Dolly the organ machine

The recent scientific achievement of producing a sheep containing about 85% sheep cells and about 15% human cells has, of course, triggered the next round in Christian thought on the subject of ‘playing God’ versus progress. One writer at the Catholic, liberty-friendly Acton Institute blog has written several posts mostly disapproving of the idea of chimeras. His most recent musing critiques the presentation of the breakthrough by the media, and he argues that calling something 15% human is disingenuous, since ‘being human’ is a kind of on-off switch. (I agree with him on this, of course, but he seems to be presenting this criticism as though it’s a part of a larger case against chimeras, which I don’t follow). The author links to his past posts criticizing chimeras, which I’ll have to go through more thoroughly, and he further quotes from the article that ’silent viruses’ are a big concern with the future of animal ogran-growers:

According to reports, Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: “Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV.”

Now, I don’t find the critiques of chimera technology that stem from its potentially negative consequences to be compelling. If it is true that human organs harvested from sheep could contain silent viruses, then it follows that scientists (and in addition — or, at least, in a better world — private firms and corporations) will have to be very careful and deliberative in making the technology accessible. This is a narrow critique, however, and only accidentally applies to chimeras in general. Certainly Christians shouldn’t base any substantial objection to chimeras based on silent viruses (or other accidental concerns), because the technology to deal with these problems isn’t far behind the human-organs-in-animals technology itself. The shelf-life on the argument is a good tip that it’s probably not a good one to use in the first place.

The better Christian critique of this genre of science has to do with the following (roughly put, inadequately categorized) concern: What is it that humans, given their nature, ought and ought not to do with creation, given its nature? Nevertheless, I’d bet that there will be more critiques of Dolly the organ sheep based on some abstract claim that science has finally gone too far and is playing God in an inappropriate way.

In my view, any critique claiming that the creation and use of chimeras ‘goes too far’ or is ‘playing God’ with human DNA and animals will have to be firmly rooted in a clear understanding of human nature (and the nature of animals). It is clear that God has given humans stewardship over the use of this world, which I would argue includes (among other concerns) transforming things around us in ways that are beneficial to our life and health. Thus, it seems to me that good stewardship and respect for human nature doesn’t preclude the use of medicines to cure sickness, advanced farming techniques, or air conditioning, for example.

(Additionally, I don’t buy the arguments against birth control that base themselves on an appeal to letting God plan one’s family rather than taking this natural process into our own hands. If I were to take a stand against birth control it would be for the reasons embraced by the Catholic church — namely, that if the proper object of sex is procreation, then it is unethical to strip the activity of its proper end and enjoy the means as an end in themselves, apart from the greater end of reproduction. It’d be the equivalent of chewing up food and simply spitting it out. Since I’m not convinced that procreation is the only proper end of sexual relations, I don’t buy this argument either . . . although I have to admit that I probably would were I Catholic. But enough of this, for now.)

It goes beyond the tinkering with humanity, too. I don’t feel metaphysically threatened by the possibility of creating artificial intelligence, for example — heck, robots doing the grunt work of daily labor for us would be fantastic! Likewise, I don’t see much ethical harm in manipulating the genes of crops to be more productive, disease resistant, etc. As Christians have faced these changes historically, it seems to me that many of the ‘lines drawn in the sand’ have been somewhat arbitrary. However well-intentioned the critiques may be, they generally have sounded to me more like reactions to something new than a principled stance against progress based on a given understanding of human nature.

What might a principled argument against chimeras look like? Well, I suspect that the Acton blog contributor Jordan Ballor is on to something here and here, but I am, of course, not well read enough to engage this debate for now.

I wonder if Mr. Ballor would object to organ-growing technology if it were possible to, say, grow them using animal cells but without using an animal host. It seems to me that, were the technology there, housing a hallway full of kidneys would be far more efficient than taking care of an animal organ-host, which would need far more space — not to mention food, attention, etc. Suppose we take the living animal out of the equation, but keep the gene and cell manipulation — what then?

Book Idea: ‘Streets and roads, community, and liberty’

Yes, that’s a terrible title.

I was listening to the audio book of Murray Rothbard’s great work For a New Liberty this morning, and I worked through most of his chapter entitled ‘The Public Sector: Streets and Roads.‘ In it, Rothbard advocates allowing liberty to see its full manifestation even in the streets and roads, which would make all building, maintaining, and use under the jurisdiction of the free market. It is Rothbard’s contention that only voluntary associations and exchanges can make the roads a moral and efficient system, and that the time to privatize is always (and forever) “as soon as possible.”

I am of the opinion that one of the prevailing difficulties in being a libertarian is that few people understand both libertarian critiques of State-run society and the alternative that is proposed. Most assume that the libertarian’s most sophisticated answer to the question: “Well, how would that work?” is: “The market will take care of it!”

Of course, the short answer to any objection to liberty is, in fact, that the market will take care of it (which is simply short hand for saying ‘yes, it ought to be taken care of, and to do so without using violence is paramount’). However, this answer quickly grows stale to the ears of those seeking real solutions to our society’s problems. Politicians thrive on making promises when they can say that the have detailed, practical, and realistic plans for tackling ‘the issues.’ Such promises are rarely kept, but by observing the public’s general reaction to candidates willing to make such promises we can see how hungry people are for solutions that would work.

The libertarian, while cautious of providing a market blue-print for any given issue, should not shudder or buckle under any demand to produce some account for how a free market might handle a given problem.  A book along these lines could tackle many of the issues involved with public and private streets and roads; community development; economic efficiency; and of course freedom, liberty, and peace.  There is a wealth of research out there that could aid the libertarian in showing that, yes, such social organization is possible without absolute, overriding force.