How NOT to Defend Science

At Arts & Letters Daily is a pointer to an article about stem cell research. From the article comes this happy pronouncement:

In a bit of diplomacy that may satisfy both the scientists and the theologians, Hurlbut advocates genetically altering cloned embryos [italics mine] so, like a teratoma, they wouldn't have the DNA necessary to become viable humans. For the first few days of existence, they would grow normally and produce stem cells, but then die when a critical embryonic component - say, a placenta - failed to emerge. "They would have no coherent drive in the direction of mature human form," Hurlbut tells the crowd. "It's analogous to growing skin in a tissue culture. Such an entity would never rise to the level of a human being." You could grow them in vats, kill them at will, and never risk offending God. As both a medical doctor and a deeply religious Christian, Hurlbut borrows from each side: It's a theological breakthrough in the form of a scientific technique.

The article is by Clive Thompson, who is obviously enthusiastic about this "theological breakthrough in the form of a scientific technique." I am not sure whether he is a descendant of Neville Chamberlain, but he seems to be on the verge of shouting, "Peace between faith and reason in our time!"

The article outlines -- and misses lots of theological objections this atheist could cook up without even breaking a sweat -- a proposal to appease the Vatican and its ilk while also allowing us to reap the benefits of stem cell research. It is worth taking a look at, for it shows exactly why, despite its author's enthusiasm, there will be no satisfying the religionists and where, exactly, a few prominent intellectuals stand on this issue.

Take the italicized phrase from the above quote. Call me crazy (but don't call me possessed ), but isn't the Church already in a high dudgeon over both cloning and tinkering around with embryos? Even so, both author and scientist are so eager to evade the need to defend science from the medievalists that they don't seem to notice the problem.

Part of how they evade the issue is through the quaint notion of "trajectories."

Theologians typically define the embryo in terms of its human "trajectory." Since every fertilized egg cell has the inherent potential to become a fully formed adult, they argue, interrupting that process at any point - from conception to birth to nursing home - is to disrupt a sacred process.

...

Hurlbut's idea came about not in spite of his piety but because of it. Instead of dismissing the theological concept of an embryo's trajectory to humanhood, he seized it, seeing a scientific opportunity. Would it be possible, he wondered, to engineer embryos that didn't have human potential yet otherwise behaved normally?

And genetically altering an embryo isn't "interrupting the process?" And howzabout cloning? That's not an interruption? And who's to say that the development of a teratoma or one of these embryos is not a "sacred process?" Perhaps after Hurlbut figures out how to make this work, Pope Benedict will make an ex cathedra pronouncement that even artificial embryos are "God's creatures."

But, the article notes, some theologians somehow seem receptive to this idea, if merely in the same way that religion has had to accommodate other aspects of modern civilization over the centuries or risk losing all credibility.

Hurlbut ... began courting high-powered religious leaders, including William Levada, the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, urging them to take a look at this new way of generating human stem cells. Levada sent a letter to Bush urging him to take Hurlbut's ideas seriously. "This proposal offers hope," he wrote, "that there may be a solution to an area of great challenge and controversy."

Interestingly, it is a Church official who is coming to the aid of science with our Republican President. (The interesting questions: (1) Who is using whom? and (2) Who, archbishop or President, is shrewder? My money's on the archbishop: He ends up looking like the voice of reason here. We already know the President lends his ears to the clergy.)

But it gets better. First, the article raises what, to its author, are some serious "ethical conundrums," such as:

Imagine that scientists could engineer an embryo so that it would grow into an entire body, minus the cerebral cortex. [Why not? -- ed] Could scientists then kill it and use its parts to eliminate the wait for donated organs? [Again, why not? --ed] As the debate over Terri Schiavo demonstrated, many religious thinkers regard people with minimal brain function to be fundamentally human. So where should the line be drawn when it comes to building "minimal" embryos? Could Hurlbut's non-embryos be considered humans who had been sadistically engineered to be disabled at conception? Is an embryo-like entity a person, normal for its first few days of development, only to be killed off in a form of genetic murder?

The answers to the last two questions, based on the notion of trajectory itself are "yes" and"yes." And furthermore, as the article points out earlier, the real question is, "When does life begin?" And this question, of course, depends on what the definition of a human life is.

Be that as it may, some theologians are behind Hurlbut's idea. But how did the idea fare among his colleagues on the President's Council on Bioethics?

The meeting started off civilly, but when Hurlbut's proposal came up for discussion, the tone turned harsh. Krauthammer, in particular, said the concept made his skin crawl. "It's repugnant and weird and somewhat human - a border attempt to produce a human," he said. "It's an attempt to produce a human that went wrong. A teratoma is a tragedy. I don't think we should be producing tragedies." Paul McHugh, the psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins, agreed with Krauthammer. "I share the idea that it's a kind of pollution of the human genome," he said. "There is something morally creepy," shuddered Michael Sandel, a Harvard professor of government, "about genetically engineering a mutant embryo-like being."

Hell, I did a better job of pointing out the problems these guys should've had with this procedure than they did! Perhaps these gentlemen aren't so well-versed in theology, like Charles "not much of a believer" Krauthammer. But the eye-opener here is really the rather irrational level of discourse that's going on. What the hell is "morally creepy?" And see how we move the goal posts from an aversion to genetically tinkering with human embryos to a "shuddering at" fooling around with "embryo-like beings." When you let arbitrary beliefs into a debate about science, or ethics, or anything, this is exactly what you get: a bunch of mumbo-jumbo based on feelings. When you mix a teaspoon of sewage with a barrel of wine, you get: a barrel of sewage.

The conclusion of this meeting? The would-be theocrats of the Council, realizing both that they need to come up with something that at least sounds reasonable to the average, somewhat secular American, and unable to concoct a good enough rationalization for feeling "morally creeped-out, " as Aristotle might have put it, punted. They called for animal testing.

The more religious leaders of the Church, used to centuries of retreat from the march of reason, wistfully observed science continuing on its march of progress.

By the end, the council wasn't convinced, but most agreed that Hurlbut's idea should be carefully tested on animals. This is where most of the priests in Rome ended up as well. They support Hurlbut's concept, but only because they feel they have no other option. "If Brave New World weren't already here, I wouldn't go near this," said Father Berg, who witnessed the drama from the audience. "But because Brave New World is here, maybe this is a way out."

On both sides of the coin, we see validation of Ayn Rand's contention that compromise only aids evil. The theocrats of the President's Council call for scientific-sounding animal tests so they can further delay stem cell research. The church leaders see a way to retain at least some nominal, if undeserved, moral authority. They may lose this battle, but they'll still be around to muddle up other important debates.

As an amusing aside, some scientists also see major problems with the science behind the proposal. But they wouldn't even be thinking about this matter if someone weren't jumping through hoops to satisfy the ethical requirements of some mystic in the first place.

When you concede the premise of religion, that human life depends on a supernatural "soul," you necessarily concede , by your failure to demand proof of such a soul, the epistemological assumption that faith is a means of knowledge. Once you have done this, you have given the religionists carte blanche to raise all manner of silly objections to whatever idea you might have to appease their squeamishness.

There is no way around raising the issue of faith versus reason. You will either defend the validity of reason as a means of knowledge, and refuse to listen to the religionists at all -- or you will hear a new objection to whatever you say to mollify them every time you try to mollify them.

All of this, of course rests on an assumption I will not elaborate upon here, but which I think is important to bring up: Reason can be used to answer ethical questions. Until this premise becomes more widely accepted, every major public debate is going to look like this. Religionists will claim ultimate moral authority while subjectivists like Hurlbut will look for clever ways to work around their arbitrary dictates, to smuggle in some of the benefits of rationality.

-- CAV