X-Message-Number: 14012
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: James Watson defends creating genetic superhumans.
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 14:47:20 PDT
I (Mark Plus) found this on Salon's Website,
http://www.salon.com/health/feature/2000/06/27/germline/index.html .
Salon.com health | Building better humans
Building better humans
The sci-fi possibilities of genetic tampering may soon become real.
And
there's no law against them.
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By Ralph Brave
June 27, 2000 | A young couple having difficulty conceiving a child
undergoes tests to pinpoint the problem. As they sit in the doctor's
office, awaiting the results, each wonders whose reproductive system
has
failed.
"There's nothing wrong with either of you," the doctor tells them, at
last.
"So what's the problem?" they ask.
"You're two different species. You can't interbreed."
Science fiction? Perhaps for now. But according to the eminent
physicist
Freeman Dyson, this is where the human genome project will inevitably
lead
us. He and his Princeton colleague, molecular biologist Lee Silver,
say
that rapidly emerging genetic technology will ultimately split
humanity
into many species.
They draw their conclusion from cold, complex science, but their point
is
simple, and frightening: Once we figure out how to safely manipulate
our
genes, people will start adding and deleting them to their perceived
advantage. Different sorts of humans will emerge. And it's safe to
assume
that each will decide that it is superior.
While anyone who watched even a minute of "Britney in Hawaii" might
believe that this has already occurred, rest assured it has not.
But the development and use of genetic engineering are the subject of
ferocious debate among the scientific elite. Some influential
scientists,
notably James D. Watson, the father of DNA research, are pushing for
experiments that were once unthinkable: tampering with the human
germline
-- sperm and egg cells. In other words, genetically altering not only
an
individual, but future generations.
"Some people are going to have to have some guts and try germline
therapy
without completely knowing that it's going to work," Watson said at a
UCLA
conference in 1998. "And the other thing, because no one has the guts
to
say it, if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add
genes
(from plants or animals), why shouldn't we do it? What's wrong with
it?"
Human germline engineering is prohibited in federally funded research.
But
there is no ban on such experiments in the private sector. Last
weekend, a
coalition of activists and organizations met in San Francisco to form
the
Exploratory Initiative on New Genetic Technologies. On Wednesday, the
group will announce efforts to develop a broad movement to push for
limitations on genetic technologies, including statutory bans on
germline
genetic engineering and human cloning.
"A ban," says Watson, "would be a disaster."
To get a glimpse of what might very well be our future, it helps to
understand some boring science. All current human genetic therapy
trials
are called somatic: they involve genes in various parts of the body,
but
not the sex cells, which produce eggs and sperm. Tampering with sex
cells
-- producing genetic alterations that will be passed to your
offspring,
and their descendents -- takes genetic engineering into an entirely
new
technological and ethical realm.
While many experts believe that germline engineering is at least a
decade
away, Hamilton Smith, a Nobel laureate biochemist, sees the technology
developing much more rapidly. "It might come pretty quickly," he says.
Smith knows something about the speed of technological advance. He is
the
director of DNA Resources for Celera Genomics Corp., which, in just
nine
months, produced a rough map of the human genome -- a feat that most
scientists said would take years.
The pressure for germline engineering is also likely to come from
another
direction -- you and me. We want children better than ourselves. We
certainly don't want them to suffer unnecessarily. David Baltimore, a
Nobel laureate who heads CalTech, believes that consumer demand will
encourage the rapid development and utilization of germline
engineering.
Genetic screening is already standard in prenatal care. It is not
farfetched to imagine that prospective parents will one day turn to
clinics to produce embryos that can not only be tested for genetic
defects, but also "corrected." And is there any reason to think people
will stop at fixing disease-causing defects? Is it such a stretch to
imagine people demanding genetic enhancements -- mental, physical,
behavioral?
Next page | Should humans take charge of their evolution?
1, 2
Salon.com health | Building better humans
Building better humans | 1, 2
Prominent scientists not only believe the possibility is real; they
are
also preparing for it. At a retreat of the premier geneticists and
policy
analysts last summer at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine,
LeRoy
Walters, director of the Kennedy Center of Ethics, gave a speech on
methods for guaranteeing equal access to the enhancement of
intelligence.
How close are we to being able to alter the human gene book? Germline
genetic manipulation of other mammals is already occurring. Genes are
routinely deleted from and added to mice for experiments. Five years
ago a
University of Pennsylvania researcher discovered how to alter the
genes in
the sperm of mice, and applied for a patent on it. In the wake of that
advance, ethicists called for national and international meetings on
germline engineering. Mice and humans are estimated to share 90
percent of
their genomes.
The implications of germline engineering are so profound, and scary,
that
some leading scientists dismiss the possibility that anyone would
seriously contemplate doing it. Asked Monday whether any reputable
scientists are advocating germline engineering in humans, Celera
founder
and president J. Craig Venter said that he knew of nobody.
But in a new book, Watson, perhaps the most influential figure in
biological research in the last half-century, is quoted as calling for
germline engineering during a 1998 conference at UCLA. Watson
co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA, the basis for all the
genetics research, including the mapping of the genome. He was the
first
director of the publicly funded Human Genome Project, and is now
president
of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island. On July 4, he is
scheduled to receive the $100,000 Liberty Medal in Philadelphia for
his
life's work.
However shocking Watson's opinion might sound, he provides sound
reasons
for germline engineering, according to the transcript published in
"Engineering the Human Germline: An Exploration of the Science and
Ethics
of Altering the Genes We Pass to our Children," edited by Gregory
Stock
and John Campbell. For one, germline engineering is more efficient
than
treating patients one by one. "You delete a bad gene from the gene
pool,
and no future generation need worry about it or undergo genetic
therapy
for it. Also, if a deadly infection broke out across the globe,
humanity
would be saved by implanting disease resistance into the germline."
Watson offers scientists a strategy for confronting the social
challenges
that will face germline engineering.
"I'm afraid of asking people what they think. Don't ask Congress to
approve it. Just ask them for money to help their constituents. That's
what they want ... Frankly they would care much more about having
their
relatives not sick than they do about ethics or principles."
Although other nations, including Britain, Japan and China, cooperated
in
and contributed to the sequencing of the human genome, Watson believes
that attempts to coordinate globally on the genome manipulation would
retard the effort. "I think it would be a complete disaster to try and
get
an international agreement, he says. "I just can't imagine anything
more
stifling. You end up with the lowest common denominator."
As for regulating genetic engineering, he says: "I think our hope is
to
stay away from regulations and laws whenever possible."
Watson ridicules the notion that human genome has sanctity, or that
civil
rights should somehow enter the debate. "I think it's complete
nonsense. I
mean, what or who sanctifies? ... Evolution can just be damn cruel,
and to
say that we've got a perfect genome and there's some sanctity? ...
Terms
like sanctity remind me of animal rights. Who gave a dog a right? The
word
'rights' gets very dangerous. We have women's rights, children's
rights;
it goes on forever.
"I'd like to give up saying rights or sanctity. Instead, say that
humans
have needs, and we should try as a social species to respond to those
needs ... To try to give it more meaning than it deserves in some
quasi-mystical way is for Steven Spielberg or somebody like that. It's
just plain aura, up in the sky -- I mean, it's crap."
Watson is not alone in his support for germline engineering. But in
science circles there is also strong emerging opposition to such
experiments, and growing support for regulation.
Last month, Eric Lander, a friend of Watson and director of the
largest
publicly funded genome sequencing center, at the Massachusetts
Institute
of Technology, called for a ban on human germline gene therapy because
of
our limited knowledge. The human genome, Lander says, "has been 3.5
billion years in the making. We've been able to read it for the last
year
or so. And we suddenly think we could write the story better?"
Lander acknowledges that there are potential benefits to germline
engineering. "There is the prospect that by changing things we might
put
off aging, prevent cancer, improve memory." The dazzling
possibilities, he
says, makes it tough to recommend reining in scientists. "I find it a
very
difficult question," he said. "For my own part, I would have a ban in
place, an absolute ban in place on human germline gene therapy. Not
because I think for sure we should never cross that threshold, but
because
I think that is such a fateful threshold to cross that I'd like
society to
have to rebut that presumption some day, to have to repeal a ban when
it
thought it was time to ever try something like that."
Though Celera's Hamilton Smith and Lander were competitors in the race
to
complete the mapping of the human genome, they agree on this point.
"The
only thing I'm certain of is that we don't possess the knowledge to
monkey
with our germline," Smith says. "We don't fully understand the
consequences of changes that even look like they would be good." As an
example, Smith cites the single genetic mutation responsible for
sickle
cell disease, which has now been found to simultaneously provide
resistance against malaria.
Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health
Human
Genome Project, also has repeatedly urged caution on germline, which
he
views as humans fully taking charge of their evolution. But asked
Monday
whether he would support a ban, he demurred, afraid that opening that
door
for legislation could lead to other prohibitive measures that would
impede
important biomedical progress.
Princeton's Dyson has his own ideas on what is to be done. In his
view,
the speciation of humans into different groups is inevitable -- and it
would be a disaster to allow such diversification without restraint.
"We
must travel the high road into space, to find new worlds to match our
new
(genetic) capabilities," Dyson writes in "The Sun, The Genome and The
Internet," published last year. "To give us room to explore the
varieties
of mind and body which our genome can evolve, one planet is not
enough."
More sci-fi fantasy? The ravings of an aging academic? I asked
Celera's
Smith what he thought. He paused, and then said, "Dyson's a very smart
guy. I think there's a lot to what he says for the future. It's hard
to
tell where mankind is going here."
salon.com | June 27, 2000
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About the writer
Ralph Brave is a freelance writer living in Davis, Calif.
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