Don't be afraid, let science run

No power can withstand human curiosity for long, claims Ran Edelist, who believes that even if accidents or tragedies happen along the way - this is no reason to reject genetic engineering and food engineering

No one seriously asks today whether we are allowed to improve our health or the quality of our car, because the answer is obvious to everyone. But when it is not about a more effective medicine, but about changing the physical and mental nature of the person (a giant who wants to be shorter, a cruel man who wants to be kind, a forgetful man who wants to remember better), the answer changes. That's when religious or state organizations, clerics, law and ethics experts come into the picture, trying to prevent, or at least limit, these changes.

The purpose of genetic research is, among other things, to improve a person's physical and mental condition. The goal of the organizations opposing genetic engineering, as well as cloning, is to keep man in his current state, not to deviate from the accepted and known frameworks. This is the nature of any mechanism: to preserve the status quo.

Only recently we were informed of a new development of genetic engineering, which may help mothers who are unable to breastfeed their children: goats with human genes, which will produce milk that is almost completely identical to mother's milk. The genetically modified milk has a high rate of lactoferrin - a protein found in breast milk - which, thanks to its antibiotic properties, prevents the growth of bacteria and strengthens the baby's immune system. "Our goal is to use the goats to produce milk containing human milk proteins, and in this way also to produce medicines," explained Dr. Pyotr Vitsyaz from the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

The study and application of genetic engineering is anchored - philosophically and inherently - in human nature and in the perception that the meaning of life is a constant search for an explanation of the enigma of life, while fully knowing that this enigma will never be solved, and that the only way to deal with life and its meaning is to continue exploring it. To explore means to understand and move forward. To progress means to exist on a higher human - physical, spiritual and environmental - level.

On the way to that progress, which is manifested mainly in scientific research and its application, mistakes and tragedies also happen. This is not a reason to disqualify in advance one or another research and development. Not of genetic engineering, not of cloning, not of exploiting right-wing energy or interfering with human psychology. Basically, even if there is a decision or a trend to stop this or that research, it fades over time. No force can withstand human curiosity for a long time, as it is mainly embodied in the scientists of their generations.

Unlike the parade of folly, in which most of the leading social elites fall, especially politicians and clerics, pure scientific research, including the constant internal struggle between Prof. Einstein and Dr. Frankenstein, is, in the end, the parade of accumulated human wisdom. And even if here and there it is too hasty, it never moves forward.

Aubrey de Gray (AUBREY DE GRAY), a researcher at the University of Cambridge, believes that molecular biology may (or may) lead around the year 2100 to a lifespan of thousands of years through maintenance, turnover and genetic engineering. Both the predictions of the extension of life expectancy and the objections they provoke are, with forgiveness, fascinating talk and charming nonsense, but this is the nature and nature of scientific research dealing with the future of humanity, and especially research like genetics, for which the limits of imagination and possibility have not yet been determined.

The work of genetic engineers can be simplistically described as cutting and pasting two types of DNA. This operation is designed to change properties by mixing and replicating the DNA and acquiring a new property, which will be inherited by the cells that will divide from the new combination. The opponents of genetic engineering tend to see in some of the studies dealing with changing the physical and mental nature of man and its application, an intervention in the evolutionary process in nature (secular opposition) or the divine (religious opposition).

Cutting and gluing

The scientists who oppose the genetic intervention point to the dangers of the process. One of the most prominent of them is John Fagan. Artificial gene transplantation, according to Pagan, may cause mutations and changes in normal genes, cause genetic diseases that we have not yet known and bring about far-reaching physiological changes. Also, a genetic change in reproductive cells will change the processes of evolution and humans will be born with disappearing traits. In this respect, Pagan believes, there is a danger that unscrupulous people will make monstrous use of this tool. On the other hand, Prof. Robert S. Langer from Boston, who deals with the technique of replacing damaged genes with normal ones, is not afraid of parents who will ask him to give birth to babies with predetermined characteristics. Even if God Himself decided that this or that child will be born with a defective gene and become sick, and therefore we have no right to heal him, Prof. Langer is ready to play God and replace the defective gene in order to save him.

The scientific path is a zigzag progress towards a breakthrough, which does not always correspond to the existing social reality. Experience shows that eventually the norms stabilize, laws are enacted and enforcement bodies are established, which regulate the knowledge and its application for the benefit of humanity.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have engineered low-fertility mosquitoes to kill disease-carrying mosquitoes once released into the wild. It turned out that the wild mosquitoes are stronger than the laboratory mosquitoes, and the (first) attempt to genetically engineer mosquitoes for the purpose of exterminating harmful parasites failed. Even if some "monsters" are born, this is the price that society and man pay to move forward - the natural, instinctive direction of movement of the human race. Later, that progress will dictate not only the desired change in body and spirit, but also the accompanying moral criterion. The journey is inevitably accompanied by all those familiar concerns. "The fall of available technology in the hands of terrorists and/or irresponsible people, which could contaminate the world", as the philosopher of science Philip Kitchener says.

It is permissible and reasonable to fear, but in the end the decision is the result of a power struggle, involving all the usual elements: personal and class interests, some of them economic, against the ability of the democratic majority to correctly judge what is good for humanity as a whole.

Genetic engineering: a supermarket of traits

A survey by the "Harris" Institute showed that more than 40% of Americans are ready to use genetic engineering to upgrade their children, mentally and physically. According to what has been published, there is a huge demand for the DNA of 1.80 meter tall, golden-haired and dark-eyed. Already today, according to Joanna Pittman, author of the book "The Blondes" (2005), every third woman in Europe dyes her hair to some shade of blonde, with data showing that only one in 20 adults in the United States and Europe is indeed a true blonde.

As part of surrendering to everything that is sacred in our culture, one branch of a sperm bank was opened between Harvard and MIT, and another near Stanford. In an ad published in Crimson Harvard, $50 was offered for an egg of a graduate of the institution. An ad was published in Chicago offering $35 for an egg, emphasizing that the donor must be "very healthy, very smart, very handsome, and most importantly - very happy." Liberal political views and sporting skills would be an added advantage.

This is, of course, typical American consumer stupidity (leveraged by genius marketing), because liberalism or conservatism, and probably many other tendencies as well, are mainly a matter of education and environment, and no one knows what the preferred human model will look like tomorrow. But if indeed the apparently coordinated progress between science and morality is supposed to bring about better people and a more enlightened society, then it is not that science "determines" what the preferred human model is in the future, but rather that it operates from a perception that sees the good of the human system as a whole.

There is currently a covert and brutal struggle for the image of the human being created by the genetic pool for cloning purposes. Dominance throughout history and distinct economic advantages have led to the fact that the contemporary winner is the white western type of person. There are no real differences of race, color, religion, shape or nationality between humans, but when any international corporation wants to sell goods these days, it usually makes use of fairly similar white models. The preferred range is between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (American stars are the biggest advertisers of products in China and Japan), and it seems quite narrow. The real differences between the colors and the races will disappear when the yellow and black markets expand and become tastemakers equal to the whites, but no one knows at what rate this will happen, and how it will affect the creation of the ideal model.

Food engineering: in any condition forward

Meanwhile, most applications of genetic engineering deal with food, and even here there are quite a few objections. When the experiments in food engineering - from animals and plants - were crowned with success, the green organizations, led by Greenpeace, opposed it. Precisely in the United States, where interference in the acts of creation is a problematic issue that arouses controversy in practical politics, the use of genetically modified crops was quietly accepted. Obviously, because these crops allow the farmers who grow corn and wheat, to reduce the damage of pests and reduce the unit of time and food. It is not for nothing that the name of God is stamped on the American dollar.

When it comes to food, the debate moves on the functional level. When it comes to humans, the debate is supposedly "moral" and religious. Most of the religious leaders oppose interference in God's actions, and they have many helpers from the fields of moral philosophy, such as Michael Sandel, a philosopher from Harvard, who denies the interference of parents in choosing the type of child that will be born to them for moral reasons. The matter of morality is quite elusive and subject to debate, but when science deals with genetic engineering that will affect the future character of the human race, it does not do so for racial or commercial reasons, but acts out of necessity, the almost instinctive imperative of science, which says: in any condition go ahead.

Often the accepted code of ethics is an obstacle to the progress of scientific research, when it struggles for budgets and public appreciation. The constant reasoning is that the human mentality does not catch up with the pace of the development of science. But the truth is that it is the development of science that follows the "progress" of human mentality. The decision on this matter must be unequivocal: give science a free field to run in. All the rest are balances and brakes that will work out on the fly.

Until that breakthrough and (certain) victory of science, its research and results, each society and country determines the duration of the research and the realization of its results. The most determined opponents of the research and application of cloning are the religions of all kinds, through one God or another. In Israel of the early 6s, when the backward elements of society politically determined most of the state's moves, a law was enacted on January 2004, XNUMX that prohibits cloning. The experts who testified before the parliamentary committee that dealt with the matter claimed that the law would prevent medical developments that would ease human suffering, and the chief scientist of the Ministry of Health lamented that "there is a disconnect between the legislator and the man of science." In the end, the chairman of the committee decided (by the way, alone. All members of the committee were absent), that the law would be approved and forwarded to the Knesset for reading. Fears and awakenings prevailed over the flow of life.

At least when it comes to genetic engineering and cloning, we are now witnessing an all-out battle, because no organization, religious or national, legal or ethical, even backed by an apocalyptic scientific text, has the ability to actually prevent the research. All the debates and struggles may delay or moderate the implementation of the results of scientific research, but in the end the "powers of man" will always win - that is, his endless scientific research, including trial and error. And when it comes to society as a whole, the voice of the crowd as a voice decides whether it is a harm or a benefit.

Ran Edalist is a journalist and media person. In 2009, his book "The Edge People - Life Online" was published, which deals with questions of science, society and philosophy. The article was published in issue 3 of the magazine "Odysseus"