A bit amusing, but I never imagined that I’d feel so compelled to become a biology apologetic, what some people call “design.” Biology is an incredible and remarkable thing, we are wonderfully and fearfully made and so is the world around us. Just the same, mankind’s very first act was to attempt to change the design and we haven’t stopped trying since.
Biology is very unpopular, it’s messy and uncomfortable and often downright gross and there seems to be a spirit within us that feels as if surely we must be destined for something better, something more sophisticated and far more dignified. There are numerous inconveniences in the biological world, the laws of physics apply for example, which is most annoying if you want to fly or something. Also walls, gravity, and aging tend to be rather unpopular.
But I still don’t want to become a spirit people, an avatar, a cyborg or some other bit of artificial intelligence that is allegedly going to be an improvement over the biological reality of our existence. Often it seems as if we seek to erase the very nature of who we are but still try to preserve that tiny little essence that supposedly makes us human. What people so often fail to understand is that our biology is a huge part of our identity, it is an integral part of what makes us human and vulnerable and somewhat gross. Biological identity, it is not something you just make in a lab or alter with a series of injections.
I happen to believe we already are spirit people, we are spirits with a body. Being temporarily planted in the biological world is actually a gift, a privilege, something worth celebrating and rejoicing over. Soon enough we will all return to our natural state, to our higher selves, to another realm outside of our understanding of the laws of physics, outside of time itself. There is no need to try to rush the process here on Earth.
Unless of course you don’t believe as I do, in which case, oh dear, because if there is no belief that people have worth and value beyond the natural world, then there really is no sound moral argument to made for not tinkering with the design. In fact, people who do not accept that we have a spiritual aspect to ourselves, can’t very well claim that we have a design at all. If we just sprouted up out of the universe randomly, than attempting to alter the very nature of ourselves is really no big deal. It’s not like anyone has intellectual property rights to us or anything.
Can I at least plead that we try to show the same concern for preserving the humans that we do for saving the polar bears? Even if we did pop up for no reason in a rather nihilistic universe full of indifference, is that not still miraculous??
So, biological tinkering, that design I am compelled to constantly try to advocate for, manifests itself in so many ways, in attempting to rewrite the scripts between men and women, in trying to alter the reproductive rules, in manipulating DNA, in gene splicing and genetically manipulating crops, in biological warfare, in artificial intelligence, in great debates over religion and philosophy and ethics. Bio-ethics, sometimes I wonder if we actually have any.
Biology has privilege. It has perks and benefits and great value. Love for example, relationships between men and women, our vulnerability, afflictions, and never-ending angst over confronting the nature of our own selves and our place in the universe. Without that built-in fail safe, the humility that comes from being forced to relentlessly confront the fragility of biological existence, people are not very nice. We’re actually quite arrogant, immoral, and totally self-serving. Most of the good qualities that we value in humans are actually forged in fire and affliction, empathy for example, humility, compassion, integrity….also contentment and inner peace.
There’s a somewhat interesting quirk of human nature, those countries that rate highest on the happiness index also tend to have the highest rates of depression and suicide and mental health problems. The statistics always stand there boldly defying our popular memes, but the truth of the matter is that these disorders are afflictions of the affluent and the privileged. Like it or not, people are far healthier in the midst of some suffering and deprivation, both physically and mentally. Naturally we are relentlessly compelled to seek the precise opposite and to create as much comfort as possible for ourselves, even though biology teaches us over and over again that this is not so good for us.
Working within the frameworks of “design,” being honest and truthful about our own selves, is how we create the greatest amount of health, fulfillment, peace, whatever is good and golden about our own existence. Stepping outside of that framework always creates more suffering and misery, sometimes not recognized and identified for years, but always there waiting for us at the other end. I often think of lobotomies and hysterectomies and all of the bizarre sciency things we used to do because we felt entitled and qualified to improve on design.
People think we’ve progressed beyond all that, that our science is now refined, but it isn’t at all. We have simply grown far more sophisticated, so now the horrors we are capable of inflicting on the world can occur on a much broader scale, with the consequences and the implications much more removed and detached from the human experience. Today we are horrified by the thought mandated lobotomy or forced sterilization, but we do not even see the hundreds of thousands of human embryos discarded every year or all the deformed babies born in the after math of chemical weapons. These things hardly even register on the human psyche anymore because we are so convinced we have now evolved and progressed beyond the superstitious and barbaric.
Oh, how wrong we are.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
You are fighting a rearguard action. The battle has already been won and you are not on the winning side. Many people you know have had their lives saved by medical tinkering leaving them a mixture of the organic and inorganic. Without genetically modified crop yields two thirds of the world’s population would be condemned to a slow death by starvation. The process is accelerating geometrically. How long will it be before the highest paying jobs will go only to those with an internet implant linked to their retinas giving them a decisive competitive advantage in the marketplace? The best we can do is try to manage the process as humanely as possible without nostalgic laments that just encourage the Luddites.
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“The battle has already been won and you are not on the winning side.”
It certainly feels that way most days. I do believe however, that I have an ace up my sleeve. 😉
“The best we can do is try to manage the process as humanely as possible without nostalgic laments that just encourage the Luddites.”
Hmm, the Luddites seem to just march on with or without my encouragement. Some people think I am a Luddite which I suppose I sometimes am, but just the same, it’s preferable to sending us all back to the Bronze Age in a blaze of technological glory. What some would call a nostalgic lament, I would call the wisdom of the ages.
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“Without genetically modified crop yields two thirds of the world’s population would be condemned to a slow death by starvation”
That is simply an outright lie, propagated by who…? Oh yes, the corporations who profit by means of patenting their GMO garbage and then trying to convince the world it is motivated by some altruistic spirit.
IB mentioned the millions of aborted babies who no longer hardly even get discussed anymore. I’d say they’re definitely not experiencing a “humane” management of the process of technologization.
“Luddite” infers that a person is afraid of knowledge/technology in and of itself. You’re missing the point. It’s not the tech itself, it’s the hearts and minds of the people wielding it that are the main concern.
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“That is simply an outright lie”
Having just finished Matt Ridley’s book ‘The Rational Optimist’, I will quote from him on the subject but I don’t believe we are not going to persuade each other here:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-benefits-of-gm-crops.aspx
“trying to convince the world it is motivated by some altruistic spirit”
As Adam Smith explained so very long ago, social good is produced not by altruism but from self-interest:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
“You’re missing the point”…”it’s the hearts and minds of the people wielding it that are the main concern.”
No, I am not missing the point. The point is that incentives drive technological advance and the cat is already out of the bag. You may not like what is in people’s hearts and minds but unless the incentives are changed things will continue as they have been.
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Ugg… I am going to refrain from unleashing a full-on diatribe against the colossal naivete of said “optimism”, and simply respond to one line quoted from that post:
“In addition, herbicide-tolerant GM crops can often be grown with little or no plowing in stubble fields that are sprayed with herbicides”
INDEED! Well, that sounds good, doesn’t it!? After all, “The result is to allow more carbon to remain in the soil, since plowing releases carbon as microbial exhalation.”
That’s not “optimism”, bud, that’s idiocy… Less carbon into the atmosphere, cuz we don’t have plow the soil as much. Awesome. All we have to do instead is drench the crops in glyphosate.
Do you have any idea how toxic and non-hunky-dory to your system glyphosate truly is…???
So sure, in a way, you are absolutely correct. It is indeed because of the “self-interest” of companies such as Monsanto which has driven them to such “technological advances”!! That’s the PROBLEM! We are not talking about butchers or baker here, we are talking about trans-national corporate entities, which today in fact hold more power and influence in the world that most sovereign nations do. They have indeed let a good many “cats” out of Pandora’s little bag, but that doesn’t mean that simply by trying to keep a “positive attitude” we can magically wish away the poisonous and destructive nature of so many of these “advances”.
Seriously, don’t eat GMO. Don’t feed your kids GMO, if you can at all help it. Eat real food, which grows in the real, plowed, ground, which Monsanto can’t profit off of by means of patents….
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“Do you have any idea how toxic and non-hunky-dory to your system glyphosate truly is…???”
The EPA considers glyphosate to be noncarcinogenic and relatively low in dermal and oral acute toxicity. The EPA considered a “worst case” dietary risk model of an individual eating a lifetime of food derived entirely from glyphosate-sprayed fields with residues at their maximum levels. This model indicated that no adverse health effects would be expected under such conditions. From Wikipedia Entry on Glyphosate
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Exactly.
In other words, you don’t have slightest idea how toxic glyphosate actually is….
I would recommend looking into research on the topic which doesnt’ come straight from the mouths of those who are making insane amounts of money off of this product…
The EPA, CDC, FDA… Such institutions all too often merely operate as gatekeepers for corporations and their alleged wonder-chemicals. The fact that we put such blind faith in things being stamped “safe” by them reveals how little we understand that these “watchdog” agencies are in fact pawns of the industry itself.
Listen to what you just said, “…a worst case dietary risk model…” Really. Well that’s reassuring, because a “model” isn’t something that can be manipulated to conform to a predetermined outcome…
Kind of like how the tobacco companies put out “models” for decades proving that cigarette smoking wasn’t hazardous to your health either…. But hey, we can’t get mad, they were only acting in their own self-interest… 😉
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I don’t trust the EPA particularly but I trust their scientific conclusions far more than I trust yours based on your endorsement of connections between Star Trek, Kabbalah, Freemasonry and the Council of Nine, which suggests you have a penchant for conspiracy theories:
https://thetruthisstrangerthanfiction.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/vetting-the-vulcan-connections-between-star-trek-kabbalah-freemasonry-and-the-council-of-nine/
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Of course…. Even though I have no conflicting personal incentive to investigate such things, while people who go back and forth between government regulatory institutions, and the companies supposedly being regulated, have immense motive to skew the truth for personal gain.
It is ultimately your own loss that you put so much more faith in people operating on levels of power/influence far beyond your own, while dismissing the heartfelt warnings of other “ordinary citizens” such as yourself who have no agenda beyond a simple, healthy life for their family.
Everyone believes in “conspiracy theories” friend. You simply haven’t stopped yet to contemplate the fact that all the ones you believe in are being spoon-fed to you, instead of having to do a modicum of your own critical thinking, and (heaven forbid) run the risk of not falling in line with majority opinion…
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“sending us all back to the Bronze Age in a blaze of technological glory”
Yes, that’s a distinct possibility but if we stopped tinkering immediately, for example, eliminating GMO’s, we would definitely return to the Bronze Age. Personally, I prefer to take my chances with technology.
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“We have simply grown far more sophisticated, so now the horrors we are capable of inflicting on the world can occur on a much broader scale,”
IB this statement brought something to my mind that, honestly, is never far from it. It also shows how, even though science has developed so much, not all aspects of it keep up with each other.
First of all, I am a veteran, and also worked in the VA system for a few years, so I am somewhat familiar with what I am about to say.
Obviously, the machinery of war has given us far more ability to quickly kill and destroy very efficiently. That started with the advent of automatic weapons during the First World War. At that time medical science was way behind the military technology. Basically, men tended to just die when shot or hit. During our latest war effort in Iraq, the huge advances in both military and medical technology have produced a generation of veterans recovering from wounds which only a few years before would have been uniformly fatal. So, now he have a substantial population of men and women trying to recover from grievous injuries and facing lifelong disabilities. Unfortunately, the science and infrastructure to help that process along has not kept up nearly as well.
I may have somewhat related to the post; if not, well I had my say anyway.
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It’s a good point, Wally. War is a horrible thing, but then again, it’s on the battlefield that we’ve created so much of our medical advances, advances which eventually reach the civilian population, too. So philosophically, without war, would we be as sophisticated medically as we are today? I don’t know. I doubt it because so much of what we know actually comes from the battlefield.
The VA, well it’s somewhat amusing when it isn’t making me absolutely crazy, but we can do amazing things for people medically, but can we process a piece of paperwork?? No, no we cannot do that. That is far too complicated. That is way, way above our pay grade. As advanced as we are in so many ways, we still cannot conquer red tape and bureaucracy.
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You know I was working for them for a while after 9/11 and it became quickly obvious we were going to war. I remember looking around and thinking there was no way the system could handle what was surely going to happen…and sure enough. I’m not medical; i ran food and retail services. Surely if a food manager could see that then the professionals could have..its all very sad.
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I love this whole post. But I’m especially fond of the beginning as it echos a great article written by GK Chesterton in the subject of skeletons. If you haven’t already read Chesterton you should, like right now. You’re writing is similar and you would love him.
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Thank you, I haven’t read him but I will. 😉
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I recommend Heresies, or the Everlasting Man
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Yes, Chesterton is wonderful, one of my favorite authors. I would say Orthodoxy, the Everlasting Man, or Tremendous Trifles. He wrote some fiction like the Father Brown mysteries or The Man who was Thursday, but he really shines as an essayist. He’s in the public domain so you can find much of his writing online:
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/
“Soon enough we will all return to our natural state, to our higher selves, to another realm outside of our understanding of the laws of physics, outside of time itself.”
And then once we’re used to that, God will stuff us right back into our quirky biological bodies again, even if they get all glorified and spritual. Don’t forget the General Resurrection… Especially since it supports your argument! Not to mention being one of the main themes of the New Testament.
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For those who believe in God; God gave man dominion over the Earth and its creatures (Genesis).
For those who only believe in evolution; man is at the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures.
So according “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” there is nothing ethically wrong with designing food, shelter, medicine and other technologies using Nature’s bio molecular chemistry.
But if man redesigns his own bio molecular chemistry, he redesigns himself, and thus, changes his own human nature into something other and is no longer a human being.
This is unethical because good and evil draw their sense of value from the equality of all men who possess the same human nature.
If Homo Sapiens designs other kinds of creatures who possess freewill and the ability to reason then it will be totally ethical that some become masters and others become slaves (property).
That is because human equality, the fountainhead of ethics, has been shattered forever.
This is what the Serpent meant when he told Adam and Eve that if they ate from the Tree of Good and Evil, they would become like God who knows good and evil.
From the Bible, written by men whose worldview derived from a culture long, long ago and far, far way, we have a stark and prescient warning for modern man.
I know for a fact that students and professors of biotechnology have zero ethics.
That means they have been conditioned to do whatever they happen to think is right.
Sounding like good Pope Francis, one of my biotech classmates proclaimed:
“Who am I to judge?”
And with that, ethics go out the window.
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Well said, Silence. This is so true, “That is because human equality, the fountainhead of ethics, has been shattered forever.” We will start assigning worth and value, inferior, superior, because that is simply the nature of human beings, and we will place them in our hierachies and some shall be deemed slave worthy and defective. It will probably all seem very ethical, such as creating walking organ donors for spare parts.
Now see, this is why I can’t read science fiction anymore. We’ve already told ourselves these stories, on some level we know how it all ends. 😉
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Insanity,
I think reading history and the Bible also tells us how it all ends.
And I also think that was one of the reasons Jesus told his Apostles to go out and make disciples of all nations.
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Amen, Silence. In the midst of all this strife however, it’s important to remember it ends well, with a wedding, I believe 😉
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“For those who only believe in evolution; man is at the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures.”
How do you draw the conclusion that this is what evolution says?
“But if man redesigns his own bio molecular chemistry, he redesigns himself, and thus, changes his own human nature into something other and is no longer a human being.”
Bio molecular chemistry? Are you referring to DNA? Are you saying that we are are DNA? Our “nature” is in our DNA, so we can’t change our DNA? Just trying to understand.
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David,
That man is the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures is obvious even without understanding or accepting evolution.
So why don’t we just stick with the obvious?
My claims and statements seem so controversial and troublesome simply because they are totally traditional.
Yes, our human nature and the nature of every living creature is coded in the molecule DNA.
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Unique DNA, Silence, like a fingerprint! Is that not fascinating? They can actually set it to music, which means we are all really comprised of a song 😉
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dna-makes-sweet-music/
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Insanity,
I hadn’t known about the music angle.
I’m going to play some DNA on my iPAD right this minute!
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“Unique DNA, Silence, like a fingerprint!”
If each of us has a unique DNA sequence in our genomes, which sequence is the true human sequence?
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David,
If we can plainly see that man is at the top of the food chain and that he has dominion of over the Earth and all its creatures, then this state of affairs is the result of evolution – that is if we believe in the theory of evolution.
Evolution is the atheist’s way of saying that everything just didn’t happen all by itself.
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“This state of affairs is the result of evolution.”
I’m not sure that saying that a certain outcome is the product of evolution is really the same thing as saying that evolution says that “man is at the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures.” I don’t believe that evolution talks this way, so maybe we should leave evolution out of this question of “dominion.”
It’s up to us to decide if we have “dominion” and what exactly this means. You may declare this to be so if you’d like but this isn’t something that evolution “tells us.”
Oh, and there isn’t just one food chain out there, it’s more like thousands of food webs. So I’m not sure that saying we’re “at the top of the food chain” really says very much.
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David,
It is simply a matter of reasoning.
If man is the product of evolution and man has dominion over the Earth and its creatures, then we are able to conclude that man’s dominion over the Earth and its creatures is the result of evolution.
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“If man is the product of evolution and man has dominion over the Earth and its creatures, then we are able to conclude that man’s dominion over the Earth and its creatures is the result of evolution.”
Yes, I understand what you are saying. I understood it the first time.
However, what I’m trying to say is that declarations of “dominion” come from us, not from something that evolution is “saying.” We declare we have dominion; the process of evolution does not make this declaration,
Now, perhaps I misunderstood here, but I thought that you were saying the evolution says we have dominion in the same manner or same sense that Genesis says we have dominion. If I misunderstood…never mind, and I’ll stick with the genetics questions.
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David,
Homo Sapiens dominion over the Earth and all its creatures is not a declaration, it’s a fact.
Civilization and its components are examples of man’s dominion in action.
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“Homo Sapiens dominion over the Earth and all its creatures is not a declaration, it’s a fact.
Well, so you declare. But it’s not a “declaration” of evolution.
Now, about those genetics questions?
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David,
The collection of DNA that defines a particular species is called a genome.
Each kind of creature has its own genome.
But within each individual creature there are a variety of traits that distinguish that individual from creatures of its own kind.
Some of those traits have to do with hair coloring, facial features, Other traits concern sociability, aggressiveness, etc.
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“The collection of DNA that defines a particular species is called a genome (etc.)”
Ok, true enough, but I’m not sure this addresses the questions.
Would our souls also depend on, or be a produce of, our DNA? Would altering our genes also alter our souls?
What is the exact base pair sequence that makes us human and gives us our human nature? Given that there is variation among humans, and even within a single body, which sequence is THE human sequence that produces the human nature and which we cannot change (ethically speaking)?
Which specific genes give us our human nature? Are all genes essential to “human nature?”
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David,
According to Christian theology, we are not our whole selves without our body.
The ascension of Jesus illustrates this.
If we are only our souls, then there would have been no need for the Crucifixion, the Resurrection or the Ascension.
And those three events form the core of the Christian faith.
Consequently, the role of DNA in defining our human nature cannot be trivialized or wished away.
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“Consequently, the role of DNA in defining our human nature cannot be trivialized or wished away.”
I’m not trying to “trivialize” the role of DNA. I’m just asking specific questions which seem to be difficult for you to answer, despite your emphasis on the “role of DNA.”
I’ll narrow this down it you’d like.
Which specific genes give us our human nature? Are all genes essential to “human nature?”
Why is changing DNA different from replacing an old bony hip with a metal one? That old bony hip is also a part of the “whole self.” So, when the old hip is gone, we are no longer our whole self.
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It’s fun to talk about dominion, but don’t forget the genes question up here!
I’ll be even more specific. How does the CFTR gene give us our human nature? Is this gene essential to our human nature?
How would changing the base pair sequence of this gene in a fertilized human egg change human nature into something other and no longer a human being?
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“My claims and statements seem so controversial and troublesome simply because they are totally traditional.”
I’m not sure that this is the problem here.
“Yes, our human nature and the nature of every living creature is coded in the molecule DNA.”
Interesting.
Would our souls also depend on, or be a produce of, our DNA?
What is the exact base pair sequence that makes us human and gives us our human nature?
Which specific genes give us our human nature?
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“That man is the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures is obvious even without understanding or accepting evolution.”
Ok, so this is not a conclusion drawn from evolution. In any event, I think that this may depend on circumstances. If I’m swimming in shark-infected waters, I don’t think that I’m at the top of the food chain.
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David,
You may not be at the top of the food chain, but the species you belong to, Homo Sapiens, is.
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Which food chain?
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David,
Food chain, you know, the one where the shark eats anything too slow or too stupid to get out of the way.
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Ah, that food chain. Well, in that food chain, Selachimorpha species have dominion over Homo sapiens.
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“Selachimorpha species have dominion over Homo sapiens.”
So, never attended a shark slaughter, have you? To deny that man is at the top of the food chain is a bit odd. We actually do not gently coexist in the world here, man has clearly established dominion.
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David,
There are a variety of ways that you, personally can exercise your manly dominion over the humble, loveable, toothsome shark.
1. Stay out of the water.
2. If you are in the water, get out of the water
3. Use a boat.
4. Take a fishing poll with you on the boat.
5. After catching a shark with your fishing poll give it to Mama who will then proceed to make some great ceviche.
6. Eat the ceviche and enjoy every bite!
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“There are a variety of ways that you, personally can exercise your manly dominion over the humble, loveable, toothsome shark.”
I think you misunderstood my reply. I was responding to your specific comment….”the (food chain) where the shark eats anything too slow or too stupid to get out of the way.” This is the food chain that you specifically described. In THAT specific food chain, the shark wins.
You see, the top dog in the food chain depends on circumstances.
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David,
Food chains exist in animal and plant communities.
A collection of communities forms and ecosystem.
All the ecosystems together form a biosphere.
I realize that at first glance, my little list may appear flippant, but it really captures why man is so dominant on the Earth.
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“To deny that man is at the top of the food chain is a bit odd. ”
I think you missed my point. To repeat, there isn’t just one food chain out there, it’s more like thousands of food webs. So, it all depends on which food web you are referencing.
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“Food chains exist in animal and plant communities. Ect.”
Yes, and there are many food webs that do not involve humans or put humans at the top. So, what’s your point?
Is there a difference between “being dominant” and “holding dominion?”
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David,
Yes it does involve humans.
Human being can move through in any ecosystem or earth habitat and dominate it.
No creature other than man has free will.
That is to say all creatures are governed by the laws of nature.
It is man, because he is dominant, who needs the guidance and council of nature’s God who is all-knowing and wise.
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“Human being can move through in any ecosystem or earth habitat and dominate it.”
Has this always been true or is this a more recent development? When God gave humans “dominion” back in Genesis, could humans dominate any habitat on earth?
By the way, I think we need a definition of “dominate” here.
“No creature other than man has free will.”
How do you know?
“It is man, because he is dominant, who needs the guidance and council of nature’s God who is all-knowing and wise.
So, what does the all-knowing God say about experimenting on non-human animals?
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“Man has clearly established dominion.”
Tell that to the millions who die of infectious disease every year. In that case, it’s the microbes who clear have “dominion.”
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I think you have made my case for me, David. Bio-ethics lie in the hands of those who do not believe in God, cannot see the dominion of man, dispute our place in the food chain, and see no human value in DNA.
So….what could possibly go wrong there, right??!
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“Bio-ethics lie in the hands of those who do not believe in God, cannot see the dominion of man, dispute our place in the food chain, and see no human value in DNA.”
Huh? How do you derive this conclusions from…”Tell that to the millions who die of infectious disease every year. In that case, it’s the microbes who clear have dominion?” I don’t understand.
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Please explain how “disputing our place in the food chain”, etc., creates problems in bio-ethics?
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I did explain it already, David. If you do not believe humans are of the Divine and you do not even perceive them as having arrived on the top of the food chain through evolution, then biologically people have no more value then say, a cockroach.
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“If you do not believe humans are of the Divine and you do not even perceive them as having arrived on the top of the food chain through evolution, then biologically people have no more value then say, a cockroach.”
Not so. The “If” does not lead to the “then.” This is not a logical argument.
I don’t have to be “at the top of the food chain” before concluding that a small pox vaccine is a great idea (or before I spray the roaches with Raid).
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“I don’t have to be “at the top of the food chain” before concluding that a small pox vaccine is a great idea (or before I spray the roaches with Raid).”
Sure you do. You’ve just annihilated both small pox and roaches. What you gives you the authority to do either?
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You’ve just annihilated both small pox and roaches. What you gives you the authority to do either?
I wish I could annihilate roach.
I don’t need “authority” to annihilate small pox. Small pox is a horrible disease, I don’t want to get small pox. Reason enough. It’s not that complicated.
By the way, you’re big on “dominion”. What about “stewardship?” How do square the command to be a steward of creation with, say, shark slaughter?
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David,
Modern medicine has wiped out so many diseases that we only become aware of it when our culture is invaded by people from primitive places where those diseases still run rampant.
Eventually, disease of any kind will be a rare occurrence just as polio, small pox and measles and plague are rare.
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“Eventually, disease of any kind will be a rare occurrence just as polio, small pox and measles and plague are rare.”
But I thought that we had “dominion” NOW, not eventually. Guess the big problem here is in defining “dominion.”
Look, I hope that we can continue to reduce death from infectious disease, but at the moment, these diseases still kill millions per year. And the microbes will continue to evolve. And you’d better keep your fingers crossed with respect to drug resistance.
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David,
Apparently you are a postmodern, lost in the eternal now.
“Now” has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this discussion.
It’s just an attribute you apply to an argument in order to rig it to your own favor.
Lost then is common sense, the ability to understand the obvious and the ability to reason.
And in that, the pursuit of truth goes out the window, just like ethics which is the original topic of this conversation.
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“Now” has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this discussion.”
You said (among other things), “man is the top of the food chain and has dominion over the Earth and its creatures is obvious even without understanding or accepting evolution.”
Is. Has. Present tense. As in…now.
“Lost then is common sense, the ability to understand the obvious and the ability to reason.”
Yeah, you keep telling yourself this.
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David,
My basic argument is based on Natural Law Theory which is about 2500 years old.
Christianity picked up Natural Law Theory during late antiquity with Saint Augustine (a Platonist) and especially in the high Christian Middle Ages with Saint Thomas Aquinas (an Aristotelian).
Natural Law Theory holds that human nature doesn’t change over time.
And in fact, today we know that human nature is as fixed as its DNA-based genome.
Another basic aspect of both our arguments is how we view the passage of time and its relationship to history.
The way the postmodern, both Christian and atheist, views time is as discrete digits, on-off, or 0-1.
This method of viewing time was introduced into Western Civilization by the medieval Catholic priest William of Ockham who was subsequently, excommunicated from the Church for preaching his own home grown heresies.
On the other hand, the traditional, biblical and Greco-Roman way of viewing time is as a continuous flow.
The validity of this view is obvious but may require an explanation if you are of a need, since obvious doesn’t necessarily mean easy.
The postmodern view of time means that everything just happens all by itself in the moment. This is fundamental atheism.
The traditional view of time means that simple develops into sophisticated over time.
The key word is d-e-v-e-l-o-p.
The postmodern is unaware of development because development can only happen over a continuous flow of time.
Man’s ability to dominate nature is part of human nature. This concept is taught in the Bible and in the Greco-Roman culture which was pagan.
Nevertheless our understanding of God, man and universe develops over time and so too, our ability to dominate the natural world.
Mankind’s dominion over the Earth and its creatures is manifest in civilization (I stated that in an earlier comment).
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Now, I don’t want to misunderstand you, but you appear to be saying that when you use a present tense verb such as is or has, then this covers and/or refers to any point in time from the beginning of time to the end of time. That is, present tense verbs do not refer to now.
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“I know for a fact that students and professors of biotechnology have zero ethics.”
Bit extreme, don’t you think? Do you know any professors of biotechnology?
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David,
I did a final presentation for one of my biotechnology classes and it nearly caused a riot.
That is notable because there were only 3 students and 1 professor watching my presentation. It was summer and the class happened to be very small.
I approached engineering ethics from view of Natural Law recently in another larger introduction to engineering class and I was shouted down.
In this day and age, each person considers himself the lord of his own private Idaho and is thus the author of his own personal brand of ethics.
Such a development in society is a precursor to ruthless tyranny.
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“Only 3 students and 1 professor watching my presentation”
Wow. 3 whole students and 1 whole professor! Well, that’s clearly enough folks to conclude that biotechnology students and professors have zero ethics. What a huge sample size!
And these folks offered no alternative approach to the ethical questions raised by biotechnology, no alternative ethics at all? Zero?
(Just curious, was this professor someone who actually did biotechnology?)
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David,
You would be surprised at the diversity of such a small group.
We had a Muslim man, mid-30’s, from Iraq via Ukraine, who was the only one really interested in what I had to say.
Then there was a black woman, single, mid-30’s, ex-military, Iraq veteran.
And then a single mother, Hispanic, early 30’s.
Our professor was a white woman, mid 50’s, Masters Degree, biotech professional, very far left politically and socially.
The students in the engineering class were mostly snot-nosed kids and the professor was a woman, an accomplished, experienced engineer from the auto industry, very far left politically and socially.
One of our biotech professors is also a tranny – born male, looks female, dresses outdoorsy.
Regardless of class size, my experience reflects what is going on in the society at large.
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“You would be surprised at the diversity of such a small group.”
Your group had a total of four individuals. Four. It doesn’t matter if the class looked like a Benetton ad. It’s a grand total of four individuals.
“We had a Muslim man, mid-30’s, from Iraq via Ukraine, who was the only one really interested in what I had to say.”
Ah, a Muslim. And he had zero ethics? Zero? Maybe their ethics are just different from yours.
“Very far left”
In other words, a moderate.
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David,
The Muslim was interested in my presentation because ethics are important to religious people.
Also, your critique uses your arbitrary, biased, personal standard of quantity (number of persons) rather than look at the quality.
Are you able to tell us how many students I’d have to interview at length in order to satisfy you?
Of course you can’t. That’s because you aren’t really interested in learning anything. You just want to argue for the hell of it.
Okay, hell is all yours. Have a great evening.
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“The Muslim was interested in my presentation because ethics are important to religious people.”
Right, ethics are important to religious people, and so the Muslim student very likely had some sort of ethics, right?
Thus, the statement that “I know for a fact that students and professors of biotechnology have zero ethics” is incorrect. If I do the math, at least 25% of the students and professors in your sample had “ethics.”
“Also, your critique uses your arbitrary, biased, personal standard of quantity (number of persons) rather than look at the quality. Are you able to tell us how many students I’ll have to interview at length in order to satisfy you?”
Arbitrary, biased, personal standard of quantity? There are thousands and thousands and thousands of biotech students and professors. There are hundreds at my university alone. So, I don’t think that it’s “arbitrary” or “biased” to conclude that “four” is a tiny sample size.
Now, you said “I know for a fact that students and professors of biotechnology have zero ethics.” I don’t see any qualifiers here, so this is essentially saying that all students and professors of biotechnology have zero ethics. So, I’m thinking that you’ll probably have to interview thousands of students in order to support your statement.
“You just want to argue for the hell of it.”
Nope. Just want to see if you can back up your opinions.
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Interesting post IB. there is material there to keep a person busy writing for a lifetime.
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Thanks, Paul. Fortunately I am easily distracted or else I’d still be writing…;)
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Thinking on this frighteningly timely exposition, it seems notable that:
1.The Jewish Bible, a prehistoric reference, uses man’s choice of the knowledge of good and evil as a fundamental in human nature and the reason for the loss of Paradise and the presence of death.
2. We have started designing babies with technology that will soon be cutting and pasting DNA like paper dolls. and of course,
3. We press fearlessly ahead sans the lest idea of what we do.
All of which lies under your spotlight, shriveling my liver with its presence.
Perhaps though … we may hope … a Designer capable of providing what we see, discover and infer to date, is clever enough to have predicted what we are doing and therefore, to have somehow provided for it.
We are a design, however accomplished. Given the number of things that had to overcome probability for us to occur, the hope does not seem unreasonable. (WE seem unreasonable, but here we are …)
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Excellent lecture! Our universities would sure produce better biological specimens if this lecture was mandatory in Biology 101! 🙂
I was reading Jonah today, and God had to deal with these same perverse biological beliefs you have addressed here by his sympathy for a gourd being destroyed by a worm yet disregarding the value of the precious people of Nineveh whom God placed a much higher estimation upon.
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