Lecture 10 Eugenics and Genetics: Excitements (Philosophical Perspectives)

Lecture 10

Eugenics and Genetics:

Excitements(Philosophical Perspectives)

“ The 21st century will be the Century of Biology, just as the 20th Century is the Century of Physics”

1953

J. Watson Feb 22, 2003

J. Watson and F. Crick, Feb 1953

Louise Brown, born July 25,1978the first baby to be conceived outside its mother's womb

19782003

Born: 1996

Dead: 2003

Completed 2003

Human Cloning – blastocyst stage

• February 2004, South Korea

• 30 embryos have grown for about 6 days, containing about 100 cells

• Dr. Woo Suk Hwang,

Dr. Shin Yong Moon

National Seoul University

(II) Eugenics before Genetics

• Francis Galton (1822-1911)

• improving future generations by encouraging the "best" in society to have more children

(p.2)

• “negative eugenics” –to prevent the birth of people with “poor” conditions (the “unfit”)

• “positive eugenics” – to create “better” humans (the “fit”)

Negative Eugenics via

Compulsory sterilization• by the late 1920s, similar laws had been

passed in 28 states of U.S.A.

• 15,000 individuals were sterilized before 1930

• Many European countries did the same

• Nazi Germany

• improving future generations by eliminating the socially “unfit”

An Infamous CaseBuck v. Bell (1927)

• “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes…. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1927.

Positive Eugenics via Directed Mating in vitro

• “Genius sperm banks”– Nobel prize winners

• Ivy league eggs wanted (1999) – SAT minimum score 1400, athletic ability, height of at least 5’10”

• US$50,000 (HK$400,000)

• Yale-New Haven Hospital: only US$5,000

(p.3)

Drawback

(i) unreliable because of the lottery of chance inherent in all sexual reproduction

(ii) unreliable because traits are not determined by heredity alone

(iii) most couples would rather have “their own” children.

Eugenic utopianism renewed

(p.4)

““ Today we are learning Today we are learning the language in which God the language in which God

created life….created life….

With this profound new With this profound new knowledge, human kind is on knowledge, human kind is on the verge of gaining immense the verge of gaining immense

new power to heal….”new power to heal….”President Bill ClintonPresident Bill Clinton

The New York Times, June 27, 2000, D8.

Watch video

• How to Build a Human? (BBC)

• Episode 2 “The Predictor”

“Further, it will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds….of ambition in mankind…. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome and a more noble thing than the other two. Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.”

p.4 (Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, CXXIX)

The Power over NatureThe Power over Nature

The Mastery of The Mastery of NatureNature

““Today we are learning the language in Today we are learning the language in which God created life….which God created life….

With this profound new knowledge, With this profound new knowledge, human kind is on the verge of human kind is on the verge of gaining gaining

immense new power to healimmense new power to heal….”….”President Bill ClintonPresident Bill Clinton

Not just the Power to Not just the Power to healheal !! !!

Application One

Gene Therapy

Gene Therapy

A technique for correcting defective genes responsible for disease development.

How does gene therapy work?

• In most gene therapy studies, a "normal" gene is inserted into the genome to replace an "abnormal," disease-causing gene.

• A carrier molecule called a vector must be used to deliver the therapeutic gene to the patient's target cells.

• Currently, the most common vector is a virus that has been genetically altered to carry normal human DNA.

Target cells such as the patient's liver or lung cells are infected with the viral vector.

The vector then unloads its genetic material containing the therapeutic human gene into the target cell.

The generation of a functional protein product from the therapeutic gene restores the target cell to a normal state.

Setback

• In 1999, gene therapy suffered a major setback with the death of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger.

• Jesse was participating in a gene therapy trial for ornithine transcarboxylase deficiency (OTCD).

• He died from multiple organ failures 4 days after starting the treatment.

• His death is believed to have been triggered by a severe immune response to the adenovirus carrier.

Ethical Issues

• What is normal and what is a disability or disorder, and who decides?

• Are disabilities diseases? Do they need to be cured or prevented?

• Does searching for a cure demean the lives of individuals presently affected by disabilities?

• Is somatic gene therapy more or less ethical than germline gene therapy?

(p.5)

Application Two

Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis & Selection

Screening Embryos for Disease

•Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is a test that screens for genetic flaws among embryos used in in vitro fertilization.

•With PGD, DNA samples from embryos created in-vitro by the combination of a mother's egg and a father's sperm are analyzed for gene abnormalities that can cause disorders.

•Fertility specialists can use the results of this analysis to select only mutation-free embryos for implantation into the mother's uterus.

•Before PGD, couples at higher risks for conceiving a child with a particular disorder would have to initiate the pregnancy and then undergo chorionic villus sampling in the first trimester or amniocentesis in the second trimester to test the fetus for the presence of disease.

•If the fetus tested positive for the disorder, the couple would be faced with the dilemma of whether or not to abort the fetus.

Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis & Selection

Hope on a slide: A biopsy of one cell of an embryo on the third day of development. With eight cells (seven visible on this side), the embryo seemed to be developing well. But preimplantation genetic diagnosis (P.G.D.) can reveal problems with selected chromosomes.

Embryo no. 3 was the only "normal" one out of the eight. Though it started out smaller, it showed no signs of down syndrome or other trisomies. This was the embryo that was implanted.

                    Launch GenoChoice in: Flash | Quicktime | HTML     March 14, 2003

                    Elizabeth Preatner, Ph.D., M.D., Prenatal Geneticist

and Embryologist at the GenoChoice Institute

Thank you for considering GenoChoice to plan the future well-being of you and your family. My name is Dr. Elizabeth Preatner, a prenatal geneticist and embryologist here at GenoChoice. Using our state-of-the-art technologies, you can quite possibly ensure that your child's life may be free of such diseases as cancer, Alzheimer's, and heart disease -- as well as conditions like obesity, aggression, and dyslexia.

Ethical Worries

• Many of us live with asthma, allergies, learning disabilities, diabetes, heart disease, deafness and albinism – and live quite nicely

• Quest for a Perfect Child?• What will happen when testing extends to

height, eye color, muscular strength, hair color and other traits that are highly determined by our genes?

• To design our descendents?

(pp.5-6)

蘋果日報 2006.11.15 A26

India loses 10 m female births

• Ultrasound + selective abortion

• A million girls lost each year

• Ultrasound in use for 20 years• In most countries women slightly

outnumber men, but just the opposite in India for 2001 (BBC News, 2006/01/09)

• With PGD, even less Indian girls will come into this world!!

Application Three

Genetic Enhancement

Improved natural endowments

•Greater resistance to fatigue

•Lowered distractability

•Better memory

• Dream of “superman” since Nietzsche• “it is probable that [through genetic

engineering] we would get, in a few generations, men of more than average intelligence, and possible that among them would be found men superior to anything we have known.” (Jean Rostand, French biologist, Can Man Be Modified?: Predictions of Our Biological Future, [ET 1959], quoted from Glenn McGee, The Perfect Baby [1997], p.29

Brian Stableford, social theorist

• small extra lungs

• better backbone

• tougher skin around our vital organs

• eye sight of a fly, an owl,

• sonar “seeing” of bat and whale

• hearing of many animal forms

From Future Man (1984), and Glenn McGee, The Perfect Baby (1997), pp.27-29

Lee M. Silver, Princeton biologist

To augment our sense perception by inserting genes from other living beings

• Light-emitting organs (fireflies)• Generators of electricity (eels)• Magnetic detection systems (birds)• Sophisticated sense of smell (dogs)• Ability to “see” in complete darkness through

sonar (bats)Remaking Eden (1997) pp.237-38.

Re-watch

• Lee Silver speaking in the BBC video

Reaction 1

• “At last, we can escape from the tyranny of fortune and bring our inheritance under rational control!”

• Human beings can control their own evolution (artificial selection)

• From chance to choice; no more reproductive roulette; birth control

• We can correct Nature’s (God’s) mistakes (Remaking Eden)

(p.7)

Reaction 2• “What hubris! Scientists are trying to play

God!” Quest for “Superhuman”: failure to acknowledge human finitude

• Widening the gap between the rich and the poor

• Distort the meaning of procreation

• Distort the parent-child relationship (Excessive parental power over descendents)

Genetic Modification

• Plants

• Animals

• Human beings

Genetically modified goldfish

February 2004

ANDi (inserted DNA) -- a monkey with an extra gene taken from a jellyfish

January 2001

The story behind Dolly• GM sheep produce human

proteins in milk for use in the drug industry

• Mass cloning a GM sheep can save the trouble of genetically modifying sheep after sheep

• Dolly’s experiment was financed by a pharmaceutical company

Genetically modified human beings !!

   "Remaking Humanity?" International Conference

July 17-19, 2003 Chicago     

“The earth does not need more humans; that seems clear. But perhaps it needs better humans, humans more disease-resistant, genetically superior, more intelligent, sympathetic, moral, and spiritual, better adjusted to and able to cope with their environment. With our rapidly increasing knowledge about the human microsphere and our developing technology, we stand in a position to improve our progeny.” (Bruce R. Reichenbach and V. Elving Anderson, On Behalf of God, 1995, p.50)

Moral reservations

1940The Sorcerer's Apprentice

in Fantasia & Fantasia 2000

To watch when you want to relax

AVI 791.4372 G228    

TUTORIAL DISCUSSION TOPICS:

Joseph Fletcher, “Genetic Engineering,” Chapter 7 of Humanhood: Essays in Biomedical Ethics, 1979, pp.79-92.

1. “Coital reproduction is, therefore, less human than laboratory reproduction.” Explain this statement that is found on p.88 of the reading above.

2. According to Joseph Fletcher, why should we enhance the genetic make-up of our descendents?

Gregory E. Pence, Re-creating Medicine, 2000, Chapter 5, “Re-creating Children: Choosing Traits,” pp.95-118.

3. What is Gregory Pence’s arguments for parental choice in creating the best possible child? (esp. pp.100-101, 04-107.)

Fletcher’s affirmation• “Man is a maker and a selecter and a

designer, and the more rationally contrived and deliberate anything is, the more human it is.” (pp.87-88)

• Agree?

• “Coital reproduction is, therefore, less human than laboratory reproduction.” (p.88)

• Sexual intercourse is only for pleasure or for intimate affection

• Fertilization and the embryo’s genetic make-up is to be under strict medical control

• Agree?

Worldview of Fletcher and Pence

Human Beings’ Predicament and Suffering• Nature (natural reproductive process) as

accidental, random, unpredictable, blind, risky; “invisible hand”

• Fatalism – arbitrariness in human life’s vicissitude ; no special care for humans

• Human beings -- submission willy-nilly• A basic distrust of Nature (coital

reproduction is to be avoided)

Technology as gospel

• With technology, human beings finally can rebel against this bad natural force

• Reproduction -- Technology assisted • Human genome -- Artificially modified (new

genes)• Reproduction should be willed, chosen, (with

design, selection), and controlled vs. accidental, random, risky, uncontrolled

• p.91

Gregory Pence

• “kids can be harmed by doing nothing and letting ‘nature take its course’.” (2000, p.98)

• “Fatalism versus Expanded Genetic Choice.” (2000, p.100)

• “Why should a couple be happy with any child that the flick of the genetic roulette wheel sends their way?” (2000, p.101)

• “why shouldn’t such parents be allowed to try to create the best possible child..?” (p.101)

• “Historically, even twentieth-century parents tried to improve on the fickle allotments of fate: pregnant women didn’t drink alcohol, parents stimulated infants…, didn’t smoke, and ate nutritional foods. All these actions contradicted fatalistic acceptance.” (p.104)

• Agree?

• To have control over reproductive nature• Humans know better than Nature• To bend Nature to obey human • Nature and human are not in harmony• Humans should dominate and “conquer” Nature

人定勝天 • Francis Bacon: Knowledge is power!• The more contrived （有為、人為、人工） the

better ！

Can Chinese Medicine agree?