Of possible interest to FWers....
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: (Fwd) Techno-Eugenics Email List newsletter #3
>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 07:39:05 -0800
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>X-Loop: 700000438
>
>Hi - thought this might be of interest to you. to subscribe send a
>message to marcy (bottom of newsletter).
>
>mike
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Welcome to the
>
> Techno-Eugenics Email List Newsletter
>
> Number 3
>
> November 21, 1999
>
> Supporting genetic science in the public interest
> Opposing the new techno-eugenics
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> This is Issue Number 3 of the Techno-Eugenics Email List
> newsletter, as far as we know the only on-line newsletter
> focused on the politics of the new human genetic and
> reproductive technologies. If you're receiving this news-
> letter for the first time, please see the instructions for
> subscribing and submitting items at the end of this message.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "We cannot find our humanity in our genes. But because
> of the increasing progress in genetic diagnostics and
> manipulation, we will increasingly confront genetic
> questions and problems that *challenge* our humanity."
>
> --Craig Holdrege, Genetics and the Manipulations of Life:
> The Forgotten Factor of Context (Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne
> Press, 1996, page 151)
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> CONTENTS
>
>
>I. WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: "The Ethics and Politics of Human
> Germline Engineering" (UC Berkeley, Sunday, December 5)
>
>II. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS OPPOSING TECHNO-EUGENICS
>
> 1. Anti-eugenics protest in London at Galton Society
> 2. John Horgan calls techno-eugenic predictions "irresponsible"
> 3. Jedediah Purdy on human genetic engineering
> 4. New article on human genetic engineering by Leon Kass
>
>III. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS PROMOTING TECHNO-EUGENICS
>
> 1. Time magazine provides forum for designer baby advocates
> 2. Developments in research on artificial chromosomes
> 3. Francis Fukuyama: The end of (human) history, reconsidered
> 4. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan predicts designer babies
> 5. Lester Thurow advocates genetic enhancement
>
>IV. OTHER POINTERS AND NEWS
>
> 1. German philosophers debate eugenic engineering
> 2. New web site on early American eugenics movement
> 3. Japanese cloning researchers break the rules
>
>V. ABOUT THE TECHNO-EUGENICS EMAIL LIST NEWSLETTER
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I. WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT
>
>The Case Against Designer Babies: The Politics and Ethics of
>Human Germline Manipulation
>
>Sunday, December 5, 1:00-5:00 pm, Sociology Department Commons,
>402 Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley.
>
>The workshop presentation will summarize the formal ethical debate
>on human cloning and germline engineering, and update participants
>on the escalating campaign to promote these technologies.
>
>The main focus of the presentation and the discussion that follows
>will be on articulating and developing a political framework for
>opposing human germline manipulations. We will consider where and
>how to draw the lines that matter, and how to embed opposition
>to germline engineering in a commitment to equality and democracy.
>
>Registrants will receive a detailed agenda and logistics information.
>To register, or for other information, contact Marcy Darnovsky at
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Briefing materials from the September 10 workshop, on the
>technologies of human genetic engineering, are available
>from Rich Hayes at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>II. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS OPPOSING TECHNO-EUGENICS
>
>1. Anti-eugenics protest in London at Galton Society
>
>This report from David King in London:
>
>"On September 17, activists from People Against Eugenics disrupted
>the meeting of the Galton Institute, formerly the Eugenics Society.
>The action prevented Arthur Jensen from delivering his Galton
>lecture on race and IQ."
>
>[Jensen is the UC professor of educational psychology who claims that
>the differences between African American and white American IQ scores
>are genetically caused, and who has urged `genetic foresight.']
>
>"The decision of the venue (The Zoological Society of London) to
>close down the meeting also prevented Glayde Whitney of the
>University of Florida from speaking on 'Reproductive technology
>for a New Eugenics.'
>
>"People Against Eugenics is supported by the National Assembly
>Against Racism, the Disabled People's Direct Action Network, the
>Jewish Socialist Group and the Genetic Engineering Network.
>
>"Roy Webb of the Disabled People's Direct Action Network said:
>`The Eugenics Society want to eliminate disabled people, black
>people, lesbian and gay people and anyone else that they see as
>not fitting into their view of society. We want to celebrate
>difference and create a fully inclusive society.'
>
>"David King of People Against Eugenics said: `This meeting shows
>that eugenics has not gone away and its philosophy has not
>changed. The Eugenics Society operates behind the scenes, trying
>to orchestrate a new eugenics based on reproductive technology
>and genetics. We must not go quietly into their brave new
>world of designer babies.'"
>
>Here are excerpts from a story on the protest in The Guardian,
>titled "Science Friction" (September 22, 1999):
>
>"Biotechnology is the great new hope for eugenicists, who have
>long advocated `improving' the human race by controlling the
>genes transmitted to future generations. New reproductive and
>genetic technology, together with human cloning, has given birth
>to what is being called the New Eugenics.
>
>"Using biotechnology for social engineering is now becoming a
>popular issue among leading scientists. Robert Edwards, test-
>tube baby pioneer and expert on pre-implantation diagnosis, was
>quoted two months ago as saying: `Soon it will be a sin of parents
>to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease.
>We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of
>our children.'
>
>"Eugenics has long met with fierce resistance. In London last
>week, a conference of the Galton Institute--a charity which was
>formerly the Eugenics Society--was disrupted by protesters.
>Prof Glayde Whitney, from the department of psychology at Florida
>State University, was about to talk on `Reproduction Technology
>for a New Eugenics' when a protester told the audience of
>academics and others that Whitney had written the foreword to
>a book by David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
>
>For the complete Guardian story, see
><www.newsunlimited.co.uk/society/story/0,3605,84429,00.html>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>2. John Horgan calls techno-eugenic predictions "irresponsible"
>
>In his new book, The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain
>Defies Replications, Medication and Explanation (New York:
>The Free Press, 1999), John Horgan writes
>
>"The Princeton geneticist Lee Silver cranked up the rhetoric
>even higher in his 1997 book, Remaking Eden. Silver prophesied
>that genetic engineering might one day divide humanity into two
>separate species: the Genrich class, which can afford genetic
>engineering, and the Natural class, which cannot. The Genrich
>class will be supremely talented intellectually and athletically,
>free of physical and mental illness, and possibly even immortal.
>
>"These utopian (dystopian?) predictions are ludicrous--and, coming
>from leading geneticists, irresponsible--given the track record
>of behavioral genetics thus far" (p. 161).
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>3. Jedediah Purdy on human genetic engineering
>
>Purdy has also taken on Lee Silver. In his recently released For
>Common Things: Irony, Trust and Commitment in America Today (New
>York: Alfred A. Knopf), he writes that
>
>"Silver inadvertently expresses the defining moral danger of
>genetic engineering. He describes a world in which humanity,
>as a condition that we have in common, has disappeared. In
>this world, to call us equal would seem almost a conceptual
>confusion. Equality is distinct from sameness, to be sure,
>but it does suppose enough commonality that the same projects,
>fears, and aspirations can make sense to everyone, and that all
>face at least commensurable limitations and hazards. What care
>we take for other people, especially but by no means only those
>outside our immediate circles of love, is caught up with a sense
>that we share a common vulnerability" (p 175).
>
>Human genetic engineering "has the power to foster the worst kind
>of indifference. The conviction that our own desires are the
>world's compass points is among the greatest barriers to genuine
>respect for other individuals. The more able we become to treat
>others as vehicles for our own aims, the less readily we conceive
>of them as intrinsically important" (p 179).
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>4. New article on human genetic engineering by Leon Kass
>
>In "The Moral Meaning of Genetic Technology," Commentary,
>September 1999, Leon R. Kass writes:
>
>"[U]nless we mobilize the courage to look foursquare at the full
>human meaning of our new enterprise in biogenetic technology and
>engineering, we are doomed to become its creatures if not its
>slaves. Important though it is to set a moral boundary here,
>devise a regulation there, hoping to decrease the damage caused
>by this or that little rivulet, it is even more important to be
>sober about the true nature and meaning of the flood itself.
>
>"That our exuberant new biologists and their technological minions
>might be persuaded of this is, to say the least, highly unlikely.
>But it is not too late for the rest of us to become aware of the
>dangers--not just to privacy or insurability, but to our very
>humanity. So aware, we might be better able to defend the
>increasingly beleaguered vestiges and principles of our human
>dignity, even as we continue to reap the considerable benefits
>that genetic technology will inevitably provide."
>
>Kass's essay is included in the forthcoming The Moral Boundaries
>of Genetic Technology, Clarisa Long, ed., AEI Press.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>III. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND STATEMENTS PROMOTING TECHNO-EUGENICS
>
>1. Time magazine provides forum for designer baby advocates
>
>The November 8, 1999 special issue of Time Magazine is titled
>"Beyond 2000." This compendium of pop-futurology articles provides
>a forum for designer-baby advocates Lee Silver and Matt Ridley to
>assert that germline enhancement and human cloning are inevitable.
>Ridley argues that by 2025, "Many human beings, especially those who
>are rich, vain and ambitious, will be using test tubes...to clone
>themselves and tinker with their genes....[F]ew doubt that it will
>be feasible to clone a person by 2025."
>
>Lee Silver spins out a marketing plan for consumer eugenics. He
>tells the tale of a hypothetical fertility clinic that, in 2025,
>begins to advertise for "Organic Enhancement." "The response was
>immediate and enormous," Silver writes. "The market for organic
>enhancement of newly fertilized embryos quickly overtook
>infertility treatment."
>
>Ridley's article can be found at
><www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/articles/0,3266,33482,00.html>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>2. Developments in research on artificial chromosomes
>
>A Canadian biotech company reported in October that artificial
>chromosomes inserted into the genome of mice have been inherited
>by the engineered mice's offspring. According to the October 23,
>1999 issue of the New Scientist, Chromos Molecular Systems of
>British Columbia reported the experiment at a London conference
>on biotechnology. Chromos says it will use the technology to
>create herds of genetically modified animals whose milk will
>contain pharmaceuticals.
>
>The company says it won't let its technology be used in efforts
>to manipulate the human germline. But advocates of human germline
>engineering, such as Gregory Stock and John Campbell, argue that
>artificial chromosomes will be the best way to attempt human genetic
>manipulation. They believe that human artificial chromosomes (HACs)
>may overcome the delivery problems and the limited capacity of viral
>vectors, allowing them both to avoid interfering with natural
>chromosomes, and to put into one package the multiple genes that
>would be needed to produce most traits. (See TEEL #2, 10/5/99.)
>
>For the New Scientist coverage, see
><wysiwyg://12/http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991023/newsstory6.html>
><wysiwyg://21/http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991023/editorial.html>
>
>The Chromos web site is <www.chromos.com>.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>3. Francis Fukuyama: The end of (human) history, reconsidered
>
>In 1991, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the "end of history" and the
>triumph of "liberal democracy and a market-oriented economic order
>[as] the only viable options for modern societies." Now Fukuyama
>has revised his assessment in the light of the bright outlook he
>foresees for human germline enhancement.
>
>In the summer 1999 issue of The National Interest, Fukuyama
>repeated his earlier argument about the failure of social efforts
>since the French Revolution to create "a new kind of human being,
>one that would not be subject to the prejudices and limitations
>of the past." Fukuyama now believes that "biotechnology will be
>able to accomplish what the radical ideologies of the past, with
>their unbelievably crude techniques, were unable to accomplish:
>to bring about a new type of human being."
>
>"Within the next couple of generations," he writes, "we will have
>definitively finished human History because we will have abolished
>human beings as such. And then, a new posthuman history will begin."
>
>(Francis Fukuyama, "Second Thoughts: The Last Man in a Bottle,"
>The National Interest, Summer 1999.)
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>4. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan predicts designer babies
>
>Here's a particularly egregious recent example of the irresponsibly
>uncritical manner in which future applications of genetic
>technologies are presented in the popular media, by both journalists
>and noted academic bioethicists.
>
>These excerpts are from "Baby, Oh, Baby: Nothing About 21st Century
>Offspring Will Be Infantile: What's that on the horizon? It's a
>bird, it's a plane, it's Super Newborn" by Jonathan Dube, ABCNEWS.com.
>
>[In the 21st century] "we'll probably be able to order up designer
>babies with whatever features we desire. Or, if we prefer, simply
>clone ourselves. `I do believe we'll go there,' says Arthur Caplan,
>director of the University of Pennsylvanias Center for Bioethics.
>`And it'll create a whole new array of ethical problems.'
>
>"`Absolutely, somewhere in the next millennium, making babies
>sexually will be rare,' Caplan speculates. Cloning will be possible,
>but Caplan expects it'll be little more than a novelty, as most
>people won't be interested in virtually duplicating themselves.
>
>"But many parents will leap at the chance to make their children
>smarter, fitter and prettier. Ethical concerns will be overtaken,
>says Caplan, by the realization that technology simply makes for
>better children.
>
>"`In a competitive market society, people are going to want to give
>their kids an edge,' says the bioethicist. `They'll slowly get used
>to the idea that a genetic edge is not greatly different from an
>environmental edge.'....By the time these `smart' babies are born,
>they could be taught via direct transmission of electrical impulses
>into chips implanted in their brains. `You might download French
>into the 3-year-olds brain directly,' Caplan says."
>
>The full report can be viewed at
><http://abcnews.go.com/ABC2000/abc2000living/babies2000.html>.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>5. Lester Thurow advocates genetic enhancement
>
>In his latest book (Creating Wealth: The New Rules for Individuals,
>Companies and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy, New York:
>Harper Collins), MIT economist Lester Thurow writes,
>
>"Some will hate it, some will love it, but biotechnology is
>inevitably leading to a world in which plants, animals and human
>beings are going to be partly man-made....Giving genetic dwarfs
>normal height is no different from making normal children into
>basketball players. Suppose parents could add 30 points to their
>children's IQ. Wouldn't you want to do it? And if you don't,
>your child will be the stupidest child in the neighborhood" (p 33).
>
>"A hundred years ago our ancestors regarded wolves and mountain
>lions as we regard germs, and were as eager to eradicate them.
>A hundred years from now, with partially man-made plants, animals
>and human beings long accepted realities, what it means to talk
>about the natural environment will be just as different. The
>term `genetic defects' will have a widely expanded, very
>different meaning" (p 116).
>
>Thurow's comments demonstrate that the techno-eugenic vision can
>completely grab an otherwise reasonable, educated person--even one
>with no professional or prestige self-interest in the technology.
>His enthusiasm for human genetic "enhancement" has no necessary
>relation to anything else in his book--but it makes clear that
>what is at stake in the currrent debate over genetic engineering
>goes far beyond "health, safety, and informed consent."
>
>Note: Professor Thurow included his email address in a preface.
>It is: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please let him know what you think of his
>comments concerning biotechnology, and ask him for a response.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>IV. OTHER POINTERS AND NEWS
>
>1. German philosophers debate eugenic engineering
>
>"Anger as Philosopher Revives Vocabulary of Third Reich" is the
>headline of the Independent Online's coverage of Peter Sloterdijk's
>September lecture titled "Rules for the Human Zoo." Sloterdijk,
>whom the Independent Online identifies as an eminent left-wing
>philosopher, spoke of the benefits of "human breeding" and
>"steering reproduction." The lecture, delivered at a Bavarian
>castle to an audience of Jewish intellectuals, has sparked a
>storm of public controversy in Germany, as well as condemnation
>from Jurgen Habermas. For more on the debate, see
><www.philosophynews.com/news/19991001_habermas_vs_sloterdijk.htm>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>2. New web site on early American eugenics movement
>
>The Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center is putting a complete
>set of documents from the early years of the American eugenics
>movement on a web site, to be online in January:
>
>"Judging from a preview, it's a pretty powerful site, featuring
>a collection of troubling documents and pictures. There are
>photos of men arranged as if in a police line-up, which purport
>to show correlations between the size and shape of one's head
>and one's intelligence; there is a photo of a young boy just
>out of diapers who was identified as a likely potential criminal--
>a determination based on the shape of his face. There are family
>trees which track alcoholism and idiocy across the generations;
>and there are photos of the "fittest families"--who apparently
>evidenced no undesirable traits."
>-- Kristi Coale, Salon.com
><www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/11/17/eugenics/index.html>.
>
>"Our current rush into "gene age" of the last decades of the
>twentieth century has striking parallels to the eugenics
>movement of the early decades of this century."
>-- Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center discussion of the
>Image Archive. Access the archive at
><http://vector.cshl.org/eugenics.html>.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>3. Japanese cloning researchers break the rules
>
>"An attempt to repeat controversial experiments in which human cells
>were fused with cows' eggs has landed a team of Japanese researchers
>in serious trouble. The Ministry of Education is now investigating
>the projects as a breach of its ethical guidelines on human cloning.
>
>The research was carried out a year ago by Setsuo Iwasaki's team at
>the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Following in
>the footsteps of the company Advanced Cell Technology in Worster,
>Massachusetts (New Scientist, 11 July 1998, p 4 and 21; November
>1998, p 14), Iwasaki removed the chromosomes from 27 cows' eggs,
>which he then fused with human cells--in this case cancerous blood
>cells cultured from leukaemia patients.
>
>When the Yomiuri newspaper ran the story of Iwasaki's experiments
>last week, he told the paper that he hoped to isolate embryonic
>stem cells---from which all the body's tissues eventually develop.
>This would have meant culturing the hybrid embryo for about five
>days, until it formed a hollow ball of cells called a blastocyst.
>However, most of the embryos did not develop and none underwent
>more than three cycles of cell division.
>
>Iwasaki's work has been greeted with widespread concern in Japan,
>where guidelines designed to prevent human cloning bar researchers
>in universities and other public research labs from fusing human
>cells with eggs. He had not cleared the experiment with his
>university, believing the guidelines did not apply to cows' eggs.
>The university says that future proposals will be rigorously
>screened by a new ethics committee."
>
>(New Scientist, 20 Nov 1999 p 14.)
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>V. ABOUT THE TECHNO-EUGENICS EMAIL LIST NEWSLETTER
>
>This newsletter stems from the work of academics, activists,
>and others in the San Francisco Bay Area who are concerned
>about the direction of the new human genetic technologies.
>
>We support technologies that serve the public interest. We
>oppose those--including human germline engineering and human
>cloning--that foster inequality, discrimination, objectification,
>and the commodification of human genes and tissues.
>
>This newsletter is intended to alert and inform concerned
>individuals about the new technologies and the techno-eugenic
>vision. For at least the next several months, the newsletter
>will be irregular (a couple times a month), informal, and
>non-automated. We'd welcome feedback, and suggestions about
>focus and format. A web site will be coming soon.
>
>Marcy Darnovsky will moderate. Send submissions to her via
>the email address below.
>
>Unless we hear from you, we'll keep you on this list.
>Please let us know if you don't want to receive the
>newsletter---we won't feel rejected! On the other hand,
>feel free to forward it to others who may be interested, and
>encourage them to subscribe by reply to Marcy.
>
>Marcy Darnovsky, Ph.D. Richard Hayes, M.A.
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
>
>_____________________________________________________________
>What's hot at Topica? Sign up for our "Best New Lists"
>newsletter and find out! http://www.topica.com/t/8
>
