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The
Genome & the Perils of Eugenic Techno-Utopianism This article was provided by: Note:
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only. J.P. Harpignies, a former program director at the New York Open Center, is co-producer of the annual Bioneers environmental conference, a contributing editor to Lapis, and author of Double Helix Hubris (Cool Grove Press), a critique of genetic manipulation. The completion of the "first draft" of the human genome nucleotide sequence announced this summer with great fanfare certainly represents an impressive achievement, a milestone in the history of science, but there are also some very troubling trends in the discussions surrounding genetic research. When Dolly the sheep had her Warholian fifteen minutes a mere three years ago, the overwhelming consensus of mainstream "experts" was that no one need be alarmed. No credible scientist was contemplating cloning humans, a concept decades away from being remotely feasible and one most likely to be shunned for ethical reasons. But in a flash the tone in the scientific and popular press radically changed. Suddenly the dominant voices seemed to simply assume that human cloning and the genetic "improvement" of embryos were inevitable. The advocacy of eugenics, taboo after the Nazi episode, was re-emerging, not as an imposed, totalitarian policy, but as a freely-chosen, consumer-driven right to have the "best" possible child. Francis Collins and Craig Venter, the leaders of, respectively, the public and private human genome mapping initiatives, have been, for the most part, very reasonable in their statements about the dangers of genetic reductionism and the real risks of genetic discrimination. Collins has even clearly come out for strict privacy laws regarding genetic information and against human cloning and embryonic "enhancement," saying some legal limits might be worth contemplating in these areas as well. But Einstein and Oppenheimer, despite their prominence, were not heeded in their appeals about nuclear weapons. And reasoned responses like Collins' are being drowned out by far less cautious voices. Influential figures, from bioethicist Arthur Caplan to economist Lester Thurow to political scientist Francis Fukuyama, all describe genetic enhancement as unavoidable. And James Watson, a giant in the field, the Nobel laureate co-discoverer of DNA, bluntly declares "…if scientists don't play God, who will?" Despite the twentieth century's catastrophic experience with utopian ideologies, we seem not to have learned our lesson. A naïve techno-utopianism now so permeates our worldview that we seem to be stumbling toward a version of Brave New World or Gattaca without even a serious society-wide debate. Artificial life enthusiasts such as Ray Kurtzweil, and Hans Moravec and Max More's "Extropians," gleefully announce the inevitable arrival of machines superior to us and the end of the Human Era. Researchers have already linked brainstem tissue (a lamprey's, not a human's) with a robot. Cyberpunk science fiction's dystopian visions of prosthetically-enhanced specialists using part living, part silicon "wetware" in a world dominated by artificial intelligences and savage mega-corporations are seeming evermore prophetic. Can we call our system of governance an authentic democracy when the most momentous decisions about the future of our species - which major technologies will be developed and how they will be deployed- are made without our consent or input? Is a post-human or meta-human cyborgian epoch inevitable simply because technology might make it possible? Is it impossible for a society to make conscious choices about its technological direction? These are the types of questions that prompted Sun Microsystems' Bill Joy to issue his now famous warning about the impending risks of new developments in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. Each wave of major technological innovation in the twentieth century, from the automobile to TV to nuclear power "too cheap to meter" to the Internet, has been greeted with wild optimism, but each has brought a slew of unintended consequences. Let us remember our current collective behavior is not sustainable: global climatic integrity is imperiled, biodiversity is plummeting, fisheries are collapsing, etc. We are so far not handling it; our civilization is careening out of control, and a lot of our ills are technologically induced or exacerbated. Isn't it a total leap of faith to assume that racing into the wholesale adoption of radical new genetic technologies at full gallop will have a predictable, desirable outcome, let alone solve intractable problems induced by previous waves of technologies? The study of ecology and of modern disciplines which study turbulent phenomena ("complexity" and "chaos" mathematics) reveals how, at times, relatively small perturbations in complex systems can have dramatic unanticipated effects. This highlights the naïveté of assuming one can insert a gene into a very poorly understood living organism (even if its genome is sequenced!) and obtain a predictably reliable result. This helps explain the well-founded qualms many ecologists have about the genetic alteration of plants and animals and the very limited successes of somatic gene therapy in humans to this point. It also means that attempts to "enhance" embryos, if they are allowed to take place, are sure to lead to some medical horror stories - at least in their early stages. The media exacerbate misconceptions when they tout the discovery of a gene for this and a gene for that. Though obviously there are genetic components to many diseases, most geneticists don't consider DNA a "blueprint" or a "code" but closer to a list of ingredients that can lead to the expression of different traits as a result of its interaction with complex factors in the environment. But the constant use of these inaccurate mechanistic metaphors in the media leads us to accept a view of ourselves as machines that can be upgraded. We are on the verge of crossing some irreversible thresholds. Is it impossible to rein in and consciously direct these new genetic technologies? In a context in which most research is funded by awesomely powerful commercial enterprises caught up in an ever-accelerating, overheated global casino where nearly all aspects of life are commodified, it is hard to be optimistic. The prevalent view is that technology is impossible to limit and "progress" is an inexorable phenomenon. And yet we assume in other areas of life that we possess some free will. When the lion's share of a funding pie goes to high tech therapies while far less goes to low tech but often far more globally beneficial public health initiatives such as child nutrition programs, or billions go to develop and market toxic pesticides but virtually no funds go to help organic farmers, or zoning laws make suburban sprawl inevitable, these aren't self-generating phenomena. Someone exerted power. Actual decisions shape our society. This is not a Luddite perspective. There is no reason we cannot support pure scientific research and those applications of the new genetic science that contribute to preventing and curing disease, while opposing the new eugenics and the post-human future that the now ascendant techno-utopians seem so eager to bring about. Let's at least raise our voices and demand a real debate. + + + |