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Human Engineering
A Philosophical Analysis
Kuruvilla Pandikattu
JDV, Pune, India
[email protected]
www.kuru.info
Human Engineering
1.
2.
Introduction
Human Engineering
a.The Science of Genetics
b.The Computer Revolution
c. The Tissue Culture
d.The Economic Factors
The Promises & Perils of Genetic
Engineering
4. Philosophical Analysis
5. Conclusion
3.
Genetic Engineering
Public interest and concern
Some have raised and alarm while others
while others have welcomed it as a
representing a brave new world.
We attempt to consider some of the crucial
challenges as well as the opportunities of this
genetic commerce.
Fire a Great Resource
Fire has provided humans with light, power and
heat.
The power of fire led humans to melt the
resources of nature and shape it into a world of
pure utility.
shift form muscle power to the use of fire.
But today humans are faced with short supply
of fire power as the reserves of fossil fuels are
thinning.
Thus we are faced with triple crises: dwindling
of the earth’s non-renewable energy reserves,
the dangerous built up of global warming and a
steady decline of in biodiversity.
DNA – Gene - Protein
Double Helix – Code of Life
The Power of Genes
The power of genes can be compared to the
power of fire.
Scientists are beginning to understand as
well as reorganize life at genetic level.
The promise and perils of this revolution are
unmatched in history.
Cell
Nucleus
Chromosome
Gene
DNA
The Convergent Forces that
Ushered in the Genetic Revolution
The
The
The
The
Science of Genetics
Computer Revolution
Tissue Culture
Economic Factors
The Genetic Science
Plato the great Greek philosopher accepts a
kind of heredity.
Aristotle also seems to believe that the ‘concept’
of chicken is implicit in the egg, or that acorn
was ‘informed’ by the plan of the oak tree.
But it is only with the rediscovery of the great
work of 1863 Austrian catholic monk Gregor
Mendel the new science of genetics developed .
Father
Mother
Eugenics
Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin
championed the movement that aimed at improving
the human race by applying the laws of heredity.
He neologized the term eugenic.
He and his sympathizers called on the Government to
prevent the propagation of the ‘unfit’ humans by
forbidding their marriage, separating them from the
society or forcibly sterilizing them
Some scholars and politicians saw eugenics as a
salvation for humanity from poverty, crime and other
social-evils.
The eugenic movement reached it climax in 1924 in
United States and tumbled down with the crash of
the stock market which rendered many of the elites
on level with the poor.
The 1933 saw the rise of Hitler in Germany and soon
he enacted the Hereditary Health Law, a eugenics
sterilization statute a great eugenic campaign.
Indeed the Nazis used arguments from eugenics to
justify many of their atrocious atrocities.
Understanding DNA (1940
Onwards)
Oswald Avery experimentally defined the role
of DNA as the genetic material.
The discovery of the structure of DNA by
James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953
provided the stimulus for the growth of
genetics at the molecular level and one saw a
period of intense activity and excitement as
the main features of gene and its expression
were determined.
Computer Revolution
After more than forty years of running on
parallel tracks the information and life science
have fused together into a single
technological and economic force.
Computers are increasingly being used to
decipher, manage and organize the vast
genetic information that is a raw resource of
the emerging biotech economy.
As a result, bioinformatics has emerged as a
new disciple. Scientists are now able to
catalogue rich genetic information in the new
genre of biological data banks.
Marriage between computers and genes have
brought about new store houses of genetic
capital for the use of biotech industry.
Manipulation of the DNA
1967 the enzyme DNA ligase was isolated . It was
found that this enzyme could join two strands of
DNA together, a prerequisite for the construction of
recombinant molecules, and is sometime regarded as
a molecular glue.
The isolation of the first restriction enzymes took
place in 1970.
Restriction enzymes are nothing but molecular
scissors, that cut DNA at a precisely defined
sequence.
.
Stanford University generated the first recombinant
DNA as early as 1972. For the first time the scientific
community realized that scientist could now join
DNA molecules together and could link the DNA of
one organism to that of a completely different
organism.
In 1973 the scientist made yet another leap in this
field when they successfully joined DNA fragments
to the plasmid pSC101, which is an extrachromosal
element isolated from the bacterium Escherichia coli.
These recombinant molecules could replicate when
introduced into E.coli cells
Marriage of Computers & Genes
Several researchers are already engaged in mapping and sequencing the
entire genome of creatures from the lowliest bacteria to human beings
with the goal of harnessing and exploiting genetic information for
economic purposes.
By the end of the twenty first century, the molecular biologists hope to
have the genetic ‘blueprints’ of tens of thousand organisms that
populate the earth.
This biological information is so great that it can only be managed and
stored electronically in thousands of databases in the computers.
The successful cataloguing of the human Genome has
demonstrated the need of the power of the nexus between
life sciences and computer sciences. Mapping and
sequencing genome is only a beginning.
Understanding and the chronicling of the webs of
relationships between genes, tissues, organs, organisms and
external environment, the perturbations that trigger genetic
mutations and phenotypical responses is heavily depended
on the computational skills of the information scientists. As a
result bioinformatics has come of age. Titans like Bill Gates
and Wall Street etc are pumping huge amount of funds into
bioinformatics.
Virtual Biological Environments
Computers are being used to generate virtual biological
environments to study biological organisms, networks and
ecosystems.
These virtual environment allow researchers to create new
hypothesis and scenario that can be used in the laboratory to
test new agricultural and pharmaceutical products and medical
treatments on living organism.
Working in virtual environment , biologists can create new
synthetic molecules with few strokes bypassing often the
laborious process that can often take years of effort on the lab
bench. The compound, known as QM212, was generated in the
computer and its real-life counterpart is now being batch
produced in several biotech laboratories.
Scientists plan to generate all sorts of new compounds that
‘could reproduce themselves, conduct electricity, detect
pollution , stops tumors, counter the effect of cocaine and block
the progress of aids’ in the near future.
DNA Chip
In 1996 the molecular biology took everyone by
surprise with the announcement of the first DNA Chip.
These chips resemble computer chips and are packed
with DNA and are designed to read the genomic
information in the genomes of living organisms.
Some scientists use them to detect genetic
abnormalities.
.
Scientists claim that in the near future
the DNA chips would be able to scan an
individual patient, read his or her
genetic make up and would be even
able to detect genes that function
abnormally. Scientists say that we shall
be able to detect which genes flick on
or of at any given time
Molecular Computer
The final frontier in the integration of the life sciences
and information technology comes in the form of
molecular computer , a thinking machine made of
DNA strands rather than silicon.
Scientist have already developed the first molecular
computer and most of them feel that the these
computers are the computers of the future.
Unlike most computers that are sequential and can
only handle one thing at a time. The DNA computers
on the other hand are massive parallel computing
machines that theoretically compute hundred million
billion things at once.
The Tissue Culture
Some scholars date it as past as to 1885. It is reported that an
embryologist Roux succeeded in maintaining the medullary plate of a
chick in a warm saline medium for three days.
In 1903, Jolly made a careful observation on in Vitro cell survival and cell
divisions using salamander leuckocytes. In the early experiments,
fragments of tissue were studied and hence the technique came to be
known as tissue culture.
One of the main difficulty of tissue culture was to keep the cells
free from contaminations. Thanks to the work Alex Carrel
aseptic techniques came to be used in tissue culture. Due to
the nutritional needs of cells, embryo extracts or animal blood
serum came to be added to the cell These were vulnerable to
contamination but the addition of the antibiotics, penicillin and
streptomycin to the cell culture from the 1940’s onwards
alleviated this problem.
Another significant development was the use of trypsin (a
proteolytic enzymes) by Rous and Jones in 1916 to free cells
from tissue matrix .
Today the tissue culture is much advanced with standardized
media and sophisticated incubation condition. By 1940s and
1950s, tissue culture media were developed and conditions
were worked out that closely simulated the situation in Vivo.
Tissue culture is dived into two: (1) Organ culture, (2) Cell
culture.
In organ culture whole embryo or small tissue fragments are
cultured in such a way that they keep their tissue architecture.
Cell cultures on the other hand are obtained either by
enzymatic or mechanical dispersal of tissue into individual
cells or by spontaneous migration of cells from an explant, and
they are maintained as attached monolayers or as cell
suspension. Freshly isolated cell cultures are known as primary
cell cultures. Once a primary cultured is sub-cultured, we get
cell lines and when a complete animal is obtained from a
somatic cell of an animal, it is christened as animal cloning.
Thus we have the cloning of Dolly, a sheep in 1997 at Roslin
Institute U.K by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues.
The Economic Factor
Genes appear to have become ‘green gold’ and one
can already notice that the political as well as the
economic powers are all out to gain control over the
genetic resources of our planet.
Hence multinational corporation are funding research
and are scouting the continents in search of genes
that have market value.
Comodification of the gene pool had lead to the their
patenting. Thus letting the control of our life into the
hands of the scrupulous business masters who might
buy or sell it for thirty silver pieces.
The
Question
of
Patents
In 1971 an Indian microbiologist, Ananda Chakrabarty an
employee General Electronic company applied to U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office (PTO) for a patent on a genetically
engineered microorganism designed to consume oil spills on
the oceans.
PTO rejected while the court of customs approved it.
in 1980, by a slim margin of Chakraborty won by a slim margin
of five is to four in the supreme court.
Genetic engineering is about turning genes, the heritage of
millions of years of evolution and their conversion into
intellectual property of some corporation that in the name of
protection from biopriracy end up with monopoly over the
genes. This comodification and privatization of life has
profound ethical implications.
The Promises & Perils of
Genetic Engineering
Genetic Engineering has the power to bring
about a new genesis on our planet.
The possible whole sale transfer of genes from
totally unrelated species and across all
biological boundaries-plant, animal and human
and the resultant emergence of thousand of
novel life forms in brief moment of
evolutionary time chiefly controlled by
economic gain is not beyond the iota of abuse.
Genetic Engineering &
Agribusiness
Genetic Engineering is mostly used commercially in agricultural sector.
Plants are genetically engineered to have an inbuilt resistance to the
pest and to fix nitrogen like the symbiotic bacteria. Insects are
genetically engineered to attack the crop predators.
C.S Prakash, the director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research
at Tuskegee University in Alabama, and his team of researchers have
developed a sweet potato with five times the amount of protein of a
normal sweet potato. Such an improvement can bless millions of people
in Africa and other places where the tubers form the staple element of
their diet.
Terminator seeds that claim to give us high yield are being designed by
multi-national companies like Monsanto. These seeds are designed to
be sterile unless activated by a chemical that the company sell. These
companies this move allows them to control genetic pollution as there
might be possibilities of cross-pollination with weedy relatives creating
super-weeds.
Scientist say that genetically modified organisms provide us the best
opportunity to feed approximately 800 million people who now are
victims of malnutrition. But the use of genetically modified food for
human consumption does raise questions of human health and well
being.
Genetic Engineering of
Animals
Genetically engineered animals are developed
as living factories for the production of
pharmaceuticals and sources of organ
transplantation for humans.
The liver of a baboon and the heart of a pig
can be transplanted into a human being.
These animals that provide organs are called
xenograghs and the process is often called
xenografting.
There is still one more difficulty. xenografting
is potent with the dangers of transmitting of
some harmful viruses. For instance, it has
been discovered that the sub-species of
chimpanzee had harbored the AIDS virus for
100,000 years. The virus does not harm
chimpanzees but we know that it has become
fatal to humans.
Animal rights activists are up in arms against
what they look at as a cruel interference in
the life of the animals.
Biological Warfare
Biological ware (B W) makes use of microorganisms like bacteria, viruses and fungi for
military purposes. The knowledge accumulated
through genetic engineering may be used to
develop wide range of pathogens to attack
plants, animal and human populations.
Biological weapons can be viral, bacterial,
fungal, rickettsial and protozoan. These
biological agents can mutate, reproduce,
multiply and spread over large geographic
terrain by wind, water, insect, animal and human
transmission.
The recombinant DNA technology allows the
possibility of creating nearly infinite variety of
designer pathogens that were never seen
before. It is possible to insert lethal genes in
otherwise harmless microorganisms.
This research is also laden with dangers of
accidental intrusion of designer gene
weapons from the laboratories into our
environment causing great damage to us and
our ecosystem.
Genetic Pollution
Every genetically modified organism that is released in the
environment poses a potential threat to the ecosystem. The
genetically induced pollution is very different and inherently
more unpredictable than the petro-chemicals in a way they
interact with the environment.
Genetically engineered organisms are self-replicating. They
grow and they migrate. As a result it is unlike the petrochemical products, it is difficult to confine them in some
geographical place. Once released in the environment it is
next impossible to recall them back into the laboratory
especially those organisms that are microscopic in nature.
Much of the research in agricultural biotechnology is centered
on the creation of herbicide-tolerant, pest-resistant and virus
resistant transgenic plants.
Herbicide-tolerant:
Overused of herbicides due to weeds
developing resistance causing great harm to
us, soil, water and beneficial insects.
Pest-resistant:
May lead to the grow of ‘super bugs’
Virus resistant:
May lead to the emergence of new viruses that
were never known before.
Geneflow
This involves the transfer of the transgenic
genes from transgenic crops to their
weedy relatives by way of crosspollination. This also brings up the
dangers of geneflow of herbicide-tolerant,
pest-resistant, and virus resistant
transgenic superweeds.
The ambitious plans to engineer transgenic
plants to serve pharmaceutical factories for the
production of chemicals and drugs, vaccines
and industrial enzymes subject many seedeating birds, insects etc., to serious risks of
untold consequences.
Depletion of the Gene Pool
The technology of genetic manipulation gives us
immense opportunities to transform natural genetic
resources into marketable commodities, it still remains
utterly dependent on nature’s seed stock
(germplasm) for it raw resources. Thus as of now we
can mine genes in the laboratory but cannot create it
de novo. The practice of genetic engineering is likely
to increase genetic uniformity. This would mean that
the very genetic diversity that is required the success
of biotech industry in the future.
The Use of Human Genes
More and more human genes
are being used into nonhuman organism to create
new forms of life that are
genetically partly human.
Thus a mouse is genetically
engineered to produce
human sperms that is then
used in the conception of a
human child. There are
several companies are
developing pigs that have
organs in order facilitate
the use of the organs for
humans.
The idea is that you have your
own personal organ donor pigs
with your genes implanted.
When one of your organ gives
out .you can use the pig’s. But
this xenographs raise many
fundamental questions. What
makes us human? What
percentage of humans genes
does a organism contain before
it is considered as human. Will
we have no qualms to use
sperms produced by rats to get
our progeny. shall we be able
eat food that has own genes?
User Friendly Eugenics
Genetic engineering has re-introduced eugenics in our
lives. This new eugenics have very little in common
with the old eugenic movement that was mainly
depended on racial purity while the new eugenics
focuses on the pragmatic terms of increased economic
efficiency, better performance standards, and
improvement of quality of life.
The old eugenics was triggered by political ideology
and was motivated by fear and hatred. The new
eugenics is being spurred by consumer desire and
market forces.
Genetic Information &
Genetic
Discrimination
DNA sequencing
provides
us a tremendous scope to
diagnose and treat many of genetically induces sickness.
But this very genetic information raises many
apprehensions that that it could victimize the private life of
many.
The employers might screen the genetic information in
screening and selecting the employees or continuing them
in service.
An insurer might use such information for extending or
denying the benefits of information to his clients.
A prospective bride or a groom might want to probe in the
future health condition of his or her partner.
The parents may go for selective abortion on learning
about the genetic disorders in the embryo.
This mean we might shut all doors to Stephen Hawking
like genius in the future. Hence the questions that are
pertinent here is – is it proper to bring the private genetic
information of an individual in the public domain? Do we
need legal safe guards to protect the sanctity of Genetic
Information? In countries like the U.S. legislative safe
guards are already introduced.
Somatic
Therapy
The use of recombinant DNA to treat disease involving
missing or defective gene is called as genetic therapy.
Genetic therapy that involves inserting a normal gene
into the targeted cells to produce a protein that
would be normally produced by the missing or
defective gene.
The somatic therapy affect only the bodily cells and
not the reproductive cells.
Somatic therapy has been tried on many individuals
with cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and muscular
dystrophy with varying degree of success but to this
date no one has found a way to reliably control the
therapeutic genes to make them clinically useful. Yet
many scientists believe that as techniques improve
gene therapy would bear fruits. Many ethicist think
that somatic therapy can be used for proportionate
reasons.
Stem Cell Research
Stem cells promise huge therapeutic benefits
to humans. Stem cells have the ability of
developing into bodily needed body parts
such as tissues and organs.
Stem cells are chiefly harnessed from
embryos and this results into abortion and
hence remains questionable. But stem cells
obtained from adult skin blood and bone
marrow and fat and blood harvested from the
umbilical cord and the placenta is highly
recommended.
Stem Cell –Human Ear
The goal of any stem cell
therapy is to repair a damaged
tissue that can't heal itself.
This might be accomplished by
transplanting stem cells into the
damaged area and directing
them to grow new, healthy
tissue.
It may also be possible to coax
stem cells already in the body
to work overtime and produce
new tissue.
To date, researchers have found
more success with the first
method, stem cell transplants
Human Cloning
The successful cloning of Dolly in 1997 and the possibility
of human cloning has provoked a world wide debate.
Subsequent reports that the Hawaiian scientist producing
three generations of mice and the Japanese scientists
producing eight identical calves from a single adult cow
has brought us closer to the possibility of cloning humans.
Some predicted ‘ today sheep and tomorrow the
shepherd’. Soon a French scientist Brigitte Boisselers, the
president of cloning society clonaid, claimed that her team
has cloned a baby girl whom she christened ‘Eve’.
Many scientists rubbished her claims. Yet we all know that
humanity is at the threshold of human cloning.
Cloning basically involves an implantation of the
nucleus into a de-nucleated egg which then is
chemically treated so that the combination
behaves like a fertilized egg. This fertilized egg
develops into an embryo with the entire genetic
code of the implanted nucleus.
The issue of cloning is of urgent importance as it
represents a radical break from past and can
effect our future in a deeply significant way.
Although it has many therapeutic boons, the
specter of it being misused is equally alarming.
The possibility of the germline manipulations
that give us the power to manipulate the
fertilized egg, the first cell in the embryo so
that genetic changes could be copied in every
cell of the future adult including his or her
reproductive cells.
Only a few elites would benefit and become
GenRich.
Humanity is on the verge of evolving into
transhumans
Remaking Eden: Lee Silver
1977
How Genetic
Engineering and Cloning
will Transform the
American Family
Published in 16 languages, Remaking Eden
introduced the concept of "reprogenetics":
the combined use of reproductive and genetic
technologies not for the treatment of an
existing medical affliction, but to enable
prospective parents to choose which genes
their children receive. Many potential
reprogenetic applications could be viewed in
a positive light when considered in terms of
their impact on individual health and wellbeing.
However, Remaking Eden also spins out
a speculative scenario of a dystopic
future -- with the divergence of
genetically enhanced GenRich and
unenhanced naturals into separate
species -- as a direct but unintended
consequence of human nature and the
principles of liberal democracy.
Remaking Eden also spins out a
speculative scenario of a dystopic future
-- with the divergence of genetically
enhanced GenRich and unenhanced
naturals into separate species -- as a
direct but unintended consequence of
human nature and the principles of
liberal democracy.
transhumanism
World Transhumanist
Association
The Humanity+ (the World Transhumanist
Association) is an international nonprofit
membership organization which advocates
the ethical use of technology to expand
human capacities. We support the
development of and access to new
technologies that enable everyone to enjoy
better minds, better bodies and better
lives. In other words, we want people to be
better than well.
Transhumanism
Transhumanism is a way of thinking
about the future that is based on
the premise that the human species
in its current form does not represent
the end of our development but
rather a comparatively early phase.
We formally define it as follows:
Transhumanism
The intellectual and cultural movement
that affirms the possibility and desirability
of fundamentally improving the human
condition through applied reason,
especially by developing and making
widely available technologies to
eliminate aging and to greatly enhance
human intellectual, physical, and
psychological capacities.
http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/faq.html
Posthuman
It is sometimes useful to talk about
possible future beings whose basic
capacities so radically exceed those
of present humans as to be no
longer unambiguously human by our
current standards. The standard
word for such beings is
“posthuman”.
Total Destruction of Life
Complete Extinction of biotic life itself?
War
Biological, nuclear accident
Terror
Hunger, violence, revolt
Human Engineering
1.
2.
Introduction
Human Engineering
a.The Science of Genetics
b.The Computer Revolution
c. The Tissue Culture
d.The Economic Factors
The Promises & Perils of Genetic
Engineering
4. Philosophical Analysis
5. Conclusion
3.
Philosophical Analysis
Moral Issues
Use of Stem Cell research
Humans-Transhumans-Posthumans?
Only for the Elite?
Do they have a different kind of ethics
than humans?
Who owns life? What is its price?
Anthropological Issues
Who are we?
What is human nature?
How emergent and pliable is human
nature?
“Every understanding is selfunderstanding.”
Philosophical Issues
Who can speak for life?
Who decides what our future should
be?
Who is responsible for life? Who can
guarantee it?
Conclusion
Benefits of genetic
engineering are
countless and the
ethical implications of
the same calls us to
respond carefully and
critically so that the
choices that we make
might protect the
sacredness of every
form of life.
And we are
responsible for life…
Evolution become
conscious of itself.
evolution become
conscious of
eliminating or
enhancing itself.