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Genetic Engineering: Conscious Evolution or Immoral Technology
St. Mary's Hall Issues Day, March 20, 2014
“Remarks on Genetic Engineering and Religion” by Ron Epstein
SUMMARY
One: religion and genetic engineering—the territory
Two: Catholic and Protestant views of genetic engineering
Three: Buddhist views of genetic engineering
Four: genetic engineering as a specific case of ethical and religious aspects of our use of
technology
a) genetic engineering, synthetic biology, geoengineering, and nanotechnology-- deep,
irreversible, long-term changes in ourselves and our world
b) precautionary principle-- proving non-harm rather than proving harm
[Prometheus—failed to give humans civic wisdom]
Conclusion
[Postscript: a new framework for our discussion – Christian divine love (agape) and
Buddhist loving compassion (karuna). A Choice:
a) the independent individual who is autonomous and rights bearing and who is
separate from everyone else
b) The interdependent, interconnected, interpersonally responsible individual who is not
separate from others]
Prof. Epstein’s website:
Genetic Engineering and Its Dangers
http://online.sfsu.edu/rone/GEessays/gedanger.htm
Two Papers by Prof. Epstein:
“Redesigning the World: Ethical Questions about Genetic Engineering.”
http://online.sfsu.edu/repstein/GEessays/Redesigning.htm
“Genetic Engineering: A Buddhist Assessment.”
http://www.drbu.org/iwr/rew/2001/rew-article-3
Recent novels about genetic engineering: Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake; Richard Powers,
Orpheo.
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RON EPSTEIN’S REMARKS ON GENETIC ENGINEEERING AND RELIGION
One: religion and genetic engineering—the territory
In my brief summary today, because of time restraints, I'm going to restrict
myself to just talking, on the religious side, about Christianity and Buddhism.
On the genetic engineering side, we can talk about genetic engineering of
bacteria and viruses, of plants, of animals and of humans. That is clearly
much too much to cover systematically in few minutes, so I’ll just mention a
few illustrative examples:
a) biowarfare: genetic engineering of viruses to kill members of
specific ethnic groups has already taken place;
b) genetically engineering veggies by adding human growth genes
has already taken place;
c) genetically engineering animals so that they contain human-like
organs for transplant into human beings has already taken place;
d) We are on the verge of genetically engineering human beings in a
number of ways including one which would give the resultant child
three biological parents [I assume Jessica Cussins will talk about
this], and we are only a step away from designer children.
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Do I mean to imply from these examples that all genetic engineering is evil?
No. But they do show that even the most benign and promising
technologies can have a very dark side to them that we ignore at our peril.
Genetic engineering is dangerous because it tampers with our bodies and
minds and our environment on a deep level that is unprecedented. When a
mistake is made, there is no possibility of a recall or of undoing it.
This technology is getting cheaper and cheaper, simpler and simpler, and
therefore available to larger and larger numbers of people. A group of MIT
professors is already encouraging people to do genetic engineering in their
basements and garages. Soon, if not already, any bright high school kid
with a couple of thousand dollars will be able to create his or her own
genetically engineered organisms and release them into the environment,
intentionally or not.
Two: Catholic and Protestant views of genetic engineering
Much of the Christian discussion centers on our relation to the rest of
creation and our attitude and responsibility towards it. Bishop Jaydee
Hanson of the United Methodist Church has stated, “Genes are God-given,
and thus man should not be glorified as the creator of genes.”
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Richard D. Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and formerly
president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the
Southern Baptist Convention, has said, "We claim it is wrong for scientists
and corporations to own living, reproductive material…." "We believe [such
material] is pre-owned by the Creator, and ought to be owned in common
by all human beings…." "The altering of life-forms, and the creation of new
life-forms, is a revolt against the sovereignty of God and an attempt to be
God."
Kerby Anderson, president of Probe Ministries International, has remarked:
“God created plants and animals as ‘kinds’ (Gen. 1:24). While there is
minor variability within these created kinds, there are built-in barriers
between these created kinds. Redesigning creatures of any kind cannot be
predicted the same way new elements on the periodic chart can be
predicted for properties even before they are discovered. Recombinant
DNA technology offers great promise in treating genetic disease, but
Christians should also be vigilant. While this technology should be used to
repair genetic defects, it should not be used to confer the role of creator on
scientists.”
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During a special outdoor mass for 50,000 Italian farmers, Pope John Paul II
said that the use of GMOs in farming was contrary to God's will. He said, “If
the world of the most refined technology is not reconciled with the simple
language of nature in a healthy balance, human life will face ever greater
risks, of which we are already seeing the first disturbing signs.… Work in
such a way that you resist the temptations of a productivity and profit that
are detrimental to the respect for nature. God entrusted the earth to human
beings ‘to till it and keep it’. When this principle is forgotten, and they
become the tyrants rather than the custodians of nature, sooner or later the
latter [that is, nature] will rebel.” 1
Although we have seen that many Christians are wary of the potential of
genetic engineering for fundamentally altering God’s sacred creation, a
radically different stance comes out of liberal Protestant thought and is
currently embraced by many scientists who are Christians. Beginning in the
Renaissance, we find the image of the scientist as a Christian who moves
closer to God by exploring the sacred nature of His creation. This view has
recently been radically extended to justify the modern Christian geneticist
1
By Eric Lyman. Copyright © 2000 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington
D.C. No. 221 Wednesday November 15, 2000 Page A-6 ISSN 1523-567X Regulation, Law & Economics
Biotechnology
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as someone who is not only exploring God’s creation, but actively aiding
God in his ongoing creation of the world. Yet a supporter of this view,
Protestant Christian Professor Philip Hefner, who was director of the
Chicago Center for Religion and Science, warned: “This religious world
view tells me that having been created as a co-creator with God is in one
sense a can of worms. It puts me in a position in which I am accountable
for respecting the intrinsic or inherent value of the creation, because that
value is ontologically grounded in God, even though the discernment of that
value is beyond my capabilities, while at the same time my power over
things, also God- given, is operationally almost unlimited.… We will
continue to pursue our knowledge and technology. We have no alternative.
My tradition tells me that we will do so as sinners. This means that we will
fail to understand fully enough. We will fail to act correctly enough. We will
make mistakes. Since we are sinners and fallible, and we are also created
co-creators, we ought to engineer in that fallibility-sinner factor, be as
humble as hell, spend a lot of time on our knees, and recognize that if
Oppenheimer thought that the atomic bomb revealed original sin, the era of
genetic engineering will reveal it much more.” Despite these reservations,
Heffner advised: “Full speed ahead, and sin boldly.”
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Three: Buddhist views of genetic engineering
The Buddhist concerns about genetic engineering are the consequence of
a perspective that differs in subtle but important ways from both the
Christian one and from that of Scientism (taking scientific materialism as
your religion, which should be distinguished from science, as meaning the
use of the scientific method). Buddhist concerns are based on the principle
of ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-harming, and it refers to respect for the
intrinsic value of the life of all sentient beings, not just human life. This
paradigm respects sentient beings for themselves and not merely for their
usefulness to us as tools or means to ends. Out of this principle of respect
for life comes the notion of unselfish compassion as a guiding principle in
our actions, so that, in terms of genetic engineering, it condemns any use
of genetic engineering that involves instrumental use of human or nonhuman sentient life for personal benefit or corporate profit.
The Dalai Lama has said:
“All human beings have an equal value and an equal potential for goodness.
To ground our appreciation of the value of a human being on genetic
makeup is bound to impoverish humanity, because there is so much more
to human beings than their genomes…. The sequencing of the human
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genome has, for me, demonstrated this in an extremely powerful way. It
has also helped reinforce my sense of our basic kinship with animals, who
share a very large percentage of our genome. So it is conceivable if we
humans utilize our newly found genetic knowledge skillfully, it could help
foster a greater sense of affinity and unity, not only with our fellow human
beings but with life as a whole.”
“In developing an ethical strategy with respect to the new genetics, it is
vitally important to … remember how new this field is and how new are the
possibilities it offers, and to contemplate how little we understand…. Too
much of our current focus is on feasibility of a particular technique, its
immediate or short-term results and side effects, and what effect it may
have on individual liberty. These are all valid concerns, but they are not
sufficient. Their purview is too narrow, given that the very conception of
human nature is at stake. Because of the far-reaching scope of these
innovations, we need to examine all areas of human existence where
genetic technology may have lasting implications, for the fate of the human
species, perhaps of all life on this planet, is in our hands. In the face of the
great unknown, would it not be better to err on the side of caution and to
transform the course of human evolution in an irreversibly damaging
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direction? In a nutshell … we have to check our motivation and ensure that
its foundation is compassion…..”2
The Chinese Buddhist Patriarch Hsuan Hua (1918-1995) warned3:
“In this benighted era, our wisdom has been stolen away by material things.
Nobody has any natural wisdom to speak of. Our [nurturing of] our intrinsic
inner light [of wisdom] has been replaced by [attention to acquiring]
products and goods. And once we substitute things for wisdom,… wisdom
will become outmoded. People will no longer serve any useful function.…
People will become obsolete.… [S]ome unethical scientists now are busy
inventing miraculous monsters. You say it's human? It’s not really human.
You say it's an animal? It’s not exactly an animal either. Since they graft
human genes onto animal bodies and alter human genes with animal
strains, this mutual genetic modification produces freakish, mutant hybrids
that resemble neither parent…
“We should recognize that not all advances in science, and in material
benefits, are necessarily good for humanity in the long run. They are
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Dalai Lama. The Universe in a Single Atom: the Convergence of Science and Spirituality, p. 200f.
IThis quotation is from a lecture given in Vancouver in 1985 and published under the title “‘Electric
Brains’ and Other Menaces” and lightly edited. Printed with Permission of the Dharma Realm Buddhist
Association. Revised: 8-3-96 Copyright © 1996 CyberSangha: The Buddhist Alternative Journal
csangha@hooked.net.
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incomplete, imperfect benefits. Wisdom, on the other hand, has the most
thorough-going benefit for the entire world. [Wise] thoughts and attitudes,
born of morality and virtue, are thoroughly good for us all. The Buddha’s
Four Unlimited Aspects of Mind-- kindness, loving compassion,
sympathetic joy, and even-mindedness are totally advantageous for all
creatures. When we base ourselves in mental outlooks such as these, then
we can go ahead and put technology to work for us. Then there will be no
fear that we will forget the fundamental aspects of our humanity.”
Finally, Buddhism emphasizes the mental interconnectedness of all
sentient life in the universal mind-matrix of which we are a part.
Consciously or unconsciously, we broadcast our mental states to all beings
and also receive their broadcasting of their own mental states. Our every
thought and emotion affects all. If we are filled with unselfish loving
compassion, we send that out to the world. If we feel anger and paranoia,
likewise we send that out to the whole world. This means that any
discussion about genetic engineering should be conducted in a way so that
the discussion itself is positive and harmonious and does not cause harm
or become a negative influence.
Four: genetic engineering as a specific case of ethical and religious
aspects of our use of technology
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As we have already seen, many of the problems with genetic engineering
are not restricted to genetic engineering, but are problems associated with
our use of technology in general, so I would like to say just a few words,
that I think are relevant, about the use of technology. Not only genetic
engineering, but also synthetic biology, geoengineering, and
nanotechnology bring about deep, irreversible, long-term changes in
ourselves and in our world. Therefore, before letting them loose into the
world, we should employ the precautionary principle, which advocates
requiring the proving of non-harm rather than the proving of harm, that is,
we should put the onus of proving that something is not harmful on those
who want to introduce its use, rather than making others show that it is not
harmful.
[The Myth of Prometheus: when making the gift of fire (techne), he
failed to give humans civic wisdom
The Western technological tradition starts with the Greek myth of
Prometheus, who was said to have stolen fire from the gods and bestowed
it upon humans. Albert A. Anderson in his essay “Why Prometheus
Suffers”4 explains the importance of this myth. According to Anderson, the
gods punish Prometheus not for his theft of fire, which stands for
4
PHIL & TECH 1:1&2 Fall 1995.
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technology, but for his failure to provide the necessary civic wisdom
[politike techné] along with it to insure its wise use. This is the reason
Anderson gives for why we are living in the age of technology run amok.
We lack the guidelines of civic wisdom. Anderson wrote:
"Why, then, does Prometheus suffer?... The point of all this is that
Prometheus suffers because he stole part of what humans need to
live, but the most important part—civic wisdom—was lacking. Without
civic wisdom human beings are a menace to themselves, to other
creatures, and to the earth itself. This has since become clear in the
current ecological crisis. Prometheus, [whose name means] the
forethinker, should have known better. Technological mastery,
without civic wisdom, spells disaster.” 5
Contrary to much popular opinion, technology is not value neutral, its good
or harm determined entirely by independent human decisions on how to
use it. “To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail.”6 In other
words, as we use specific technologies, they help to shape our outlook,
priorities and values in significant ways. For example, using computers
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Ibid.
This saying is attributed to Mark Twain, but it first appears in a book by by Abraham Maslow, The
Psychology of Science (1966).
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changes our brain chemistry and our DNA both through our experiences of
them and by the radiation that they emit.]
Conclusion
We cannot leave important ethical decisions about genetic engineering to
the scientific experts. Scientific expertise is about the nature of the physical
world, not about what we should do or should not do. You cannot derive
moral guidelines from science and technology. Whatever morality scientific
experts possess and apply must come from elsewhere, from areas of
knowledge and experience in which they are, in most cases, not expert.
This planet is your responsibility. The generations before mine, my
generation and the generation after mine have, especially in the last 150
years, trashed the planet to the point where the continued existence of
sentient beings, both human and nonhuman, on the planet is in serious
doubt. This extremely dangerous situation has come about because of a
combination of human stupidity and greed and wrong use of technology. It
is up to your generation to take responsibility for the mess. That includes
deciding about the proper use of genetic engineering. Since I don't think
anyone in my generation has the stature to suggest to you what should be
done, I would like to encourage you not to accept, without rigorous
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examination, the paradigms embraced by the generations before you,
because they have led to the current state of affairs.
[In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn said
paradigms only change when the generation that holds them die. Having
said that, I cannot resist recommending to you a new paradigm, a new way
of looking at ourselves, which is also a very ancient.]
[Postscript: A New Framework for Our Discussion – Christian divine
love (agape) and Buddhist loving compassion (karuna): A Choice.
You have a choice about the kind of person you wish to become. You can
be an independent individual who is autonomous and rights bearing, who is
separate from everyone else, and from the animals and from the
environment , and who claims that he or she can do whatever he or she
wishes, as long as it does not cause harm to others, but who in actuality is
governed by selfish desires and cravings, and who all too often ends up a
tool for the gratification and enrichment of others.
Or you can be a consciously interdependent, interconnected individual,
who is not separate from others, and who has responsibilities to others.
Such a person feels, thinks and acts unselfishly and is a vessel for sharing
divine love, or by its Buddhist name, universal loving compassion.
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The way we see the issues we're discussing today depends on which one
of these two individuals within each one of ourselves that we identify with. If
we are doing genetic engineering with a clear and knowledgeable mind,
whether our efforts are beneficial or utterly destructive actually does
depend on the balance of our unselfish love with the greed, anger, and
selfishness in our minds.]
Whether you believe that genetic engineering is good or bad, whether you
are for it or against it, it is not going away. It is going to become ever more
pervasive. It is up to your generation to decide whether you will master it or
it will master you. There is no doubt in my mind that you are all up to the
task. And you have my sincere and very best wishes for your success.
END