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CHAPTER 10 ADVOCATES AND ENABLERS: |
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The outright advocates of human GE are a very mixed bag. Some of them are distinguished scientists, some are idiots, some are neither and inevitably some are both. The more extreme supporters may be their own worst enemies — their visions of a post-human paradise look to their opponents like a hell on earth, so one person's call for action may be another's call for prevention. At least that should make for honest debate.
Much more hard to refute are the enablers, some of whom genuinely believe they are neutral. Either they fail to recognise the full consequences of their actions, or they see themselves as swimming in an inevitable tide of progress, which generally means that they share an unquestioning acceptance of basic biotech assumptions. They, of course, would disagree. The chapter's section titles, below, are followed by
There are many more resources in the Appendix. |
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INTRODUCTION
SCIENTIFIC ADVOCATES THE EMBRYONIC STEM CELL LOBBY PASSIVE ENABLERS LIBERTARIANS THE EXTROPIANS THE WORLD TRANSHUMANIST ASSOCIATION OTHER FRINGE GROUPS A LOOSE AFFILIATION OF MILLIONAIRES AND BILLIONAIRES JOHN SPERLING: CATS AND PEOPLE SIR JOHN TEMPLETON: SCIENCE AND RELIGION THE BUSINESS OF LONGEVITY CRYONICS AND OTHER BUSINESSES BIOETHICS VIRTUAL ORGANIZING FURTHER READING BOX 10.1 The Thoughts of Chairman Jim Box 10.2 Gregory Stock: Have Speech, Will Travel Box 10.3 Lee Silver, Remaking Society Box 10.4 Michael West, Forever Dreaming Box 10.5 Arthur Caplan: A Very Professional Bioethicist |
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Most people don't want to change their children's genes (see Chapter 9). Some do, however, and they are an increasingly vocal minority, who have both the contacts and the expertise to make their views part of the public discourse. The pro-GE pitches supporters peddle vary in their details but share one salient characteristic: they are filled with sunny optimism. They are facets of a vision of technological utopia, and as such superficially appealing. The choices before us are framed as intelligence over stupidity, health over illness, beauty over ugliness, life over death. (Opponents, it should be noted, argue each point, vigorously.) Further, advocates frequently claim that their concepts of the future represent the culmination of the drives that have made our society what it is, and as such are inevitable. Failing that, they tend to assert the libertarian view that government has no right to restrict research; they often drift all too close to "I wanna and you can't stop me." And the fallback position is, of course, medical: Developing Human GE will cure (or eliminate) disease. All of these assertions are questionable at best, and that's being excessively polite. Some of the arguments and counter-arguments have been made in Chapter 3, on Cloning, Chapter 8, on Eugenics, and indeed throughout this book; more are addressed specifically in Chapter 11, which focuses on reasons not to attempt Human GE. The advocates, supporters, and enablers of Human GE are, however, more than able to speak for themselves. They often do: Some of the supporters are well-connected in the mainstream media and readily available for TV, while many more have extensive websites. Rather than risk mis-characterizing their opinions any further, this chapter serves as a brief survey of the intellectual landscape and a resource guide, spiced with some salutary examples of individuals to watch out for. They're not the worst, necessarily; none of them are stupid, most are pleasant, some very engaging, and all on at least some level sincere. They are here to give a flavor of the advocates' idiosyncratic and privileged universe. ... |
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Links were checked and functioning as of 5/09/05; they are supposed to open in new windows. Please report broken ones. Carl Elliott, "Humanity 2.0," Wilson Quarterly, Autumn 2003, is an overview of Transhumanism by a skeptical philosopher. Ralph Brave, "James Watson Wants to Build a Better Human," Alternet, 05/29/03, surveys the academic advocates of Human GE through the prism of Watson's eccentricities. The blog run by Glenn McGee and the other editors of the American Journal of Bioethics, with guest posts by Art Caplan and others, gives a taste of the liberal bioethics discourse. Better Humans describes itself as "an editorial production company that's dedicated to having the best information, analysis and opinion on the impact of advancing science and technology." The website carries many valuable stories, whose facts can generally be trusted. Less so, the opinions, but it's easy to tell the difference. The World Transhumanist Association has a large and well-ordered site. Secretary James Hughes has his own website, with challenging essays, including the greatest title in the field, "Embracing Change with All Four Arms: A Post-Humanist Defense of Genetic Engineering." See also the Reason magazine archive. And: |
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Lee Silver, Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family, Bard, 1998; originally published as Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World, Avon, 1997 Gregory Stock and John Campbell, eds., Engineering the Human Germline, Oxford University Press, 2000 Gregory Stock, Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future. Houghton Mifflin, 2002. The 2003 paperback edition, published by Mariner Books, has a different subtitle: Choosing our genes, changing our future. James Hughes, Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, Westview Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004 Brian Alexander, Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, Basic Books, New York, 2003 Stephen S. Hall, Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 2003 |
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