Accelerating Future

Leon Kass, the scientific community frowns on your deathist shenanigans and paternalistic tomfoolery. We will continue to denounce your anti-freedom, control-freak bioethical views until the day your theocon allies are booted out of the White House, which will occur on January 20, 2009. Enjoy your eight months.

I’ve been sniping at Leon Kass since I joined the online life extension community in 2001. “Objections to Immortality: Answering Leon Kass” was one of my first life extension advocacy works. In 2004, my paper was discussed by Tihamer Toth-Fejel at the 1st Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology in Washington, DC, in his presentation, A Critical Look at Leon Kass and Transhumanists on Ageless Bodies.

That’s why it’s exciting to have prestigious cognitive scientist Dr. Steven Pinker, author of what is possibly the best book on evolutionary psychology ever written, How the Mind Works, come join the fray. In The Stupidity of Dignity, published a couple weeks ago at The New Republic, Dr. Pinker sees right through Kass’ hyper-theological, far-right, intolerant, paternalistic bioethics.

Pinker presents several good reasons for why the concept of “dignity”, an all-purpose freedom-restricting platitude used by theocons in America’s capital at and at the Vatican alike, is not very useful in bioethics. He pokes fun at the recent, laugh-out-loud 555-page volume, Human Dignity and Bioethics, writing, “Although the Dignity report presents itself as a scholarly deliberation of universal moral concerns, it springs from a movement to impose a radical political agenda, fed by fervent religious impulses, onto American biomedicine.” Fortunately for America and the world, mainstream bioethicists will have none of it.

According to Pinker, many of the Dignity contributors are hot under the collar about the bioethicist Ruth Macklin, writer of a recent editorial in British Medical Journal, Dignity is a Useless Concept, making her “the villain of almost every piece”. But it doesn’t take a professor of bioethics to see why the “dignity” of Kass and the Vatican is a concept that can be molded into pretty much whatever the writer wants it to be. A bright High School student could do it as a weekend project.

In his piece, Pinker exposes us to the ludicrousness of the report, sparing us from slogging through its 555 mind-numbing pages. Pinker writes, “the volume finds room for seven essays that align their arguments with Judeo-Christian doctrine. We read passages that assume the divine authorship of the Bible, that accept the literal truth of the miracles narrated in Genesis (such as the notion that the biblical patriarchs lived up to 900 years), that claim that divine revelation is a source of truth, that argue for the existence of an immaterial soul separate from the physiology of the brain, and that assert that the Old Testament is the only grounds for morality.” Pinker also included my favorite Kass quote — the one about how eating ice cream in public makes us no different than animals. You can’t make this stuff up.

Having naysayers like Kass makes being an advocate of life extension both fun and easy. However, just because Kass and company are off the deep end does not mean that there aren’t valid concerns about the ethics of life extension. That’s why Aubrey de Grey is organizing the evening session “Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications” next month in Los Angeles. Why transhumanists and other forward-looking thinkers have discussions in journals and on blogs, such as this one, about the ethics of this whole project. Although radical life extension will not radically increase the population over what it would otherwise be (population expands exponentially either way), our lifestyles with the current manufacturing base are indeed unsustainable, which is why we must invest in clean manufacturing processes, like nanomanufacturing, and low-waste or no-waste power sources, like solar thermal, thorium reactors, and nuclear fusion.

When George W. Bush is ejected from the White House and replaced with Barack Obama, Kass’ time in the sun will be over. He will continue to age, all the while denying medical treatments that could extend his life, until he presumably dies. However, I would welcome a discussion with Leon Kass in the year 2050 or beyond. Dr. Kass, if you ever come around and take advantage of rejuvenation therapies, in which billions of dollars are already being invested, don’t be afraid to drop us life extensionists a line. We’ll be waiting, having fun and enjoying life.

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From Reuters:

“VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of “new” sins such as causing environmental blight.

The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican’s number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils.

Asked what he believed were today’s “new sins,” he told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.

“(Within bioethics) there are areas where we absolutely must denounce some violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulation whose outcome is difficult to predict and control,” he said.

The Vatican opposes stem cell research that involves destruction of embryos and has warned against the prospect of human cloning.”

Why?

See some benefits of gene therapy so far.

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(Cross-posted from Lifeboat Foundation blog.)

I’ve been taking a look at an “international civil society organization” called the ETC Group. The “ETC” group is also known as the “Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration”. To be honest, I can’t figure them out. Here is a summary:

“ETC Group is an international civil society organization based in Canada. We are dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural and ecological diversity and human rights. ETC Group supports socially responsible development of technologies useful to the poor and marginalized and we address international governance issues affecting the international community. We also monitor the ownership and control of technologies and the consolidation of corporate power.”

So they look like a somewhat standard leftist environmentalist technology oversight group. Alright.

Here is their stance on nanotechnology:

“Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter on the scale of the nanometer (one billionth of a meter). Nanoscale science operates in the realm of single atoms and molecules. At present, commercial nanotechnology involves materials science (i.e. researchers have been able to make materials that are stronger and more durable by taking advantage of property changes that occur when substances are reduced to nanoscale dimensions). In the future, as nanoscale molecular self-assembly becomes a commercial reality, nanotech will move into conventional manufacturing. While nanotechnology offers opportunities for society, it also involves profound social and environmental risks, not only because it is an enabling technology to the biotech industry, but also because it involves atomic manipulation and will make possible the fusing of the biological world and the mechanical. There is a critical need to evaluate the social implications of all nanotechnologies; in the meantime, the ETC group believes that a moratorium should be placed on research involving molecular self-assembly and self-replication.”

(Bold by me.)

This is a touchy issue for researchers. At the Lifeboat Foundation we sometimes talk about the Religion of Science, which states that science must progress as quickly as possible and that any attempt to limit it is foolish and immoral. We’ve had people leave our Scientific Advisory Board when they realized that we did not subscribe to this Religion, but in fact question whether any scientist should be allowed to do just anything.

But we do not go as far as the ETC Group, which is proposing a blanket ban on all molecular self-assembly, a very large and potentially incredibly fruitful field.

What prompted me to write on the ETC Group was a news release they sent me today on synthetic biology:

ETC Group
News Release
17 October 2007
www.etcgroup.org

Syns of Omission:
Civil Society Organizations Respond to Report on Synthetic Biology
Governance from the J. Craig Venter Institute and Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation

A report released today on policy options for governance of synthetic
biology is a disappointing effort that fails to address wider
societal concerns about the rapid deployment of a powerful and
controversial new technology. Synthetic biology aims to commercialize
new biological parts, devices and living organisms that are
constructed from synthetic DNA – including dangerous pathogens.
Synthetic biologists are attempting to harness cells as tiny
factories for industrial production of chemicals, including
pharmaceuticals and fuels. ETC Group describes the synthetic biology
approach as “extreme genetic engineering.”

The report, authored by scientists and employees from the J. Craig
Venter Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the
Center for Strategic & International Studies (Washington, D.C.) was
funded by a half-million dollar grant from the U.S.-based Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation and billed as a “project to examine the societal
implications of synthetic genomics.” The study was more than two
years in the making, but the report makes no policy recommendations
and failed to properly consult civil society. While the authors do
acknowledge possible bio-error (i.e., synbio accidents that cause
unintended harm to human health and the environment), the emphasis is
on how to impede bioterrorists “in a post-September 11 world.”

“This report is a partial consideration of governance by a partisan
group of authors,” explains Jim Thomas of ETC Group. “Its authors are
‘Synthusiasts’ – or, unabashed synthetic biology boosters – who are
primarily concerned about holding down costs and regulatory burdens
that could allegedly stymie the rapid development of the new
industry. By focusing narrowly on safety and security in a U.S.-
centric context, the report conveniently overlooks important
questions related to power, control and the economic impacts of
synthetic biology. The authors have ignored the first and most basic
questions: Is synthetic biology socially acceptable or desirable? Who
should decide? Who will control the technology, and what are its
potential impacts?”

The report’s authors include representatives from institutions that
have a vested interest in commercialization of synthetic biology.
According to the J. Craig Venter Institute, one of the three
institutions that led the study, scientists are just weeks or months
away from announcing the creation of the world’s first-ever living
bacterium with entirely synthetic DNA and a novel genome. Scientists
from the Venter Institute have already applied for patents on the
artificial microbe, and Craig Venter predicts that it could be the
first billion or trillion dollar organism. The report fails to
address issues of ownership, monopoly practices or intellectual
property claims arising from synthetic biology.

“The sixty-page report has oodles of input from a small circle of
scientists and policy ‘experts,’ but the 20-month long study fails to
incorporate views of civil society and social movements,” points out
Hope Shand, ETC Group’s Research Director. “An insular process like
the one that produced the Sloan report instills little confidence in
the results.”

The economic and technical barriers to synthetic genomics are
collapsing. Using a laptop computer, published gene sequence
information and mail-order synthetic DNA, it is becoming routine to
construct genes or entire genomes from scratch – including those of
lethal pathogens. The tools for DNA synthesis technologies are
advancing at break-neck pace – they’re becoming cheaper, faster and
widely accessible. The authors acknowledge this reality, and evaluate
several options for addressing it.

One proposal aimed at “legitimate users” of the technology – those
working in industry labs, for example – is to broaden the
responsibilities of Institutional Biosafety Committees, which were
established (in the US) to assess the biosafety and environmental
risks of proposed recombinant DNA experiments.

Edward Hammond, Director of the Sunshine Project, a biotech and
bioweapons watchdog, argues, “Institutional Biosafety Committees are
a documented disaster. IBCs aren’t up to their existing task of
overseeing genetic engineering research, much less ready to absorb
new synthetic biology and security mandates. The authors of this
report are aware of the abject failure of voluntary compliance by
IBCs, including by the Venter Institute’s own IBC. So it is very
difficult to interpret their suggestion that IBCs oversee synthetic
biology as anything but a cynical attempt to avoid effective
governance.”

Options for governing synthetic biology must not be set by the
synthetic biologists themselves – broad societal debate on synbio’s
wider implications must come first. Synthetic microbes should be
treated as dangerous until proven harmless and strong democratic
oversight should be mandatory – not optional. Earlier this year the
ETC Group recommended a ban on environmental release of de novo
synthetic organisms until wide societal debate and strong governance
are in place.

ETC and other civil society organizations have called repeatedly for
an inclusive, wide ranging public dialogue process on societal
implications and oversight options for Synthetic Biology.

The full text of “Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance” is
available here:
http://www.jcvi.org/

ETC Group’s January 2007 report on synthetic biology, Extreme Genetic
Engineering, is available here:
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=602

Backgrounder: Open Letter on Synthetic Biology from Civil Society,
May 2006:
http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=11

~~~

Does synthetic biology need more oversight? I believe it does. But I am hesitant to support the ETC Group in full, because some statements on their website have a Luddite flavor. For instance, I think it is infeasible to call for a moratorium on molecular self-assembly.

Another cause the ETC Group seems to be involved in is that of “Terminator” seeds — seeds that grow into plants which are sterile, forcing farmers to return to the seed market. They call this “an immoral application of biotechnology” and I’m inclined to agree.

The ETC Group also seems to employ the phrase “Playing God” to scare up support a little too often for my liking. And putting “extreme” before “genetic engineering”. It’s like so extreeeme, man, you should be extreeemely scared, obviously. (Synthetic biology really is extreme genetic engineering, but why the use of that term?)

I like paying attention to the risks of future technologies, without using tactics I consider pandering. A recent study on nanotechnology opinions figured out that the interviewer could easily manipulate the respondent’s opinions on the safety of nanotechnology simply with a few purposefully chosen sentences. People are irrational and they freak out about technological changes sometimes. By the same token, sometimes people are greedy or so blindly ambitious that they’ll discourage any regulation whatsoever in the name of capitalism and the free market. Both sides are wrong!

New technologies such as MNT and synthetic biology need to be regulated, but I don’t like the extremes I’m seeing: either pure boosterism, or borderline Luddism. The only organizations we can trust are those not attached to any particular extreme. The Lifeboat Foundation seems to be one.

What do you think?

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I strongly support the idea that regulations and ethics agreements should be adopted as universally as possible in biotechnology, because the danger is very great. However, it bugs me when religious bioethicists use a secular tone to win other scientists over to their point of view. That’s what Dr. Nancy Jones has been doing lately, with a press release that appeared on Eurekalert:

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — The time is ripe for scientific organizations to adopt codes of ethics, according to a scientist and bioethicist from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the current issue of Science and Engineering Ethics.

“Medical practice and human subject research is influenced by the Hippocratic tradition,” said Nancy L. Jones, Ph.D., “but no similar code of ethics has been formalized for the life and biomedical sciences. Like the Hippocratic oath, a code of ethics for the life sciences can provide a continual standard to shape the ethical practice of science.”

But Jones points to a more far reaching impact of scientific activities. “Scientific prowess claims to not only predict our future, cure, or destroy people, and control evolution, but more portentously reframe what it means to be human.”

Scientific prowess not only claims - it delivers. Religious bioethicists like the idea of using science to heal surface problems, but want the general cycle of life to remain as it is, eschewing human enhancement. Transhumanists like myself cautiously support enhancement. But unlike most transhumanists, I see a profound danger in all transhumanist technologies, and think that transhumanists should more often consider selective relinquishment, or at the very least, selective development which boosts safe applications while supressing unsafe applications.

Nancy Jones is part of the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, the bioconservative answer to the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. In an article on the CBHD site, “Genetics, Biotechnology, and the Future”, Jones writes,

The genetics and genomics revolution has at its core information and techniques that can be used to change humanness itself as well as the concepts of what it means to be human. The age-old human fantasies of the mythical chimeras of the ancients, supernatural intelligence, wiping disease from human inheritance, designing a better human being, the fountain of youth, and even immortality now have biotechnical credence in the theoretical promises of genetics and genetic engineering. Not only can humanity’s collective genetic inheritance be shaped by selecting which embryos are allowed to develop via pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, but genetic engineering, the availability of the human embryo for experimentation, and combining genes from many species require only sufficient imagination to catalyze the designing of a new humanity.

Religious bioethicists are keenly aware of advances in biotechnology, because of the “yuck” factor, but few of them recognize that it is cybernetics that will impact us most profoundly in the coming decades, not biotechnology. For more on this, see John Smart’s insightful “Performance Limitations on Engineered Biological Systems” and Al Fin’s “Limitations to Biology”. For the most part, the future is nano, not bio. (Actually it’s cogno, but it’s better for more people to be thinking nano than bio, when considering 7+ year timeframes.)

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