Apathy Sketchpad

The Telegraph have an open thread about the embryology bill, to answer the question “Do you trust UK scientists to use hybrid embryos ethically?”. I had a count, and found about 33 sensible comments, 20 moronic ones, 26 mildly stupid ones, 14 that expressed no opinion, and 6 attempts at humour, with varying degrees of success. Here are some of the highlights:

…This constitutes destructive experimentation for its own sake and no good will come of it. After all NO therapeutic treatments have resulted so far from the use of embryonic stem cells, whereas 73 have resulted from the use of stem cells from ‘adult’ tissue, which does not involve the destruction of a human being….
Posted by Dr Tom Rogers on September 5, 2007 7:29 PM

Perhaps that’s becauseembryonic stem cell research is very difficult to do legally under current, outdated laws?

First we’ve had “genetically modified” food, which gave rise to unreproductive seeds which puts the farmers at the mercy of companies like Monsanto for buying the seeds for their next crop.
Now we’re into human-animal embryos.
Who knows that in a few years you could actually be a “Monkey’s Uncle”!
Posted by Brian Merritt. on September 5, 2007 8:09 PM

This is just total logical disconnect.

this is a lot like a film deep blue sea when they do test on sharks instead of cows to help people with parkinson disease, but the sharks end up killing the scientists so something may end up going wrong with this experiment, i guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Posted by Daniel Spreckley on September 5, 2007 8:23 PM

It’s more like that film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in which human-animal hybrids were created and they fought crime..

The use of any embryo is an evil wickedness and it is this kind of evil wickedness, along with abortion, that makes God very angry indeed. …

When the ancient Israelites began passing their first born children through the fire as offerings to the god Molech, (much tissue of aborted embryos is incinerated) it was not long after that, that they were punished by God with invasion and captivity by the Assyrians.

The people concerned can take this as an official warning.
Posted by Charles Crosby on September 5, 2007 8:33 PM

Oh my. An official written warning from God.

The name Dr Josef Mengele comes to mind.
Posted by Morris Hickey of Chigwell, Essex on September 5, 2007 9:34 PM

…And by Godwin’s Law, Morris Hickey loses the argument.

… When these experiments go wrong, and they will, –do not blame God.
Posted by R. Kukkee on September 5, 2007 9:55 PM

Nice name.

This is Dr.Moreau of ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ fame by author HG Wells. This is potentially a precursor to the creation of loyally obedient Pig-Human, Warthog-Humans on the battlefields of the future. Cheap and disposable hybrid soldiers who are incapable of feelings of fear, quilt or mercy will be invaluable for performing well in violently mindless situation without independent thinking . Be prepared for more atrocities.
Posted by future battlefield logistician on September 5, 2007 10:26 PM

Nice to hear from you, Mr Moreau. Fictional characters have been a silent majority for too long now. All sounds very Daleks of Manhattan to me, though. And here’s the winner of Screwiest Beliefs:

Having looked at the eu funded Chimera project, named after Homer’s (not Simpson) lion/goat/snake creature, I am just hoping for an alien abduction and I will ask them if I can emigrate to wherever they come from.
How could you ever trust people you don’t know with such things, don’t we owe it to our children to stop this horror? There must be other ways to find cures as has been done so far, but I fear it is too late, unless God intervenes. I think it is time to pray for deliverence.
Posted by YORKY on September 5, 2007 10:30 PM

God and aliens. Good stuff.

… A referendum, please, of voters and taxpayers. (This would exclude people who get their entire living off the backs of working people - meaning, the public sector would not be allowed to vote itself a promotion of authority over the citizenry who pay their grotesque salaries and pensions.)
Posted by Verity on September 6, 2007 12:56 AM

So… a referendum specifically excluding most scientists. Do we then subtract that from a general referendum to find out what relevantly qualified people think?

With the best will in the world, I am not sure you have any control over what is invented in future. I took a degree in sciences fity years ago! No official organisation has ever asked what I have done with my training! To nip it in the bud, you have to understand what is about to happen. You should have stopped Newton, Darwin and Einstein long before they thought of their dangerous ideas! But that is a tall order for a politician.
Posted by Brian Lewis on September 6, 2007 4:15 AM

Brian Lewis Must Be Stopped! He’s a scientist! We have to stop him, so that The Visitors can harvest the Earth’s water!

I wonder whether this has all been done before. witness the Centaurs (half man, half horse) of Greek mythology. Were they, indeed, half man half animal? Had someone already been dabbling in such “breeding”? The mind boggles as to why they should have done that, or, indeed, why scientists should wish to do so today. …
Posted by TESS NASH on September 6, 2007 7:47 AM

I shall listen to your opinion, because you believe in Centaurs.

No they wont be happy until they have created a monster!
Posted by Edd Herts on September 6, 2007 8:02 AM

Yeah, that’s scientists down to a tee.

Of course these people can be trusted,they are after all doing this research to help us humans and if a few thousand animals die in unimaginable pain then why not?
Posted by Mr Barnett on September 6, 2007 8:43 AM

I’m always eager to know what Mr Barnett’s opinion is of the imaginary news in Mr Barnett’s head.

I doubt they could create any monsters worse than the ones already inhabiting the streets of our cities! Successive governments have, through their efforts at interfering with natural selection, completely failed to produce a society fit to live in. Hopefully, the scientists will breed a human cross with a tiger and lamb and produce some politicians able to deal with the real world.
Posted by Ken Allan on September 6, 2007 8:46 AM

Sorry, what?

Are these the same scientists who say that this that and the other is bad for you one day, and tell you that they are good for you the other, depending on the “fad” for that day?

I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them!
Posted by Karl on September 6, 2007 8:58 AM

I wouldn’t trust TV nutritionists to perform embryology either. What’s your point?

Of course we trust the scientists - and anyway what’s so bad about having cows with human heads?Life in the milking parlour would be much more interesting for all concerned although abattoir days may be a problem for some.
Posted by Ben Corde on September 6, 2007 10:57 AM

In the spirit of generosity, I have classified this one as an attempt at comedy.

No I certainly don’t trust them.Many politicians and judges are the result of the same technique and donkeys brains just aren’t up to it.
Posted by harry hunt on September 6, 2007 11:01 AM

I am rapidly running out of generosity.

Hitler wanted a supreme arryan race,there are numerous people in this country who consider themselves a superior race.though intelligence dictates otherwise.isnt it a frightening thought having these in goverments cloned .or are they intelligence already cloned.as we hear the same old garbagge year in year out.and the chorus of adoration from the zombies in the media.
Posted by Joseph walker on September 6, 2007 11:07 AM

What media has Joseph Walker been reading?

We have to trust the scientists and let them do the job they’re trained for.Anything that can improve the human condition must be investigated.Just think of some of the benefits.Humans that could fly,live underwater etc, women laying eggs instead of the pain of live birth, god the mind boggles at the possibilities.
Posted by ernest ragwarter on September 6, 2007 11:17 AM

While Ragwarter’s enlightened spirit is encouraging, his vision of the future appears to be lifted from an old Busted video.

Hybrid Embryos now and Frankensteins later! Atomic bombs destroy on mass scale and Frankensteins destroy in singles; destruction is the common theme. …
Posted by Sridhar Rao on September 6, 2007 12:04 PM

That’s true. Frankensteins are a total bust at singles nights.

Do you know about GENADA ?It is a newest genetic technology that could be implemented to everyone “in live” from the distance! By deteriorating the organism,destabeling it via continious caloric starvation :destructing its hormonal functions to cause a low metabolism and scarsity.All that is a clinic experiment, leading to a crucual level of the gap of surviveling.
Then becomes a plasmal shock: to be or not to be .
If the individual survives it began a cito- telomerasa and a recombination of DNA on a level of the babyborn.That is a reborness in live.
so that
To create a hibryd embryos from stem sells will be absurd and will be not justify the aim.The truth is the genada which is an unprecedental interuption ,forbidden of all laws on the Earth.The scientists could be explain that and care about everyone.GENADA is a new event.But because of its existing they do not allow anything else to be done.
Posted by Nevena Dimitrova on September 6, 2007 12:37 PM

Alright, put your foil hat back on, Nevena.

I don’t trust any human being not to be corrupted by power. And I think it’s wrong to create an embryo with the express purpose of killing it.
Posted by KP on September 6, 2007 1:14 PM

This might be a fiar point if KP knew what the phrase “express purpose” meant.

No, definitly not! Like most controversial proposals concerning scientific experiments the people involved play down risk and dangers and highlight only the benifits. … Despite all the safeguards that will be put in place, the likelihood then, is some maniac will secretly exploit the situation to make a hybrid monster. Creating an embryo using human and animal cells is ethically and morally wrong and should never be allowed.
Posted by Vic Cayford on September 6, 2007 2:45 PM

I reckon it’ll be that Krang. He’s always doing shit like that.

No I do not trust scientists to use such experiments ethically. They are human and are therefore open to corruption.
To illustrate my misgivings let me explain why I gave up holding an organ donor card. Imagine that I (or you) am in a serious condition after an accident. I am not dying but am, of neccessity, hooked up to all sorts of life support systems. Then someone important (a politician, or maybe Royalty) is brought in to the next ward needing a life saving transplant and I am found to be the ideal tissue type. How long do you think it would be before the doctors decide that my case is hopeless and my life support system switched off ?. After all knighthoods could be on offer. Please dont tell me that doctors would not do such a thing and they are there to save to save life not take it. I point you towards the enormous profits made by abortionists. I repeat, I do not trust scientists to behave ethically. As has already been posted, ethics can change over time.
Posted by Peter W on September 6, 2007 2:45 PM

Nobody wants your organs, Peter.

It is no secret that the supposed Hypocratic oath rythmes or can quite simply be substituted with the phrase Hypocritical Oath. Just take a quick search through say Google Doctor British news crime and see what you get. Case proven!! Doctors, scientists are not beyond reproach in this downward spiralling out of control politburo. After all, many doctors appear in the news for all kinds of issues and decision misjudgements. Personally, I’d rather dance around a tree 3 times and look to the heavens for divine inspiration or rain. Before I let one near my body for any medical diagnosis.
Posted by slidingbye on September 6, 2007 3:53 PM

Someone tell the Darwin Awards people that it might be worth watching this guy.

The philosophical / religious premise that the
natural world is ordered and that this ordering
and its underlaying laws can and should be
discerned for the benefit of mankind, gives
science its legitimacy and its nobility. Science is
thus a cultural endeavor that springs from faith
and reason and its attendant notions of what is
right and what is not. …
Posted by Gordon Neil on September 6, 2007 7:05 PM

…but mostly reason.

I don’t think so. If you think of scientists then nuclear weapons, processed food, toxic pharmaceuticals, the Internet and other malevolent creations spring to mind. …
Posted by Ivor Griffiths on September 6, 2007 9:11 PM

…said Ivor Griffiths, on the Internet.

At a Speech Day at my school, a visiting Scion of the Arts said, in reference to the Teaching of Science: “Unless you incorporate a religious background into the curriculum you will beget a race of Educated Devils.” My fear is that once the Jinn is out of the bottle, there will be no stopping some mad or bad scientist from trying at some stage to create a chymera between an Ape and a Human. It is quite possible that this has already been attempted, perhaps during the Hitlerian regime…There really MUST be an effective and rigorous system of checks and balances when it comes to scientific research ‘done in the name of humanity’ (sic). As for incorporating human and animal tissue into one egg, I find this instinctively ‘bad’ and taboo, though if you asked me exactly why, I would be hard put to describe the reason, other than reference to my earlier remarks above.
Posted by richard on September 7, 2007 8:12 AM

Yes. “(sic).” That’s all I have to say on this one.

Remembering the old maxim;
If it works, don’t F*** with it.
Recalling too, that Mad Cow Disease was caused by feeding animal tissue to animals, approved by that August body, the British Veterinary Society.
‘Nuff said?
Posted by Kevin Gallagher on September 7, 2007 9:13 AM

‘Nuff from you, yes.

NO. I wouldn’t trust anyone who wants to produce unnatural monsters for any purpose whatever.
Posted by Richard Johns on September 7, 2007 1:01 PM

How about embryologists creating admixed cell lines?

If this perverse nation can accept creation of human beings, and that is what those “embryos” are, just to be destroyed, than, by this very perversity of caring about animals more than humans, this abomination should be stopped.
Onward animal liberation!
Posted by Ben Stanley on September 7, 2007 8:07 PM

Is there a debate that can’t be about animal liberation if you try hard enough?

So many people are worried about the future … but I think that a fundamental concern of all of our people at this present time and one which we ourselves as Christians must take very seriously is that concerning the future of human life itself.

Oh, shit! What’s happened?

This text is taken from Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s Easter sermon this year. I’ve copy-pasted most of the sermon into this blog-post: I encourage you merely to skim it.

The beliefs which we have previously held, and the standards by which we have lived throughout our lives and by which Christians have lived for the past 2000 years are being challenged at this present time in ways in which they have never been challenged before!

This is getting less and less scary by the sentence.

The norm has always been that children have been born as the result of the love of man and woman in the unity of a marriage. That belief has of course long been challenged. However I believe that a greater challenge than that even faces us – the possibility now facing our country is that animal-human embryos be produced with the excuse that perhaps certain diseases might find a cure from these resulting embryos.

“Excuse”? He says that as if scientists basically just love nothing more than fucking about with genetics to create monkeys with four asses, and just use the possibility of curing disease, saving lives and generally improving humanity’s lot as an “excuse”.

No matter how hard some Catholics try to hide the anti-science rhetoric, they never seem to quite manage it, do they?

What I am speaking of is the process whereby scientists create an embryo containing a mixture of animal and human genetic material. If I were preaching this homily in France, Germany, Italy, Canada or Australia I would be commending the government for rightly banning such grotesque procedures.

However here in Great Britain I am forced to condemn our government for not only permitting but encouraging such hideous practices.

Any moment now, he’s going to tell us what’s wrong with the idea, rather than just emoting about it…

Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has given the Government’s support to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. It is difficult to imagine a single piece of legislation which, more comprehensively, attacks the sanctity and dignity of human life than this particular Bill.

“Sanctity”? Ah, then it’s just an ideological objection to research that could save lives and advance human understanding of ourselves? That doesn’t count as a reason, and that right there is why he won this month’s award.

With full might of government endorsement, Gordon Brown is promoting a Bill that will allow the creation of animal-human hybrid embryos. He is promoting a Bill which will add to the 2.2 million human embryos already destroyed or experimented upon. He is promoting a Bill allowing scientists to create babies whose sole purpose will be to provide, without consent of anyone, parts of their organs or tissues.

Not babies, embryos. Do please get this right, or else you have no credibility at all. After all, why listen to his opinion if he doesn’t understand the science behind it? We’re talking about cell cultures, here, not fully-formed human beings.

Edit: the Bill also allows for the creation of “saviour siblings”, however, since the cells taken from these children to save their siblings are from the umbilical cord which is cut off anyway, I can’t imagine what his objection to that could be.

He is promoting a Bill which will sanction the raiding of dead people’s tissue to manufacture yet more embryos for experimentation. He is promoting a Bill which denies that a child has a biological father, allows tampering with birth certificates, removing biological parents, and inserting someone altogether different. And this Bill will indeed be used to further extend the abortion laws.

I can’t imagine that any of this is correct, but since the only news coverage this Bill has had has centred around the whining of scientifically and legally unqualified clergymen, it’s really hard to be sure. Certainly “the raiding of dead people’s tissue” is illegal under at least two different Acts, one of which is very recent (I have a donor card and it would still be illegal to use my tissues for research without my prior consent) so I can’t for a second believe that this provision really extends to anyone who hasn’t consented. And “tampering with birth certificates” is almost by definition illegal. Perhaps this Bill will allow people to alter the details on them in some pre-approved way, and perhaps O’Brien thinks that that’s too much and constitutes “tampering”, but without explaining what the Bill actually allows that he objects to, he might as well be just making things up.

Further it seems that Labour MPs are not to be allowed a free vote on this Bill and consequently are denied the right to vote according to their conscience – a right which all other political parties have allowed.

This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life.

You know, I’m not at all sure that it does. The cardinal never bothers to explain precisely what this attack is — possibly this is because he’s preaching to a group of Catholics, so he knows they’ll all support whatever he says because they have deferred their opinion-forming to a group of bigots in Italy, but even so he must have known (indeed, intended) that it would end up in the newspapers, or else he’d have talked about this “Pascal Mystery” nonsense that Christians are usually so keen that we discuss this time of year — but it’s clearly rubbish.

I think it was in A Devil’s Chaplain that I heard this argument explained best, but I can’t remember so here’s my attempt. I’ve used a different visual metaphor, so it’s not plagiarism (this is what they tell me at uni).

If you had enough paper, you could construct a really giant family tree which includes everything which as ever lived (on Earth, at least). Clearly people have certain rights, and grapes do not, but on this tree there would be an unbroken chain of links between the Pope and the grapes crushed to make his communion wine. The very concepts of “human” rights, “human” dignity and “human” life are nonsense when we realise this, because it implies that somewhere on that family tree you could draw a line and say “these are human; these are not” — but wherever you draw that line, there will be almost no difference between the last generation excluded and the first included. The intermediate stages have died out since, so we are left with a clear gap between “humans” and “animals”, and anywhere we choose to draw the line in that gap is effectively the same. This is very convenient for religious types who believe in “the sanctity of human life” and that God gave “humans” dominion over “animals”, that “animals” can be killed for meat but “humans” cannot even if they want to. The Bible is very clear on this, not least because it was written by people who didn’t know about evolution. (I am assuming for the sake of argument that everyone involved in this discussion accepts evolution. Anyone who doesn’t shouldn’t be allowed a say because they’re too ignorant to have a meaningful opinion.) When people start making animal-human hybrids, this gap will start to fill up with new creatures and we will be forced to reassess the situation.

This is, of course, a good thing: right now Christians (including former Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter) are using this ridiculous line drawn on a family tree to say that a single fertilised egg cell is “human” and therefore has full rights, whereas a primate (er, the monkey kind of primate) is an animal and doesn’t count. That’s clearly moronic, and so this arbitrary “line on a family tree” method of doling out rights clearly isn’t sufficient. There is (and/or has been) a continuum of different beings on Earth, and we need a method for granting rights and protection that reflects that. We already have it, to some extent: toddlers aren’t allowed to buy alcohol, 14-year-olds aren’t allowed to have sex, vote, or buy a house. The mentally ill have their rights curtailed for their own good. And equally, we allow you to be needlessly cruel to bacteria, insects and plants, but not to mammals or reptiles. Some people who claim to be vegetarians eat fish — so apparently fish are deemed insufficiently self-aware to get any rights, whereas cows are smart enough that they should be left alone. Clearly we do accept that some creatures have more rights than others and that it isn’t a simple, binary “human or not” question. Except, of course, when it’s convenient for the Church that we do not.

In some other European countries one could be jailed for doing what we intend to make legal.

Well, yes, but loads of countries have different laws than us. In Germany, there’s surprisingly little free speech when it comes to the Nazi regime (which seems almost perverse but I imagine they know what they’re doing). In Greece, Tetris is illegal if you play it in a cybercafé. And if you count Turkey as part of Europe, then there’s even stranger examples.

In some other European countries, France say, it would (quite rightly) be illegal to run a Catholic school. Hasn’t mentioned that one yet, has he?

I can say that the government has no mandate for these changes: they were not in any election manifesto, nor do they enjoy widespread public support. The opposite has indeed taken place – the time allowed for debate in Parliament and indeed in the country at large has been shockingly short.

Maybe that’s because it basically isn’t all that important in real life?

One might say that in our country we are about to have a public government endorsement of experiments of Frankenstein proportion – without many people really being aware of what is going on.

Many excuses are being made for this present legislation, particularly that cures will soon be found for various diseases which afflict mankind through this legislation. Rather the opposite seems to be the case when cells required for ongoing investigation into cures through medical science can take place through cells obtained in other ways from human bodies and certainly not through the creation of animal-human embryos.

I cannot refute this lase sentence as I cannot make any sense of it.

I contend that matters of such concern to the peoples of our countries should not be left quite simply to a vote by members of Parliament. Along with my colleagues in England and Wales and my brother Bishops here in Scotland I would maintain that the establishment of a single permanent statutory national bioethics commission is something which would indeed bring considerable benefits. As I indicated recently in a letter to the Prime Minister: “This would appear to be the only way that the issues raised by the swiftly developing biotechnology industry can be adequately discussed and weighed up in a body which engages with public concerns and informs the government and parliament on matters which will continue to raise such unimagined and complex ethical questions”.

I quite agree that it raises complex ethical questions, however I would add the following:

• Raising questions is in all cases a good thing. The questions were still there and deserving of answers before this raised them, and anything that makes people think about them can only advance mankind. The idea that raising questions is objectionable is an inherently religious one, and I don’t think that cardinals are remotely qualified to weigh in on them — least of all ones who don’t know the difference between a baby and an embryo.
• Complex ethical questions have complex answers, and “ban it ban it ban it” is not a complex answer. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to something that raises awkward questions and goes vaguely against the teachings of the Bible. It may be that, after a complex investigation, it turns out that the best thing to do is to ban it, but until you have a better reason than that, you don’t get a say.

Of course, “the establishment of a single permanent statutory national bioethics commission” might be a good idea (as long as we’re spelling “establishment” with a small ‘e’), but it depends on how much money it would take compared to how much it would cost for Parliament and the existing ethics commissions to do it (and the comparative results thereof) — and I can’t imagine cardinals have any useful information to base that call on.

Our voice must be heard and that voice must be listened to especially by the members of Parliament who will soon vote on this issue in the House of Commons.

As best I can figure, “our” in this sentence appears to refer to a group of bishops, a group who already have far too much say in Parliament.

Sadly many members of Parliament do not seem concerned – or rather are in a certain ignorance of what is going to happen.

Spot the hypocrisy. Go on. Have a go.

In January of this year our Catholic Parliamentary Office wrote to all of Scotland’s 59 members of Parliament asking them how they intended to vote. As of today only 9 have bothered to reply. Over three weeks ago Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley wrote to Gordon Brown urging him to allow all his MPs a free vote – as of today he has not even had an acknowledgement!

Our Church, and I personally, have, I think, done all the ‘right things’. We have responded to the consultation document; we have sent letters to all of Scotland’s Members of Parliament; we have written to the Prime Minister; we are speaking publicly about what is going on in our name and in our country. Further, I recently signed a letter with other Church Leaders which concluded: “This Bill goes against what most people, Christian or not, reckon is common sense. The idea of mixing human and animal genes is not just evil. It’s crazy!”.

I’ve noticed that while the word “reckon” appears in that quote, the word “because” does not.

Until that sentence, there was always a chance I would forgive him. But come on. “The idea of mixing human and animal genes is … evil” — why? Why is it evil? What is even remotely evil about it? Who gets hurt? What possible Bad Thing will happen as a result? Ah, you see, but that’s not what “Evil” means if you’re religious. If you’re a Christian, then Good is Whatever God Decides Good Is, and Evil is Everything Else. And “the idea of mixing human and animal genes is … crazy!”? Well, surely you have to actually understand the reasons (note: not excuses) for doing it before you get to decide whether or not it’s a crazy thing to do?

I would have said that persecuting homosexuals was evil. I would have said that blocking attempts to introduce life-saving contraception into Africa to promote your (very profitable) religion was evil. I would have said that believing that what is very obviously just a little disc of bread was, in strict point of fact, the literal body of a 2000-year-dead man was crazy. I would have said that talking to an invisible wizard who doesn’t exist and expecting a reply was crazy.

If you want to tell me genetics research is “evil” and “crazy” then you’re going to have to provide some kind of an argument. Especially if you’re going to preach this way to the general public and then demand a vote. You’re effectively trying to dictate policy.

Today as we celebrate in the resurrection the triumph of life over death I urge you to ensure that life continues to triumph over these deathly proposals. I know that many of you have already made your views known to your members of Parliament. I ask you to continue to do that.

No! Do some sodding research, and then you can make your views heard. Has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason there hasn’t been a vote is that it would be a waste of time? Personally, I think the idea of an elected government (rather than simply having a referendum on everything) is so that we can have a number of trusted people, with expert advisers, making informed decisions instead of an angry, illiterate mob making lowest-common-denominator, religiously motivated, knee-jerk, tabloid, reactionary arbitration on everything from science to the economy. Guess what? It turns out the world is actually quite complicated, and you can’t govern justly by applying a bunch of rules from a book or “what [you] reckon is common sense”! Common sense doesn’t apply to complex situations. If it did, there would be no universities.