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Maynard speaks at length of things to come

Consider the work of God: For who can make that straight, which He hath made crooked?
— Ecclesiastes 7:13

Please, boys and girls, do not blame Tammy for the words that follow. This is Maynard speaking.

You may recall my earlier notes discussing fetal stem cell research and cloning. In a few years, human cloning will become practical. Like it or not, somebody, somewhere, is going to do it. And that will only be the beginning. So, for those who are curious, let’s travel farther into the future.

Before I continue, let me clarify my philosophical outlook. We all understand that the human body is a mechanical device. Some of us choose to believe that this mechanical device is animated by a spiritual component; that is to say, a soul. But nobody can deny that our earthly presence undertakes its earthly motions wrapped up in a package of biological machinery. We have a mechanical aspect to our existence.

However, I’d like to think we are not entirely mechanical. To be mechanical is to be hollow and doomed. I prefer to believe that the essence of our mission is spiritual. We must render the world more pleasing in the eyes of God.

Thus we are, so I believe, a combination of the mechanical and the spiritual.

But what if I’m wrong about that? What if there is no God? If that were to be the case, then nothing matters. We are fated to eventually depart this life, and those who follow must likewise depart, and so on down the line. One day the entire show comes to an end, and it’s as if it never existed. No one to remember our struggles and our glory, no markers to commemorate our moment of light. Gone, erased, completely and absolutely and eternally. Indeed, even time and space itself will ultimately end, so the physicists tell us.

Thus there is no possible satisfaction in a mechanical world. Do you see why it is essential to believe in a transcendental philosophy in order to maintain any semblance of sanity? (And in Maynard’s case, I can assure you it is little more than a semblance. What the heck is a “semblance”, anyway? It’s one of those words that rolls nicely off the tongue, but what does it mean? Never mind! Don’t answer that question. I’m distracted enough as it is.)

I spoke of the spiritual to acknowledge it with reverence. Without the spiritual, the mechanical doesn’t matter. This is because, as I just explained, without the spiritual, nothing matters. Are you paying attention? This will all be on the test. But the purpose of this missive is to speak of things mechanical. Now, having established the contextual hierarchy, I shall proceed.

Alright, so fast-forward a few years to the point where human cloning is routine. Set aside the controversy of the issue of simple cloning, because you ain’t seen nothing yet. Personally, I have nothing against cloning. It’s just another way of conceiving a child. The child will be born as any other child is born, and it will grow up to be an independent human being. In my opinion, the only evil that will come out of cloning is the same evil that comes out of every powerful tool: That it will be misused by evil or foolish people. I’m not afraid of, for example, Hitler being cloned. Hitler was evil because his spirit was evil, not because his biology was evil. But anyone who would attempt to clone Hitler would be intent upon creating and nurturing evil, and that’s where the problem lies. The tool itself is not the problem, although some may reasonably argue that we are simply not wise or good enough to possess certain tools. This is indeed a potent argument, but I don’t know what to do about it. Somebody will build the tool.

(Oh, and there’s interest in some circles of trying to clone biological material from the Shroud of Turin. Fat chance!)

But, as I say, never mind the clones. That’s just a mechanical process of replication. Things start to get really interesting when we take the next step and tweak the discrete genes.

The individual physical human is defined by his or her 46 chromosomes. The chromosomes contain collectively maybe 20,000 to 25,000 genes, coded in complex proteins. The goal of the Human Genome Project, now in progress, is to interpret the entirety of the genome data. In other words, we will be able to read the blueprint for the construction of a specific human being.

So…when we develop the ability to splice genes, and we know in detail what the genes do, and we can take a set of genes and grow a baby, we’ve got control of our subsequent generations. No more random selections. Your child can be anything you want it to be!

Is this evil? Let’s talk about that for a moment.

There was a 1997 film, Gattaca, that extrapolated a near-future gene-manipulated culture. A geneticist justifies the extensive tweaking to a pair of potential parents with these words: “We want to give your child the best possible start. Believe me, we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn’t need any more additional burdens. Keep in mind, this child is still you. Simply, the best, of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.” In other words, the process being advocated is a collection of controlled selections from the genetic material of the parents.

That’s a persuasive argument, isn’t it? I can almost see it being backed up by force of law. You’re not allowed to drive in a car if your child isn’t strapped down in a seatbelt, right? So how can we let you bring, for example, a cancer-prone child into the world when we’ve got a “seat belt” that could protect it? To fail to assure that your progeny have “clean genes” could be considered akin to child abuse.

Then again, many would argue that we’re playing God. I can see the argument, but I’m nevertheless drawn by the utility of the tools. Do we play God when we try to treat cancer with chemotherapy and invasive surgery? Is it wrong to nurture our natural defenses against cancer from the starting gate, instead of ignoring the problem until it does great harm? Or am I merely rationalizing?

Of course, it doesn’t stop with being cancer-resistant. Then we get to attributes that are good but not vital, such as intelligence. You don’t want your child to be stupid, do you? Or ugly?

Then we move into the realm of very subjective attributes. Do you want your girl child to develop large breasts or small breasts? (What is the perfect breast size, anyway? Anyone?) Also, I understand big earlobes are in fashion this year. You want your kid to have big earlobes, don’t you? I hesitate to even mention skin pigmentation. Prospective parents will demand lighter or darker children in order to make a statement.

You can see where this is going. We’re inevitably going to go wild with this tool once we get it, and where it will take us defies prediction. But wherever the trends go, we can expect a new disadvantaged class of “natural” people to emerge. It’s a bit like we have now with respect to education, where some people see to their kids and others trust the (ha!) public schools to do the job. This will be something like that, but a lot worse. Great tensions will develop between New Man and, ummm, Old Man. There will be prejudices and violence and perhaps wars. Extreme elements on each side will contemplate eliminating the other. We’ve seen how extremists often end up as leaders. Things could get very ugly.

For better or worse, it’s a package deal. The cure for cancer comes along with the control of the rest of the details. Would you turn down the cure for cancer as a matter of principle? Would you take the risk of having your child die horribly?

The things I describe are going to happen, probably within the next 50 years. So fasten your seat belt. It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law!

By the way, this is only Phase II. It’s when we get to Phase III that things really start to happen. More on that later, if I dare.