethality of HIV for T/CD-4 cells isn't caused by the virus itself, but by clonal selection on immature T-cells within the thymus and bone marrow of an infected individual. There is an HIV protein called GP120 (if I recall correctly, been a few years since immunology) that binds to the MHC-II region of T cells, which is what your T cells use to identify if antigens are foreign or not. When the immature T-cell is undergoing clonal selection, if it responds incorrectly, your own immune system prunes the cell. IE, kills it, and the GP120 protein is re-released into the system, able to bind once yet again to another immature T-cell and do the same thing. Its a downward spiral: as the infection gets worse, more and more GP120 proteins are running free wrecking havoc, and less and less T cells are free to actively fight the virus.
There is nothing, not a damn thing, that the human genome project is going to be able to do about that.
Hey, nice followup! This is a good start. But your 71 million figure is fundamentally misleading for a simple reason. In any conflict between two peoples, historically, save perhaps the communist examples, both groups will claim that "God" is on their side. Does this self-justification mean that organized religion was responsible for the conflict? Obviously not. And doesn't the party starting the conflict deserve the blame? Unfortunately, this is notoriously difficult to determine.
... attacking another group for their convictions." Obviously social, economic, political, and religious issues do get intertwined, hence the emphasis on "primary" purpose. What evidence would satisfy such a claim? One piece of evidence of a primary religious motive would be public cries by a significant fraction of religious leaders for violent action. An even stronger piece of evidence would be the religious leaders organizing to carry out such violent action.
So we need to define some terms. I propose that "perpetrated in the name of God" (your phrase) implies that the primary purpose of the conflict was religious in nature (not economic or political). You would hopefully agree with this definition since you define the problem group as "organized religions
By these hopefully reasonable definitions, I fail to see how the following would be considered "perpetrated in the name of God":
- 30 M Native Americans- killed largely by disease and for motives of greed over land and in some cases politics (e.g. the French allied with and paid some Indians to fight British/American interests) There *was* an active effort to peacefully convert the Indians, but I've never run across evidence of violent or evil attempts at forced conversion.
- 13 M in WWI- this isn't even remotely a religious conflict; it's almost entirely political fallout from the decline of the Austro-hungarian empire of the Hapsburgs. Warring tribes and nationalism, not warring religions.
- 10 M (?!) in the Balkans - As above, this is an issue of warring tribes, not warring religions as far as I can tell. I could be convinced otherwise given evidence under the above definition.
There goes a quick 50 million of your 71 milion "perpetrated in the name of God" deaths, and I have a different set of concerns with your 15 million Crusade deaths.
The big arrow in your quiver IMHO is the Crusades. Based on my admittedly feeble understanding of it, it *would* qualify as "perpetrated in the name of God" by the above definition. We could argue about whether it was solely driven by the Catholic church's drive for power (a common western view) or whether it was a response to the aggressive "holy war" expansion of Muslims up through Turkey, in North Africa, and through sizeable fractions of Spain. But in either case organized religion seemed to be a driving, encouraging factor feeding the conflict. As for the 15 million figure, it seems rather high. At least one nice and well-sourced web source on genocide, a facinating historical view of the topic, seems to indicate that the number across multiple crusades is under 200,000. Perhaps it is omitting something, but for now, I consider the burden of proof to be in your court. I'd be even more willing to agree that the Inquisitions and the Salem Witch trials conform to my definition, although I'd note their relatively small numbers (in the 5-digit range according to the above source.) What are we down to, 6 million? And I'm skipping addressing some of the other "small potatoes" you mentioned.
I'm surprised you omitted the Reformation-era conflicts like the Thirty Years War which were due to an mix of religious and political forces. It's arguable whether such conflicts were primarily religious or primarily political power struggles, but in any case it's a stronger anti-religion case than the three conflicts mentioned above. Tell you what, I'll let you add that one if you let me add Mao alongside Hitler and Stalin. That accounts for another 10-15 million he executed and 30 million he led into man-made starvation.
I don't know whether or not Hitler was a Catholic, but from what I recall reading some of his autobiography, Mein Kampf, religion played little or no role in his upbringing; he was almost completely consumed by political issues. It's also well documented that towards the end of the war, he increasingly became involved in a variety of occult practices, attempting to set up his own state religion based on German myths and the notion of the sanctity of German blood. It's pretty clear (to me at least) that he agreed with Nietsche that God is dead, and let's manipulate whatever religious systems exist to our own ends.
Don't forget, the Hitler extermination figure isn't 6 million; that's the figure referring to the number of Jews exterminated, and doesn't include the blacks, handicapped, homosexuals, Christian opposition, gypsies, Polish people, etc. The overall figure is apparently about double: 12 million.
Now I'd agree with you that there might be various murders throughout the world due to religious and anti-religious individuals. How many murderers or serial killers are religious and how many are areligious or anti-religious? Let's agree that these aren't going to be too countable with our crude methods and keep focused on the bigger social conflicts. I will point out that the systematic allowance of killing of human fetuses, 40 million in America alone over the last 20 years, might be a relevant figure, but I'll try to decline pushing the point once made, in the interest of avoiding another large discussion surrounding definitions of whether fetuses count as human.
So I've added another 16-90 million to your atheist-led tally.
In closing, I think your claim that "taking the whole of history more acts have been attributed to organized religions... than [those committed] solely by atheists" argument, besides being largely unsupported by the facts, also has a severe statistical bias. How is it fair to measure 100-250 years of atheism against 1000+ years of religious behavior?
Look, I'm not trying to exclude religion from culpability; religions *are* culpable for the acts of their followers. "You shall judge a tree by its fruit," as one of them says, urging adherents to carefully screen potential leaders. I'd even agree that religions and religious followers should be held to a higher standard than atheists, since they espouse one. But lets try to look at the evidence without too many preconceptions. What do I make of the evidence? In general, I would say that the nation state is far, far more culpable for mass deaths than religion, which has really only become guilty of great failings when it wrapped its power structures up with those of the state. To the extent that religion encourages restraint on the excercise of state power (due to some moral code,) organized religion can provide a beneficial counterweight in a civilization.
Like you, I'm not trying to offend but attempting to offer a thought-provoking rebuttal. Why does this matter? Besides the issue of "what is true", on a purely pragmatic basis, casting off the moral constraints provided by religion can have significant costs in return for relatively unproven benefits. The "free love" of the '60s didn't come free.
--LP
and the very same arguments couldn't defend communism too? Stalin, for example, was paranoid, that's why millions of people died during his reign, not because communists are evil. Practically no ideology (except for fascism and the likes) can be accused of anything with that sort of reasoning.
Let's just say that if there hadn't been such a thing as religion, no one would have had to die in the name of it, and therefor some people consider it to "have blood on it's hands" (which is a statement that, by the way, probably never was meant to be taken literally anyway).
1 and 2 only "certainly happened" in the minds of those who hate everything that is mass-produced. Certainly, sweatshop conditions do exist in some places, but far from every textile factory is the sort of firetrap you see on hidden-camera portrayals. As for "inferior product", it's an issue of apples and oranges. Is a product that is of decent quality but affordable to virtually anyone "inferior" to a more luxurious product that far fewer people can afford? Products that anyone can purchase and enjoy are the legacy of mass production. (Nor do they eliminate more expensive, hand-made items. Hit any yuppie mail-order catalogue and you can find any number of products lovingly hand-made by people all over the world...)
And you definitely missed my point: the Luddites had nothing to do with the anti-technological doctrine called "Luddism". They simply opposed someone else having the means to out-compete them in the market. They tried intimidating would-be competitors, then they tried destroying the tools of their competitors. "Semi-terroristic" was probably wrong, as this is more a gangster-esque behavior - they were simply bullies trying to protect their turf. (I would certainly agree that the punishments levied against them were ridiculous, but the British criminal justice system of the time was quite brutal and lacked any effective protections for its citizens (not that the US system was much better, to be fair).)
Frankly, the Luddites were an overhyped footnote later used as a romantic symbol for a doctrine they didn't form or possess. They can safely be forgotten, and we can really use a better epithet.
What I want to know is how it is that we know which parts of DNA are unused when we haven't even begun to understand how DNA _really works_. I'm talking at the level that it influences things. Someone looking at C code doesn't know that a computer works on a flow of timed binary signals ... we can start to understand "the code" but until we know how it is interpreted/used by the system as a whole, we can't make passing judgements like "bloatedness".
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)