Sunspots 965

A Conversation article discusses dietary supplements, with some warnings. 

Another Conversation article tells us about synthetic human embryos.

A Grist report suggests that we are now occasionally experiencing category 6 hurricanes.

A Conversation writer examines the ethnic and national diversity among the Israeli defense forces.

Joel Duff pleads with Christian leaders who routinely post material, opinions, copied from others without checking -- the equivalent of posting material from the tabloids on sale at supermarket checkout areas, he says.

Gizmodo warns us that Mac computers are vulnerable to viruses.

A Conversation writer discusses having relationships with artificial intelligences.

Caitlin Clark has set a record for points scored over a career in women's basketball, according to NPR and multiple other sources. She's not a ball hog -- she recently made her 1000th assist. The all-time record for either sex, set by Pete Maravich over 50 years ago, is likely the next record Clark will break.

Sunspots 961

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*

Christianity: (and embryonic development) Christianity Today discusses a million or so frozen embryos, some of which have been frozen for decades.

Computing: Gizmodo reports that generating AI images takes more energy than you might think.

Education: (And Christmas and Hanukkah) Grammarphobia examines the different spellings of the names of these two celebrations.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 950

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*

Environment: A Conversation writer discusses making forests less susceptible to fires.

Health: (Or something) Gizmodo reports that the US is running low on laxatives, probably, in part, because of TikTok influencers. Really.

TheScientist discusses chronic itch -- lasting for months, maybe years.

NPR reports on populations that live for a long time, and why.

A Conversation article tells us why fevers are (usually) good for us.

Science: Gizmodo reports that some Italian scientists say that they have produced a human embryo, from stem cells, not from a normal fertilized egg. They say that this is an ethical procedure. No doubt there will be questions about that.

TheScientist reports on a study that describes what makes mouse hairs turn gray with age.

ScienceAlert reports that elephants may name each other with sound patterns.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 900

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to others*:

The Arts: A Christianity Today writer on Tolkien's world, and ours.

Christianity: A Christianity Today writer on how corporate worship may bond us together in ways we don't realize.

Christianity Today has posted links to several articles on the late Mickail Gorbachev.

Politics:  A Conversation writer says that Iran is winning the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Gizmodo notes that former President Trump has incriminated himself on his own social media platform.

Science: Gizmodo on 7 animals that use tools.

A web page that tells us that fruit flies have been important in Nobel-prize-winning research.

A writer for The Conversation points out that over half of human fertilized eggs die before the woman knows that she is pregnant, but that laws protecting human embryos don't take this into account.

Another writer for The Conversation discusses what we know about fish sleep.

Sports: FiveThirtyEight tells us which of the big universities are football schools, and which are basketball schools.

*I try not to include items that require a password or fee to view.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 825

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Christianity Today has an article exploring the ins and outs of cohabitation before, or instead of, marriage.

A Relevant article reminds us that the default position of Christians shouldn't be outrage.

Computing: (and food) Gizmodo reports that Mars candies is testing a device that rolls along the aisles of grocery stores, trying to get you to buy candy. (There's Mars candy as part of the device.)

Education: Grammarphobia discusses o'clock, and other words with apostrophes.

Ethics: NPR reports that scientists have facilitated cell growth from single cells to a structure that resembles a very early embryo. The article brings out some of the ethical questions about the procedure.

The Scientist gives more lab details on this research.

Health: (or something) Gizmodo asks about hair loss, and how to slow it down.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight analyzes positions of US House members and candidates, and finds that, for both parties, moderate candidates did very well. But there aren't many of them.

Science: The Scientist reports on a study of the giraffe genome. Giraffes have, for one thing, genes that raise their blood pressure, allowing their brains to receive blood.

NPR reports that bonobos seem to be innately more likely to share, and much less likely to kill each other, than chimpanzees.

Gizmodo shows us face mask details, magnified significantly.

Sports: NPR, and other outlets, on disparities between facilities for the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournament. Guess who has the better facilities?

The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

Thanks for looking!

 

A call for a moratorium on creating gene-edited babies

National Public Radio and other news sources have reported on a call to put a "moratorium on heritable genome editing" in place.

The call for a moratorium was published on October 13, 2019, in Nature, the same journal that originally published the Watson-Crick paper, which explained how the structure of DNA was responsible for its use as a heredity-carrying molecule. Here is that call. It was made by 18 scientists and ethicists from 7 countries, namely Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States. Paul Berg, who was prominent in calling for a similar moratorium on developing recombinant DNA, in the 70s, was one of the authors. Jennifer Doudna, perhaps more responsible than anyone else for the development of current genetic engineering methods, using the CRISPR-cas9 system, was not among the authors. She believes that the CRISPR system should be used to change genes in early embryos.

The earlier moratorium was most likely the reason that scientists working on genetic engineering, in the 70s and after, became quite cautious about the possible dangers of such work. I am not aware that any disaster, caused by recombinant DNA, has ever occurred. Without the moratorium, and the publicity that resulted, some disaster might have occurred.

The current proposed moratorium, by Eric Lander and the others, will probably not be made into law, or perhaps even into research regulations, by the US and other countries. But, again, it most likely will cause scientists to be very careful in what research is carried out, and how it is carried out.

This is probably the most important statement in the call for a moratium: "clinical germline editing should not proceed for any application without broad societal consensus on the appropriateness of altering a fundamental aspect of humanity for a particular purpose. Unless a wide range of voices are equitably engaged from the outset, efforts will lack legitimacy and might backfire." 

Some Christians (and others) are concerned about any manipulation of human embryos. (See here for discussion of abortion.) Many people are wary of the possibility of somehow enhancing humans, for example by manipulating genes so that people with better vision, or stronger muscles, result. And, also, many are concerned that genetic manipulation techniques would be available only to the wealthy. There are also safety concerns. Have we demonstrated, in animals, that the use of the CRISPR system won't result in unintended changes in genes, whether the gene under consideration, or some other gene? There are possible negatives, perhaps so serious that the technique should not be used on human embryos, ever, buty, on the other hand, manipulating genes might make it possible for some embryos, which would otherwise never have had a chance to survive, to live normal lives.

Thanks for reading.

Altering genes in human embryos and cloning hamburgers

Three recent articles have come to my attention, and seem worth commenting on.

National Public Radio reports on a scientist in Sweden who is modifying the genes of human embryos. (The embryos are "leftovers" from in vitro fertilization procedures, and the parents have given consent for such use.) He says that he is trying to figure out how to fix harmful genes.

There are serious ethical problems with this type of research. One such is the question of whether it is ethical to experiment on human embryos at all. Other questions include the likelihood that such techniques would be used to produce "designer babies" -- children with genes for, say, artistic ability -- and thus genetic haves and have-nots. Another question relates to the possibility of making some sort of mistake while pursuing this technique in an embryo which is brought to birth. Such a mistake would damage such a child, and would also be passed on to that child's offspring. The scientist says that he is not planning to implant any of the embryos he is working on, but someone else might.

Scientific American has an article about the "yuck factor" (I just don't like it) in making ethical decisions. An example would be making hamburgers from human tissue. (No one is doing that!) The article also discusses the production of hamburger meat from cow tissue. That has been done, but is some distance from being marketable. There are potential advantages in using such meat, which are discussed.

Scientific American also discusses the possibility (and, perhaps, likelihood) of using gene editing techniques to improve intelligence. 

Thanks for reading!

When does human life begin?

Even if abortion had never existed, the question of when human life begins would be interesting. We are humans, after all. I submit that the answer to that question is religious, political, legal and cultural, and that science can't answer it. The main reason is that "human life" means different things to different people. Different legitimately. Abortion does exist, of course, and that brings up the obvious question as to whether it is murder or not.

Wired, definitely not a religious periodical, has published an essay on when life begins, featuring the views of an expert on human embryology, who says that we can't determine when human life begins scientifically, and gives some reasons for that.

My most important post on the question of abortion, from a Christian viewpoint, is here. This essay includes a discussion of Exodus 21:22-3, and other verses that may bear on the Biblical view of abortion. I have previously posted on the question of when life begins, here and here. 

Thanks for reading.

Editing genes in human embryos -- we may be almost there, for better or for worse

And all long-term exercises of power, especially in breeding, must mean the power of early generations over later ones. - C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man. HarperOne, 2015 paperback edition, p. 57. (Originally published in 1943)


Wired has recently reported on what they are calling gene editing. (Another term is human genetic engineering.) The title of the article is "America Needs to Figure out the Ethics of Gene Editing Now." Yes.

What is gene editing? Gene editing is changing the DNA of an embryo. In the Wired report, it mentions that Chinese scientists attempted this, with the goal of curing an inherited disease before the embryo was born. According to the article, the experiment didn't work, and was terminated. My guess is that, even if there were no reasons not to do this, and government and industry invested heavily in it, we still wouldn't see any successful medical interventions of this type for several years.

The article includes several statements from scientists and others, all concerned that there is a possibility that this sort of treatment is likely to result in unforeseen bad consequences, most likely in deformed embryos or infants. (That seemed to happen in the Chinese experiments.) In other words, even if the techniques become well understood, and scientists and medical personnel become proficient in such techniques, the procedures won't always work.

Another reason for concern, not really raised in the statements, is the likelihood that human embryos will have to be used, and sacrificed, in the development of the techniques, for practice, as it were.

Yes, we need to have a conversation about this, and now. As the quotation at the beginning of this post indicates, C. S. Lewis, for one, was concerned about this sort of thing, although his statement was published about ten years before the discovery of the DNA double helix. Others, including ethicists, politicians, theologians, lawyers and scientists, have been concerned since that time. The reasons for their concerns are almost coming to fruition. (Not everyone is concerned. Some people want to forge ahead, and let the consequences fall where they may.)

The research discussed above is motivated by a desire to help children who have inherited diseases. But future gene editing might be for less beneficent purposes. For example, it might be possible to edit the genes of an embryo so that that embryo would be more likely to develop into someone with athletic prowess; or with a certain kind of hair, eye, or skin color; with the likelihood of getting better grades at school; or even with genes from other organisms -- firefly or jellyfish fluorescence comes to mind, as a cosmetic "enhancement." Such gene editing would most likely exaggerate the gap between the haves and the have-nots, even if there were no other bad consequences. It also might be an important step on the road towards re-defining what a human being is, and is not.

Thanks for reading.

Kathryn Applegate, at BioLogos, has commented on this research, and the questions surrounding it.

Morning-after pills may not cause abortion (in any sense)

Morning-after contraceptive pills may prevent pregnancy after intercourse, from rape or other circumstances.

Some people claim that these pills lead to an abortion. That's not true, unless loss of a fertilized egg or non-implanted embryo is part of the definition of an abortion, which it shouldn't be. However, to some people, loss of a fertilized egg, or a non-implanted embryo is loss of human life, and deliberately acting so as to cause such losses is equivalent to murder, so, whether such a loss is called an abortion or not doesn't matter to them.

A recent report by National Public Radio indicates that at least some morning-after pills do not cause such losses. A study shows that "Women who took the drug after ovulation got pregnant at the same rate as those who took nothing at all," which is strong evidence that the drug is not preventing implantation. If it were, such women would be expected to have gotten pregnant less often. Not only that, but Italy, where laws are often strongly influenced by Catholic belief, now allows one morning-after pill, and the Catholic bishops of Germany have approved the use of such medications for rape victims. According to Fox News, these bishops consulted with the Vatican before giving such approval.

So how do these medications work? Apparently, they prevent ovulation, the release of an egg from the ovary. Unless you want to call that abortion, or murder, the use of such pills, at least in some cases, should not violate most people's consciences.

Thanks for reading.

Genetic engineering may be used to change DNA in a human egg

National Public Radio reports that some scientists are considering changing some of the DNA in a human egg, so that the resulting offspring would not have an inherited disease. Up until this point, genetic engineering has been used only to change the DNA of a child, so that the results of genes in that child that cause disease can be mitigated. (See here for the Wikipedia article on genetic engineering.)

As the article points out, there are a number of ethical concerns, such as whether it is acceptable to use human eggs for this purpose, whether it's acceptable to modify an egg in such a way, whether there is potential harm to any offspring born, as a result of such a procedure, whether it's acceptable to treat women in this way, and whether we have any business tinkering with reproduction in this way. Up till now, genetic engineering in humans has not been used to change the type of fertilized egg produced, which, of course, could lead to a change in the offspring produced, and to that change being perpetuated in the population as the offspring had descendants.

On the other hand, there is certainly potential for alleviating harm, and lots of it. If, for example, sickle cell anemia, or Lou Gehrig's disease, could be stamped out by genetically engineering eggs, should we do it?

Good question. The answer depends a lot on the answers to the questions about ethical concerns. It also depends on motive -- why would we do this? To make money? To win Nobel Prizes? There are questions of justice that the report doesn't mention, either. Assuming that we decide to do this, what conditions, in what populations, do we consider treating in this way? Which ones don't we treat, or don't we treat right away? How do we make these choices? God help us, either way.

Comments to "Christ didn't come as a baby."

On December 17, 2007, I re-posted, with minor revisions, "Christ didn't come as a baby." (My point was that He actually came as an embryo. I first posted with this post title four years ago today.) I mused a bit about some possible implications, including that He may have given up awareness for part or all of the nine months.

There were several comments, not all by me, and these may be of some interest. The comments were made over several days. My guess is that some of the links to the commenters no longer work. Here are the comments:

12 comments:

Steve Martin said...

Hi Martin, Now that is an interesting question! And when did Christ gain (re-gain?) awareness of his divinity?

December 17, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

I don't know, of course, nor am I certain that He ever lost it. But He had such awareness as a boy, when He talked to the scribes. Thanks.

December 18, 2007

Annette said...

the bible tells us that Christ was fully God and fully human. As such there doesn't seem to leave much room for argument saying that he gave up some of his awareness. Even in the womb he was fully God and fully man, it's not like suddenly he became God. That makes no sense. Being tempted isn't a wrong thing...it's the following up on the temptation that is wrong. So being tempted doesn't mean that He wasn't God, just means that he didn't sin when he was tempted.

December 19, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, Annette. As I said above "I'm not sure he ever lost it." However, the fully God and fully human part, it seems to me, may have only applied when He was an adult. You are right about temptation not being sin, of course. My point was that it seems to me that it's possible that young children, maybe even babies or fetuses, are tempted in ways that are peculiar to their ages, just as there are temptations that seem to mostly occur with adolescence, or with maturity. So possibly it was necessary for Christ to also be immature, in some ways, to be tempted like we are.

December 20, 2007

Annette said...

Okay, just wanting to clarify.... do you think temptation is a result of immaturity as people? So that therefore Christ as a child wasn't really a child? and if he was that therefore he wasn't fully God?

December 21, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

I don't think that temptation is the result of immaturity. I do think that immature people can be tempted, at least some of them can, and that some of those temptations (to take the biggest cookie, or try to get a parent's attention when you don't really need it, for example) come in different forms to people at different stages of life. Presumably a 3-year-old can't be tempted to adultery, for example. It is orthodox church doctrine, as I understand it, that Christ was fully human and fully God, and I subscribe to that. I don't think anyone can really understand all of that, although, no doubt, some understand it much better than I do. All I'm saying is that to be "fully human" involves going through developmental stages, and if Christ were fully human, then perhaps He went through these, too. Thanks.

December 21, 2007

Rileysowner said...

Interesting thoughts. I think the problem is that we simply do not know. What does it mean the while an embryo Christ was fully God and fully human? I don't think we can answer it for at least two reasons. First, we simply don't know enough, and probably never will. Even as a single celled embryo everything that makes a person up (at least genetically) is already their. Yes, it has to grow and develop, but it is there. How that works its way out when joining the second person of the trinity to humanity is something that is beyond our understanding. Frankly, in my opinion, it is just as difficult to understand how this could be the case once that embryo has developed and been born and grown. While I know that the Son of God joined himself to a real human nature, I can't really comprehend how that could be. Second, this is beyond our giving an answer because the written word of God simply does not tell us about this, much like it doesn't tell us much about Jesus childhood. What we do know, is that whatever that childhood was like, it was perfectly obedient to God and without sin or he could not have been the unblemished, sinless sacrifice for the sins of all who believe. I think it may be helpful to realize that there would be a difference between what development from conception on would be like before the fall into sin and after. We cannot, at least from what we are told in the Bible, know what it would be like if Adam had never sinned, but I do believe it would be safe to say that because of that act, everything changed including how human beings develop because after that event, all human beings, even while still being in the image and likeness of God, have that corrupted and defaced so that at this point we really cannot say what it would be like without that sin we are all conceived with. I would, however, have concerns saying that Jesus took on the divine nature at some point other than at conception, because he was to be like us in every way, but without sin. That would mean being the God/man from conception on. As I said, I can't comprehend it, or what is would mean for the Son of God to be joined to a single cell, but is that not some of the wonder and glory of God doing what is so incomprehensible to us. Remember he is God.

December 23, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, rileysowner! As you say "we simply do not know" and "he is god." That's about where we are on this, and a lot of other questions.

December 24, 2007

Enigman said...

Martin, what is full humanity? Is it not just, well, humanity? Maybe one could imagine removing bits from someone, and then ask oneself if what remains is human; one might eliminate all the body in that way, even the final cell, if there was a human soul. Since human souls are made in the image of God (somehow), a fully human and fully divine person seems logically possible...(?)...Merry Christmas

December 25, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

Good question, enigman, and, of course, in death all the cells are eventually, er, eliminated, but a human soul remains. There are, however, limitations to humans, because of their bodies, especially to embryonic ones. Thanks.

December 25, 2007

SFMatheson said...

Very nice point, Martin. But then I'm biased...embryos are cooler than babies, hands down. :-) Steve

December 29, 2007

Martin LaBar said...

Thanks, sfmatheson. Perhaps you are right.

December 29, 2007

Thanks to all the commenters, and thank you for reading.

*  *  *  *  *

As of October 30, 2012, I am closing comments on this post. There's been nothing but spam. A lot of it. If you want to comment, and aren't a spammer, please comment on another post. Thanks.

Heartbeat at 18 days?

While on a recent trip to Florida, I saw a number of billboards, saying that an embryo had a heart at 18 days of age.

I could not find this ad campaign on the Internet, but I found a web page, which makes this claim, among others: "18 days after conception the baby's heart is beating." The organization's web site indicates that this is an Irish pro-life organization. (By September 28, 2013, this web page had been removed, which is hardly surprising, considering the nearly four years since I saw it.)
Both the web site and the billboard campaign show a picture of a fetus, not an embryo. (The human becomes a fetus at eight weeks of pregnancy.) So does the heart really beat at 18 days?

The Wikipedia article on prenatal development is a good source for answering this question. It's a little confusing, because it gives both the age of the embryo/fetus and the gestational age, which is the time since the last menstruation.

According to that source, "Primitive heart tube is forming. Vasculature begins to develop in embryonic disc." at 20 days after fertilization, not 18 days. (Vasculature means the blood vessels needed for circulation.) The heart begins to beat between 22 and 28 days after fertilization. However, the first sign of a working circulatory system is later than that, at between days 29 and 35.

The billboard campaign, and the web page, seem to be wrong. The heart doesn't begin to beat until later than 18 days after fertilization, and it doesn't really start to function until even later than that. Besides, the graphic in both the web page and the billboard show a fetus, probably at least 12 weeks old, not an embryo at all.

There are reasons for arguing that unborn human entities should be protected, and I won't consider the validity of those reasons here. But, even if those reasons were completely uncontroversial arguments, that would not excuse the use of distortion in support of protecting embryos or fetuses, and that, unfortunately, is what the pro-life community has done, in the two instances described, and, I'm afraid, in other cases.

Thanks for reading. See here for a more comprehensive view of my thoughts on abortion.

Sunspots 203

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Humor:
The Onion reports that a man cannot quote properly from The Princess Bride. Horrors!

Science:
Slate warns us to be careful about claims of fiber content in food.

William Saletan, who does not believe embryos are morally equivalent to children, is disturbed by the prospect of using embryos in research. He is even more disturbed by the prospect of harvesting fetuses .

Politics:
Christianity Today on what John Calvin would have thought of former Vice President Cheney's views of the Presidency and the rule of law. (Or, presumably, what he would have thought about what Nixon said, in the trailers from the recent movie.)

Image source (public domain)

Stem Cells, again

Yesterday, March 9, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that would expand federally-funded embryonic stem cell research in the United States. (Michigan, Missouri, and California had already passed laws allowing state funding of this kind.)

President Bush had allowed such research, but only on a limited number of stem cell lines, that were already in existence when he signed his Executive Order, in 2001. Additional stem cell lines now in existence seem to include some that would be superior for this type of research.

Executive Orders are binding on the Federal Government, but may be overturned by a succeeding Executive Order, by the same, or a different president. Such an order normally does not try to undo acts by Congress. Acts of Congress can only be overturned by the Supreme Court, declaring that a law is unconstitutional, or by a subsequent Act by Congress.

Two recent articles, written for non-scientists and non-lawyers, are an introduction to stem cells, in Newsday, and a discussion of the likely effects of President Obama's action, in the Los Angeles Times. I'm guessing that neither of these articles will be available for more than a few weeks, as is typically true of newspaper articles, on any subject. The Wikipedia article on the subject is here.

There are those who object to the use of embryonic stem cells, because they believe that an early embryo is the moral equivalent of a baby, or an adult human being. Most people who oppose abortion also oppose stem cell research, for much the same reasons. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is one person who opposes abortion, but favors embryonic stem cell research. He believes that the potential benefits of human embryonic stem cell research make support for such research a pro-life issue.

The new Executive Order does not allow creation of a new embryonic stem cell line from an embryo, using Federal research money. That is prohibited by law. President Obama says that he opposes human cloning, the production of a human being by taking DNA from an existing person, and inserting such DNA into an embryonic cell, after removing the DNA from that cell. (We are not certain if human cloning, all the way to birth, is even possible.) That is also prohibited by law.

The new Order does make it possible to do research on many embryonic stem cell lines that weren't available when President Bush signed his Executive Order in 2001.

We allow the production of embryos, for in vitro fertilization, in the US. (Not everyone believes that we should allow this.) A great many such embryos are never used for this purpose, and are either discarded, or frozen. Many people believe that, since these embryos are never going to be implanted, and allowed to develop, that there is nothing immoral in using them in research that will potentially help others. Many other people believe that using such embryos is immoral, and equivalent to murder. The Bible does not speak directly to this issue, although there are many people who are convinced that the Bible makes embryos the moral equivalent of adults. (There are a few other Bible-believing Christians who are not so convinced*, or who believe that use of embryos that are not going to be implanted is a moral act.) The Catholic Church, as a whole, is opposed to abortion, and to embryonic stem cell research, as I understand it.
*Exodus 21 may support the idea that an embryo is not morally equivalent to a baby, or an adult, but that interpretation is controversial. See footnote to verse 22.

There are persons who believe that research should be conducted on no humans but adults not under coercion, who can give informed consent to the use of their body in research, and that even medical research on children, unless it is designed to help a condition that a particular child has, and that could lead to treatment that could help that child, is immoral. These thinkers are not necessarily against abortion. Such persons would be against any research on human embryos, unless designed to help that particular embryo. Not everyone agrees.

Thanks for reading.

The First Fourteen Days of Human Life

An article, of the same title as this post, by Patrick Lee and Robert P. George, was published in the Summer, 2006 issue of The New Atlantis. These gentlemen are professors of bioethics and jurisprudence, respectively.

They begin by arguing against Senator Orrin Hatch, and others, who claim that human life begins at implantation, which would mean that using an embryo produced in vitro could legitimately be used in stem cell research, before it reaches implantation, and human life. They contradict this argument, using evidence from embryology, and discuss this in some detail in the article. They indicate that this evidence shows that no maternal signal, following implantation, is necessary for development, and that the polar axes of the embryo are probably determined at fertilization. They also say that some development takes place before implantation -- there is more than one cell at that time.

The authors also reject arguments from twinning, which can take place up to fourteen days after fertilization. Fusion of two embryos into one can also occur up to fourteen days. These facts, which they do not dispute, are often used to support arguments that an embryo before 14 days isn't the complete moral equivalent of, say, a second trimester embryo. They claim that these arguments are not convincing.

I did not find their arguments convincing, for two reasons. First, they are conflating human genetic individuality with "human life." These two concepts may be identical, in God's mind, but I don't think we can know that. As the authors say about some of the arguments they oppose, this is an assertion on their part, not an air-tight argument.

As I have argued here, the biblical evidence is not absolutely clear about when an embryo or fetus becomes morally equivalent to a child. There is some chance, based on the Bible itself, that an unborn fetus, let alone an early embryo, is not the moral equivalent of a baby. The chance is small, but it is there, as I see it. This possibility does not give license to mistreat human fetuses, nor, probably, even human embryos. A human who is dead by all the criteria used to declare such a death is not, in scripture, specified to be the moral equivalent of an adult, but this does not give license to feed a dead carcass to a flock of chickens, say.

I found the article interesting and informative. See also this previous post, and this one, for further discussion of human embryonic development.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 199

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science:
(or something) Slate reports that testing embryos for hair color, and other superficial traits, is becoming more common. "This is how revolutions happen: Technology matures, trends converge, and cultural changes pave the way. By the time Steinberg opens his trait-selection business . . . it'll be too late to stop him. In fact, before you know it, we'll be used to it."

There has been some work done on the Neanderthal genome. Really.

Politics:
(or something) Jan points out that the real cause of our current financial problems is that there are no women in charge of things on Wall Street. None of the big bankers in front of a congressional committee last week were women. (I saw a bit of it on C-SPAN.) (Actually, the chair of the FDIC is a woman.)

Computing:
A recent court case may affect our ability to link freely to web sites that are available to the public at large, says Slate. Let's hope not

Christianity:
Cody says that he is not defined by his paycheck, but by what he does for nothing.

Bonnie on questioning authority.

Image source (public domain)

The Case Against Perfection, by Michael J. Sandel

I recently read Michael J. Sandel's The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007).

It's a small and short book, considering various aspects of what has been called human enhancement, especially in athletics, and in genetic engineering of embryos. As the title suggests, Sandel is generally opposed to such enhancement. His arguments are of this sort:

The real problem with genetically altered athletes is that they corrupt athletic competition as a human activity that honors the cultivation and display of natural talents. From this standpoint, enhancement can be seen as the ultimate expression of the ethic of effort and willfulness, a kind of high-tech striving. (p. 29)

He has a similar objection to genetic engineering of human embryos -- he says that it would make us less human:

It is sometimes thought that genetic enhancement erodes human responsibility by overriding effort and striving. But the real problem is the explosion, not the erosion, of responsibility. As humility gives way, responsibility expands to daunting proportions. We attribute less to chance and more to choice. Parents become responsible for choosing, or failing to choose, the right traits for their children. (p. 87)

Are there religious objections to enhancement? I find them hard to draw. We take it as given that we are expected to purchase glasses for our children, the best equipment, such as shoes, for our athletes, and provide sometimes expensive training for both our kids and our athletes. So why draw the line at allowing, or even demanding, that the athletes take hormones, or injections of extra copies of normal genes, which will cause them to produce larger quantities of materials that will enhance performance? Yet most of us think that such treatment is unfair. Going down the path of enhancement, Sandel says, would logically lead to having the Super Bowl played by teams of robots. Do we want that? Do we want to genetically engineer our children for supposed superiority in some academic or physical endeavor, when, perhaps, they would not have chosen to live the life suggested by their enhancement?

Interesting questions, and interesting, if non-definitive answers. I'm glad I read this book. Thanks for reading.

Genetic modification of human embryos

William Saletan, of Slate, reports that a human embryo has been genetically modified. He also said that the embryo would have been destroyed anyway, as it was defective, and that no federal funds were used in these manipulations. As Saletan points out, there are concerns about the possibility of this being an early step on a slippery slope.

Wired has posted some reactions to this development.

Thanks for reading.

More on the moral status of embryos

William Saletan has reviewed a recent book, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, by Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen. According to the review (I have not read the book, but may do so) the book is an attempt to establish and defend the legal rights of embryos, from conception, based on science, not religious considerations. According to a different article by Saletan, George and Tollefsen believe that not only should embryonic stem cell research and, presumably, some kinds of contraception, be banned, but so should the current practices of removing embryonic cells from, say, an eight-cell embryo for diagnostic, or other purposes, or the production of several embryos for in vitro fertilization.

Saletan was sympathetic, but not convinced. I can't buy the central premise of the book, either. One fundamental scientific fact argues against saying that fertilization is the point at which a new human life is established, distinct from its mother, and all others, namely that there are identical births -- persons who both (or all) came from a single fertilized egg. There are also other scientific facts, which Saletan considers, which cast doubt on that premise. George and Tollefsen have responded to Saletan, here.

If a human fertilized egg can naturally split, and form two or more new humans, it is impossible to say that a human fertilized egg is always a new distinct individual, based on science. It is possible to say so, legally, philosophically, ethically, or for religious reasons, but not scientifically. See here for a previous post on this subject.

Thanks for reading.