Biotechnology and the Conscience of Man (article) by Lloydene F Hill on AuthorsDen

This paper was wrote while taking a class called Decisions: Applying Ethics to Science. The question put before me was: “If you could apply “ethics to science” would you do things differently? If I were to choose a one syllable answer, it would have to be an emphatic YES! Materialism without a conscience is a dangerous thing. A marketplace economy is nothing more than materialism run amok. When making a dollar far outweighs a man’s ability to listen to his conscience, it is definitely time to reassess our system of values. A marketplace economy can be a boon to civilization, but it can also destroy it. This is not to say that I am against progress. Certainly, it is evident that technological advances have been very beneficial to mankind, but at what price? The seeds of desire, to patent the world’s many gene pools, were sown in the 1500's in Tudor England. Laws were enacted that transformed the once feudal commons into private estates. Once this was done these parcels of land became a commodity which could be bought and sold in an open marketplace. This commercialization had a radical effect on the population of medieval Europe. The catastrophic change in people’s relationship to the land touched off a series of economic and social reforms that would remake society and reshape humanity’s relationship to the natural world for the whole of the modern era. Much of the economic life of medieval Europe centered around the village commons. Although feudal landlords owned the commons, they leased it to peasant farmers under various tenancy arrangements. In return for their right to cultivate the land, tenant farmers had to turn over a percentage of their harvest to their landlord or devote a comparable amount of time to working in the landlord’s fields. With the introduction of a moneyed economy in the late medieval period, peasant farmers were increasingly required to pay rent or taxes in return for the right to farm the land. Medieval European agriculture was communally organized. Peasants pooled their individual holdings into open fields that were jointly cultivated. Common pastures were used to graze their animals. Life was spare, demanding, and unpredictable. The village commons existed for more than six hundred years along the base of the feudal pyramid, under the watchful presence of the landlords, monarch, and pope. (Rifkin, 39) The only population on the globe that was not affected immediately was the indigenous peoples of the world. Native Americans believe that there are three powers that sustain the world: the material, spiritual and supernatural. Mathew King, a Lakota spiritual leader, once said “Without spiritual power the material power will destroy all life. Materialism without spirituality is the curse of this world.” (Arden/King, 26) I believe that Mathew King was right. Materialism has been at the center of the desire to harness, patent and improve on the gene pool of the world. The ability to manipulate the gene, and do it successfully, is worth millions. And it can be done for the “betterment” of mankind and in the “name of science,” but in reality it has been done out of greed. Indigenous peoples were robbed of their homeland, their means of survival, even of their lives, and all in the name of progress. All throughout history native peoples all over the globe have been persecuted and exploited for the economic potential of their knowledge, or the riches of their land. The history of the colonial struggle ahs been one of continual usurption and exploitation of native biological riches for the advantage of home markets. The great explorations of the New World were as dedicated to the task of finding new biological sources for food, fiber, dye, and medicine as to discovering gold, silver, and other rare metals. European nations established plantation colonies throughout the New World. Native knowledge of agriculture and native labor were both exploited to grow new food staples for export onto the world markets. Cassava, sweet potatoes, peanuts, maize, beans, and squash were among the many new native cash crops that were worth their weight in gold in the developing commodities market. (Rifkin, 49) Material power has the strongest hold on people. It’s the power God gave us to use and enjoy the things of the Earth. Some people think it’s the only power. They’re like the ones who take the uranium out of the ground where God put it and build and atomic bomb to kill human beings. Then they go to their church and call out “God bless us! Help us rule your world!” Impossible! God’s not helping them. They can’t rule this world. This world is God’s, and only God rules the world. God made everything so simple. Our lives are very simple. We do what we please. The only law we obey is the natural Law, God’s Law. We abide only by that. (Arden/King, 15, 26) The Native American people believe that God gave every creature on the Earth a set of “instructions.” All of the “instructions,” were the same but were delivered to each of the different creatures of the Earth in a way that they could understand. Their mythology holds that these “instructions” were very simple and very straightforward. These “instructions” were the guidelines that all living beings were to live by. White Man came to this country and forgot his original Instructions. We Indians have never forgotten our Instructions. God gives His Instructions to every creature, according to His plan for the world. He gave His Instructions to all the things of Nature. The pine tree and the birch tree, they still follow their Instructions and do their duty in God’s world. The flowers, even the littlest flower, they bloom and they pass away according to His Instructions. The birds, even the smallest bird, they live and they fly and they sing according to His Instructions. Should human beings be any different? Our Instructions are very simple—to respect the Earth and each other, to respect life itself. That’s our first Commandment, the first line of our Gospel. Respect is our Law—respect for God’s Creation, for all living beings of this Earth, for our mother the Earth herself. We can’t harm the Earth or the water because we respect their place in the world. We could never kill all the buffalo because that shows no respect for why the buffalo are here. You need to respect the animal you kill. It’s following God’s Instructions. (Arden/King, 10, 11) This rather lengthy introduction has provided the basis and reasoning behind the answer to the initial question stated above. Would I do things differently. Again the answer to me is a simple Yes. Since I subscribe to Native American beliefs, any other answer for me would be ridiculous. I do not believe that man has the right to “play God”. To me that is exactly what modern biotechnology is trying to do. In today’s modern economy nothing is sacrosanct. Anything goes as long as there is an opportunity to make a buck. I have read several articles and essays regarding the new era of biotechnology, but none of the examples in those readings struck me and appalled me like those in the Rifkin’s “Biotech Century.” I have chosen three examples from those pages to further illustrate my viewpoint. To quote Rifkin, Scientists are beginning to reorganize life at the genetic level. The new tools of biology are opening up opportunities for refashioning life on Earth while forclosing options that have existed over millennia of evolutionary history. Here are just a few examples of what could happen within the next twenty-five years. A handful of global corporations, research institutions and governments could hold patents on virtually all 100,000 genes that makeup the blueprints of the human race, as well as the cells, organs, and tissues that comprise the human body. They may also own similiar patents on tens of thousands of micro-organisms, plants, and animals, allowing them unprecedented power to dictate the terms by which we and future generations live our lives. (pp 2) We have already seen evidence of this as Du Pont, Microsoft (Bill the Anti-Christ Gates), Dow Chemical, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, and university and research facilities all over the world rush to become part of the new and lucrative “gene patenting” market. A number of experiments are already underway to release genetically engineered animals into the environment, including predator insects that will prey on noxious insects and genetically engineered fish with growth hormone and “antifreeze” genes inserted into their genetic codes to allow them to grow faster and bigger and be able to tolerate colder water. (Rifkin, 74) Not all scientists agree that this is a positive step toward a new future. Rifkin quotes Dr. Bernard Rollin, a professor of physiology, biophysics, and philosophy at Colorado State University: If we can take animals whose characteristics are well-known, well-understood, and reasonably predictable and put them into environments that are familiar, and we still occasion disaster—sometimes disaster that we can’t reverse—how much more likely are we to do so with new organisms, whose traits we do not yet understand. Animal cloning has been successful. It is only a matter of time before a human clone is produced. The creation of a new species by grafting the genetic code of one animal on to that of another, sort of like grafting limbs onto fruit trees. Chimeric species, whose main purpose in life is to supply plasma, antibiotics and other chemical medical treatment for humans would begin to populate the earth, Even a new specie which is comprised of human and animal genes, thereby making cross specie transplantation a reality. Animal and human cloning could be commonplace, with “replication” partially replacing “reproduction” for the first time in history. Genetically customized and mass-produced animal clones could be used as chemical factories to secrete—in their blood and milk—large volumes of inexpensive chemicals and drugs for human use. We could see the creation of a range of chimeric animals on Earth, including human/animal hybrids. A chimp/hume, half chimpanzee and half human, for example, could become a reality. The human animal hybrids could be widely used as experimental subjects in medical research and as organ “donors” for xenotransplantation. The artificial creation and propagation of cloned, chimeric and transgenic animals could mean the end of the wild and the substitution of a bioindustrial world. (Rifkin, 2) I do not want the end of the wild. I do not want artificial creations of half beast, half man. I enjoy my animal brothers and I have a duty to uphold their way of life, not eradicate their very existence. To blend the genes of one specie with that of another for the specific purpose of experimentation and transplantation is to treat them as a means to an end, and should not even be a viable option. To quote Kant, “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.” (Social Ethics for Social Issues, pp.) These pioneers of biotechnology, the scientists, researchers, governments and corporate giants give no thought to the possibility that their “advances could have cataclysmic results. The Biotech Century could bring some or even most of these changes, and many more into our daily lives, deeply affecting our individual and collective consciousness, the future of our civilization, and the biosphere itself. The benefits and perils of what some are calling “the ultimate technology frontier” are both exciting to behold and chilling to contemplate. Still, despite both formidable potential and ominous nature of this extraordinary technology revolution, until now far more public attention has been focused on the other great technology revolution of the twenty-first century—computers and telecommunications. (Rifkin, 3) This biotechnical revolution will end life as we know it. Maybe that is what was meant by the end of the world. Once man allows the “free-marketeers” to take hold of the moral and ethical reins, then life on Earth will be changes forever. A new global economy will emerge and from this new economic perspective plants, animals, even human beings will be viewed as a commodity to be traded on the global open market. Already world-based corporations are buying up seed companies, agribusiness, agrochemical, pharmaceutical, medical, animal husbandry, and small biotech companies, in an effort to force the expansion of this “new frontier.” Global conglomerates are rapidly buying up biotech start-up companies, seed companies, agribusiness and agrochemical concerns, pharmaceutical, medical and health businesses and food and beverage companies, creating giant life-science complexes from which to fashion a bioindustrial world. The life sciences companies are anxious to exploit the enormous potential of the new biotechnologies and are devoting considerable funds to research and development. (Rifkin, 67,68) All industries have jumped on the express train to doom. The mining industry, chemical industry, government agencies, forestry companies, agriculture, and educators have all taken the first step and seen the reality of what the future holds if they maintain this steady course. The mining industry are developing new microorganisms that can replace the miner and his machine extraction of ores. Researchers are experimenting with even more ways of creating new fibers and packaging materials. The United States Army is inserting genes into bacteria that are similar to genes used by orb-weaving spiders to make silk. Scientists are busy at work engineering new food crops that can take in nitrogen directly form the air, rather than have to rely on more costly petrochemical-based fertilizers currently in use. The first commercially grown gene-spliced food crops were planted in 1996. More than three-quarters of Alabama’s cotton crop was genetically engineered to kill insects. Meanwhile the first genetically engineered insect, a predator mite, was released in Florida in 1996. Researchers have also successfully grown orange and lemon vesicles from tissue culture, and some industry analysts believe that the day is not far off when orange juice will be “grown” in vats, eliminating the need for planting orange groves. At the University of Wisconsin, scientists genetically altered brooding turkey hens to increase their productivity. (Rifkin, 17,18, 19) I don’t want my orange and lemon juice grown in vats. Orange and lemon groves smell wonderful when they are in bloom. When we strive to alter that which took millions of years to create, then we are truly unraveling the weave of the fabric of life. These “advancements”, while I admit some seem very useful and seemingly harmless, are nothing more than man trying to subjugate his environment and conquer the world. It is in fact playing God, and the beginning of the end of life as we know it. The biotech revolution will affect every aspect of our lives. The way we eat; the way we date and marry; the way we have our babies; the way our children are raised and educated; the way we work; the way we engage in politics; the way we express our faith; the way we perceive the world around us and our place in it—all of our individual and shared realities will be deeply touched by the new technologies of the Biotech Century. (Rifkin, 237) Once people lived for 900 years or more. Your bible says that, and I believe it on that point. That was in the beginning of time when God taught the human race His power and lived a long and useful life. But then people went against His Law and He cut down their number of years. It went from 800 to 600 to 400 to 200 years, and so on. We Indians remember when some of our people lived to be 140. That was about ninety years ago. Today our expected life span on the reservation is barely forty. Pretty soon we will be born in the morning and die in the evening. (Arden/King, 24) If man continues to pursue the present course to reach a true bioindustrial world, beings may well be born in the morning and die in the evening, if that is what they have been engineered for. It goes against my beliefs and natural law to play with that which evolution created. In the natural order of things biotechnology is unnatural. Works Cited Arden, Harvey, Noble Red Man, Oregon, Beyond Words Publishing. (1994) Rifkin, Jeremy, The Biotech Century, New York, Tarcher/Putnam, (1998) Social Ethics for Social Issues ©1998 Lloydene F. Hill

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