Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

Recently Doug Gray presented a concise, detailed explanation of Genetic Engineering to the Roundtable in Ethics.  He begins with the scientific research that forms the basis for the current biotechnology, with an explanation of terms and events along the way.  He ends by considering the moral and ethical impact of this genetic altering technology.  This is not a lengthy article, and if you are not familiar with the topic, this would be a good source of information for you.

I.          Background¹

• Gregor Mendel’s work with hereditary traits in plants is credited with the birth of modern genetics, although much of the work documented by Mendel was conceptualized long prior.
• Much of Mendel’s work was popularized by biologists in the early 1900s.  These biologists spoke of hereditary units found on chromosomes of cells (Sutton) and coined the term “gene” (Bateson).
• By the 1920s, much research and publications spoke of “natural” determination of certain traits through breeding experiments.  In addition, genetic mutation using an external agent (e.g. Muller’s use of X-rays) was demonstrated as possible.
• The American Eugenics movement (discussed below) and The Final Solution/Aryan Supremacy in Nazi Germany both applied principles of trait selection through controlled breeding researched through the 1920s.
• Following the discovery of the double-helical DNA structure (1953) and deciphering of DNA’s complete coding sequence (1966), the first recombinant DNA molecules were synthesized in 1972 and allowed for patent by the Supreme Court in 1980.
• Further developments have continued since 1980, including:
  • Synthesis of human insulin using recombinant DNA technology (1982)
  • Gene therapy trials for treatment of Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) (1990)
  • Human Genome Project – launched (1990), completed (2003), and now data being analyzed (in process).²
• Since the 1970s, the debate has remained ongoing regarding ethical considerations in development and use of genetic engineering with prominent scientists on both sides.  George Wald, Nobel Prize-winning biologist and Harvard professor wrote in 1976, “It (genetic engineering) presents probably the largest ethical problem that science has ever had to face.  Our morality up to now has been to go ahead without restriction to learn all that we can about nature.  Restructuring nature was not part of the bargain … For going ahead in this direction may be not only unwise but dangerous.  Potentially, it could breed new animal and plant diseases, new sources of cancer, novel epidemics.”³)

II.         Eugenics Movement

• As coined by Francis Galton (cousin of Darwin) in 1883, eugenics referred to the efforts to improve the human race by allowing “more suitable” races or traits to prevail more speedily than possible through natural selection.  The term was derived from the Greek roots that literally translated “good” and “generation” and referred to the “science” of heredity and good breeding.⁴
• Influential geneticist and Harvard Professor Charles Davenport stated in his work Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911) that the purpose of eugenics was to improve the human race by improving the selection of marriage mates – “to fall in love intelligently.”  It also necessarily involved control by the state of “propagation of the mentally incompetent.”  However, it did not involve euthanizing those already alive.⁵
• Eugenics laws were passed in 32 U.S. states between 1907 and 1937,⁶ and forcible sterilization could be administered for libidinal crimes or undesirable traits such as insanity, feeble-mindedness, or idiocy (as determined by the “appropriate” oversight boards or panels).  Using American law as a beacon, Nazis extended forced sterilizations to those with physical and/or mental defects.  The Final Solution, or extermination of 6 million Jews, was the ultimate result of the Nazis’ application of eugenics.
• Thus, the eugenics movement demonstrated that “science” could be used by those with racist or sociological agendas to promote grievous programs.  More specifically, ideologies of behaviorism, isolationism, and naturalism in the 1920s gave rise to eugenics as a means to accomplish desired social ends.
• Rapidly advancing biotechnology in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries has given rise to a resurgence of eugenics-style arguments for the betterment of humanity through genetic engineering (defined below).

III.        Genetic Engineering Defined

• Genetic engineering is a broad term that is used to describe an entire category of activities related to the development and application of scientific methods, procedures, and technologies that permit direct identification and manipulation of genetic material in order to alter otherwise inherited traits of a cell, organism, individual, or population.
• For purposes of this discussion, genetic engineering will be said to include the following activities:
  • Genetic Testing/Screening – Use of various procedures (e.g. amniocentesis) to identify any one of a growing number of genetically related disorders (ex. Down’s Syndrome).
  • Gene Therapy – Use of various procedures (most popular is through viruses injecting corrected genes into host cells) to substitute more productive genes in a cell with defective ones.  With somatic cell gene therapy, somatic cells are targeted for replacement as a corrective measure for only the specific patient.  With germline cell gene therapy, defective genes lie in reproductive cells that are replaced with “corrected” ones.  These changes are passed along to offspring.⁷
  • Genetic Enhancement – Efforts to make someone “better than well” by optimizing attributes or capabilities.  The goal is to have genes supplementing or superseding the function of normal genes to provide the desired enhancement (either somatic and germline cells can be targeted).⁸
  • Cloning – Asexual reproduction of an animal or human with the identical genetic make-up of the “parent.”
  • Transgenics – Process of blending genetic material from other species or organisms.  Transgenics allow scientists to develop organisms expressing a novel trait not normally found in the species.  Possible transgenic combinations can be broken down into plant-animal-human; animal-animal; or animal-human combinations.⁹

IV.        Three Frameworks for Consideration

• Deontological – emphasizes what is intrinsically right in a situation as the primary consideration, while costs, benefits, and consequences are secondary considerations.  For genetic engineering, deontological ethics would require consideration of fundamental values such as the sanctity of human life, and individual and/or societal justice.¹⁰
• Teleological – emphasizes the value of the goals or purposes being pursued and the likelihood of bringing about valued or desired ends.  Teleological theories can take one of two courses – classic utilitarianism and Greek (e.g. Aristotle) virtue ethics.  With genetic engineering, the degree to which various processes aim to bring about virtues that lead to happiness (e.g. genetic enhancement) or avoid suffering (e.g. heal disease), then they would be considered ethical.  Genetic engineering intentionally used to develop weaponry or disease would be unethical.
• Utilitarianism – emphasizes the consequences or outcomes either utilizing a cost-benefit analysis or attempting to determine what would cause the greatest good for the greatest number.  At our current time, utilitarian considerations in genetic engineering are dubious at best, as many of the consequences related to gene therapy, genetic enhancement, cloning, and transgenics are not fully known.  In addition, unintended consequences are rarely considered in proactive utilitarian analysis.

V.         Five Factors for Consideration

• Norms – Implied in deontological ethics – does the activity line up with the precepts and principles of scripture?
• Context – Certain activities are appropriate only if undertaken in the proper context.
• Intention – The right intent or motive is required for an action to be pleasing to God.  While this is true, good intentions are not sufficient to make something right.
• Means – The methods or processes to attain a desired result, consequence, or end must be right for the action to be morally acceptable.  Just ends do not justify immoral means.
• Consequences – To some degree considered in the utilitarian perspective.  The consideration here is whether or not all probable or reasonably potential consequences (in all time frames) are acceptable.

VI.        My Position – Genetic engineering, in and of itself, is an amoral form of biotechnology.  However, the research to develop genetic engineering and the use of genetic engineering techniques must be considered as moral and ethical decisions.  The use of genetic engineering in humans is acceptable to the degree that: 1) it does not violate biblical commands, precepts, and principles, 2) it is used exclusively in somatic cells, and 3) it is conducted with the explicit consent of the individual receiving treatment.  While the upside of transgenics provides the potential to benefit humanity, the dangers of potential and/or unintended consequences are so severe that transgenic research should cease until an acceptable legal and ethical framework can be established for research of this type.

• Biblical Support
  • All of God’s creation is good and thus worthy of care and respect. (Gen. 1:31)
  • Man is made in the image of God and as such is esteemed with value above the remainder of creation. (Gen. 1:26-28; Heb. 2:5-8)
  • This value extends to conception. (Ps. 139:13-16)
  • Man’s understanding of God’s creation and ways is limited and warped. (Prov. 14:12)

• Logical Support
  • Much of the “leading edge” research in genetic engineering is conducted under the guise of “betterment” of the human race and preservation of human life.  However, much research is conducted using embryonic stem cells and umbilical cords gathered in a manner inherently inconsistent with the stated goals.  Thus, only genetic engineering research conducted in a manner that does not require the destruction of human life would be logically consistent.
  • The foundational ideologies used to promote genetic engineering stem from naturalism and Darwinian evolution.  However, genetic engineering, particularly germline therapy and enhancement, cloning, and transgenics are directly contrary to natural selection.  Only somatic cell therapy is neutral, or not inconsistent, regarding natural selection.
  • To the degree that somatic cell therapy is obtained via research methodologies that do not violate the sanctity of human life, this therapy may be viewed in a manner similar to prescription drugs, radiation treatment, chemotherapy, or other forms of treatment developed through the use of biotechnology.

• Contextual Support
  • Transgenics can be viewed similarly to the development of nuclear energy that resulted from splitting the atom.  Many scientists working on the Manhattan Project did not intend to develop technology to be used in such destructive weaponry as nuclear bombs.  Rather, they desired to push the universe of scientific knowledge.  However, with new technologies often come unintended consequences.  With transgenics, many scientists are pursuing the leading edge with the same intent.  However, with transgenics, the potential exists for creating reproductive viruses that could destroy significant amounts of plant, animal, and/or human life.  Given that these organisms are created to be resilient, the propensity for adverse effects rises.

  Glossary

  Recombinant cells – result from new combinations of genetic material

  Behaviorism – the theory that human or animal psychology can be accurately studied only through analysis of objectively observable and quantifiable behavioral events, in contrast with subjective mental states.

  Naturalism – a combination of philosophical and theological beliefs that all phenomena and truth is derived from science and the study of natural processes.  Teleological (design and purpose in nature) explanations and revelation are defined as invalid.

  Libidinal – of or related to the libido, which in psychoanalytical terms refers to sexual instincts, desires, and drives.

  Somatic – of the body (already in existence), but not reproductive to subsequent generations (to differentiate from germ cells).

1. Background taken from John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 275-278. [↩]
2. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml [↩]
3. George Wald, “The Case Against Genetic Engineering.” The Recombinant DNA Debate. Jackson and Stich, eds, 127-128 (reprinted from The Sciences, Sep/Oct 1976 [↩]
4. PBS Online 1998 [↩]
5. Jonathan Marks, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, “Eugenics – Breeding a Better Citizenry Through Science.” Working Paper. [↩]
6. Davis, 277. [↩]
7. Debopriya, Bose, “Gene Therapy Pros and Cons,” http://www.buzzle.com/articles/gene-therapy-pros-and-cons.html [↩]
8. www.genome.gov/10004767. [↩]
9. Linda MacDonald Glenn, “Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering and Transgenics” ActionBioscience.org., 2004 [↩]
10. Davis, 281. [↩]

Darwin says, “The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts…”¹  He further states,“Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.”²  Hard reason says that this sympathy is deleterious, because he said regarding natural selection, “And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.”³  Consequently, we can’t stop it even though reason and the path to perfection demands it, and it thwarts the noble work of “natural selection” which produces, “the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals…”⁴

He talks about the surgeon knowing that he is “acting for the good”, but in light of the perfect being reached through natural selection, is it fair to ask, what good, good for whom, temporary or ultimate good….He says that to “intentionally…neglect the weak and helpless” can be only with “contingent benefit” and even that brings “overwhelming present evil.”⁵ What evil?  His conclusion, “We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely, that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is  more to be hoped for than expected.”⁶   Note the he says the weak surviving produces “bad effects”, whereas Christianity would say the opposite.  However, he is heartened that these “hereditarily inferiors” are less likely to marry as the fit, thereby giving the secularist some hope, and hopefully they will refrain all the more, but that is just Darwin’s wishful musings.

1. Charles Darwin, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, (originally published 1871: reprint with introduction published New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 111 [↩]
2. Darwin, Descent, 111. [↩]
3. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, (Originally published by John Murray, London, in 1859:  reprint with introduction by Michael T. Ghiselin, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006), 307 [↩]
4. Darwin, Origin of Species, 307. [↩]
5. Darwin, Descent, 111. [↩]
6. Darwin, Descent, 111 -112. [↩]

Darwin is often presented as a simple scientist, with no axe to grind, to wit no preconceived ideas tainting his conclusions, and simply following the facts to wherever they lead.  The following are a few quotes that may call that noble description into question.

Darwin said, concerning man’s origin and descent, “The main conclusion…is that man is descended from some less highly organized form.  The grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close similarity between man and the lower animals…are facts which cannot be disputed.”¹  Now whether one believes that is true or not, they must admit that it cannot be proven; however, Darwin’s diaphanous veil of science cannot hide his faith in naturalism, for surely all can see that his absolute surety that his conclusion will never be overturned is anything but science, which by nature is open-ended.

Of man’s creation, Darwin notes,  “He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation.”²  So all of the intellectuals, the evidence that man was created, is summarily dismissed as “savagery”.  On what does he base this?  Well similarities, the idea of natural selection (NS), and the commitment, which he mentions regularly regarding NS, “if one will accept evolution.”  Of course, if you accept by faith his premises, then some of what he says may follow, but he did not, nor have Darwinists today, proven the premises upon which their naturalistic worldview stands or falls.

He states, “…man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped…”³  Man, advanced from “semi-human condition to that of the modern savage….with savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health.”⁴  Again he says we “will feel no doubt that all the races of man are descended from a single primitive stock.”⁵

Of course these are ideas that he sought to promulgate in order to prove naturalism.  Darwin’s belief in God, which he briefly mentions as the creator who breathed the first life into…is actually irrelevant.  The reason is that Darwin sought to explain all of life apart from God, other than the absolute beginning, in a way that absolutely excluded God. 

Darwin, as his successors, still confuses philosophical and religious assertions with science, which they disdain unless they are the ones making them.

1. Charles Darwin, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, (originally published 1871. Reprint with introduction published New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 544. [↩]
2. Darwin, Descent, 546. [↩]
3. Darwin, Descent, 548. [↩]
4. Darwin, Descent, 111. [↩]
5. Darwin, Descent, 148. [↩]

Darwin expresses his dismay and discouragement because, in comparison to how very scrupulous a man is about the pedigree of his livestock, when it comes to his own marriage, “…he rarely, or never, takes any such care.  He is impelled by nearly the same motives as the lower animals, when they are left to their own free choice…”¹  Of course, marriage in Jewish and Christian traditions is an exalted spiritual covenant between the two and God.  With regard to how the “inferiors” should approach marriage, he says, “Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian, and will never be even partially realized until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known.  Everyone does good service who aids toward this end.  When the principles of breeding and inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.”² 

Not only is physical or mental deficiency reason to not marry, but he also said, “All ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children, for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage.  On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society.”³  In absolute contradistinction, the Bible and many other religions, assign no evil to poverty.  Oh well, the Darwinian Decalogue says, Thou shalt not marry if you are physically or mentally weak and/or unable to provide…enough Darwin dollars.

1. Charles Darwin, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, (originally published 1871: reprint with introduction published New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 556. [↩]
2. Darwin, Descent, 556. [↩]
3. Darwin, Descent, 556,557. [↩]

Darwin asseverated that,   “…Species are produced and terminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by miraculous acts of creation and by catastrophes.”¹  He was so confident of his own acuity that he further averred, “…we may feel that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world.”²  So much for science being open ended, at least as far as Darwin was concerned!

Darwin clearly determined that what is observable at the time is sufficient basis and guide for all hypotheses concerning past, present, and future.³  It is sufficient for understanding all about man, some about God—at least one can say that God is not involved in His world in any real or substantive sense but has left everything to “impressed laws upon matter”.  Of course, Darwin and every other scientist has disproven his hypothesis; for example he thought the cell was just a blob, and of course now we know that each cell is a highly developed factory; moreover, the history of modern science is densely populated with examples of more factual and clear knowledge being dependent upon technological advances.  Another example is that not only is the DNA the source of information, as once thought, but there is a highly developed hierarchy of information of which the DNA is a part.⁴

Darwin believed that study of the anatomy and behavior of animals could be analogized for man since he concluded that man was merely an animal.  He viewed the difference between man and animal one of degree rather than kind.  He said, “But everyone who admits the principles of evolution must see that the mental powers of the higher animals, which are the same in kind with those of man, though so different in degree, are capable of advancement.”⁵  This is the same naturalistic philosophy by which the Princeton Ethicist Peter Singer concludes that parents should be able to kill their babies up to 28 days after birth if a defect is found.  

Concerning the beginning of human life, the membership of the National Academy of Sciences weighed in with a resolution declaring that the question of when human life begins was “a question to which science can provide no answer…Defining the time at which the developing embryo becomes a person must remain a matter of moral or religious value.”⁶  However, scientists then cried “separation of church and state” and went on to argue scientifically about when human life begins. They used the same arguments of recapitulation of phylogeny (evolution of a group) by ontogeny (developmental history of an organism), as captured by Ernst Haeckel, 19^th century German biologist, that at a particular time fetus and fish are the same.

Of course he, as well as a Darwinist, is simply carrying on the fallacious philosophical idea that the seeable is the sum of reality.  For example, Darwin compared the process where a frog passes through the condition of a fish to a fetus, “inasmuch as at one period of its life the tadpole has all the characters of a fish, and, if it went no further, would have to be grouped among fishes.  But it is equally true that the tadpole is very different from any known fish….In like manner, the brain of a human fetus, at the fifth month, may correctly be said to be not only the brain of an ape, but that of an arctopithecine or marmoset-like ape;”⁷  He said of man, “viewing him in the same spirit as a naturalist would any other animal.”⁸

So, the subreptions from anatomy continue; if a fetus does not look like a fully developed human then it is not.  Of course, doffing one’s Darwinian spectacles, one can see that the fetus is a fully developed human for a fetus.  It is quite “elementary my dear Watson.”⁹

As one who is keenly aware of the benefits of modern science, I am extraordinarily grateful, but all of the advancements will never counter balance the rapacious depredation of man by naturalistic tyrants swathed in the diaphanous respectability of being a scientist.

1. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection, (Originally published by John Murray, London, in 1859:  reprint with introduction by Michael T. Ghiselin, Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2006), 305. [↩]
2. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 307. [↩]
3. This is the common theme of thought, argument, and emphasis throughout Darwin’s books On the Origin of Species and Descent of Man. [↩]
4. Steven Meyer explores this in his book Signature in the Cell. [↩]
5. Charles Darwin, Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, (originally published 1871: reprint with introduction published New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), 548. [↩]
6. John G. West, Darwin day In America: how our politics and culture have been dehumanized in the name of science (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007), 333. [↩]
7. Darwin, Descent, 175. [↩]
8. Darwin, Descent, 141. [↩]
9. Yes I know Sherlock never actually said this, but he sure should have. [↩]