November 18, 2004
by Wesley J. Smith
 
Dear Concerned Citizen,
 

tothesource: Pastors and Christian leaders comprise a large percentage of our readership.  Why should they read A Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World?

Smith: Other than the Jihad, there is no more important or consequential issue than human cloning and its consequences, which along with stem cell research, and the very real threat of genetic engineering, are the primary topics of the book.

We are entering an era in which human life can be literally altered at the molecular level. These matters are often described as science issues. They are not. They are the most profound ethical and moral issues. But in order to make reasoned decisions about them—and for pastors, to help counsel their parishioners—the underlying science must be understood. This is not difficult, once the scientific jargon is translated into “real people’s language,” which was my first task in writing Consumer’s Guide.

Secondly, and more crucially, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, genetic engineering, the drive among the so-called “transhumanist movement” to create a “post human” future via manufacture and the construction of “designer babies,” call into question whether society will continue to believe that human life has ultimate and immeasurable intrinsic value simply and merely because it is human. If society decides that it does, as I assert it must if we are to remain a moral society, then we can make great scientific advances and improve medical care for people without sacrificing the sanctity/equality of life ethic that is the foundation of Christian morality and the pillar of Western ethical thought. For example, adult stem cell research is advancing at a breathtaking pace offering great hope to ill and disabled people.

But if we say that being human is irrelevant to moral worth--as most propagandists for unfettered biotechnology now do—then we are in danger of reducing some human lives into mere commodities and exploitable things. Think about it: Therapeutic cloning would legalize the creation of new human lives via “somatic cell nuclear transfer” cloning (the same procedure used to make Dolly the sheep), and require it to be destroyed and used as if human life were no more meaningful than a soy bean crop.

This is not only unjust to nascent human life, but what does it do to the general mindset? If some human lives can be treated as mere things, why can’t others? And indeed, we see great advocacy in bioethics to use profoundly cognitively disabled people such as Terri Schiavo as so many organ farms.

So you see, very much is at stake. And since pastors are the moral leaders of their communities, it is essential that they understand that these topics, their consequences, and then engage their churches and communities to promote a culture that celebrates science, but which also maintains proper moral parameters around its endeavors.

tothesource: In California and New Jersey there have been some disturbing developments concerning the sanctity of human life.  Can you explain these and let us know why they are so important.

Smith: Advocacy by Big Biotech and its supporters in these states demonstrate just how radical the human cloning agenda really is. A law was enacted this year that may be the most radical ever passed. It:

  • Legalized somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning in humans
  • Did not outlaw implantation in a woman’s womb. That which is not illegal, is by definition, legal. This means that cloned embryos can be legally implanted and gestated.
  • Allows gestation of cloned babies through and up until the very moment prior to birth. Indeed, a woman impregnated with a cloned embryo would only be a criminal if she allowed the child to be born.

This means that we have established a category of human life that must, not can, but must, be killed. That’s a first in human history, as far as I know.

Why would such a law be passed? A cloning experiment with cows may tell us the tale. A few years ago Advanced Cell Technology made a cloned cow embryo. It was implanted in the womb of a cow and gestated to the early fetal stage. It was then aborted, and its primordial kidneys skin-grafted onto the cow whose DNA was used to make the clone. This was touted in the media as a great experimental success demonstrating that therapeutic cloning could work. If the same were done in New Jersey today with human life, it would be perfectly legal.

Meanwhile, California voters just passed Proposition 71. Proposition 71 requires California to borrow $6 billion (including interest) to pay biotech companies corporate welfare to learn how to clone human life. Indeed, it creates a state constitutional right to engage in human cloning and embryonic stem cell research!  

tothesource: You have famously said that the hype over embryonic stem cell research has been cruel.  How so?

Smith: The hype that all-but-promised cures to come from these technologies has just been over the top. Here’s just one example. When former President Ronald Reagan died, Big Biotech’s boosters rushed out to bemoan the supposed fact that he could have been helped by embryonic stem cell therapies. But of all diseases that might be treated with adult and/or embryonic stem cells, Alzheimer’s disease is among the last because it is a whole organ affliction. Indeed, in one of the few examples of accurate reportage in this area by the mainstream media, the Washington Post asked scientists why they were not aggressively correcting the record so that people would know that stem cells were not a likely therapy for Alzheimer’s. (“Stem Cells an Unlikely Therapy for Alzheimer’s,” June 10, 2004.)

It turned out that many scientists were happy to allow Alzheimer’s victims and their families to believe a lie in order to win the political debate. Demonstrating the callous cruelty of this tactic, one stem cell researcher was quoted as saying, “People need a fairy tale. Maybe that’s unfair, but they need a story line that’s relatively simple to understand.” If allowing the families of very ill people to believe that cures are around the corner and that President Bush is responsible for inhibiting their development isn’t cruel, I don’t know what is.

tothesource: Given the drama of the last few months regarding bioethics and their impact on the election and the national debate, do pastors need to be as informed on these issues as possible to remain relevant to the common discourse?

Smith: Pastors, as leaders of their communities, need to understand that the debate over biotechnology is about far more than stem cells. Science and biotech is fast becoming a quasi-religion, known as “scientism,” in which science is seen not as a way to learn about the world but as the source of humankind’s materialistic salvation. There is even eschatology of a future human immortality created through applied cloning and genetic engineering. Anyone who thinks I exaggerate should do a Google search of the term “transhumanism.”

More worrying, the science establishment and many in bioethics now argue forcefully that only scientists can tell us what is moral in science, indeed, that the lay public has no business telling scientists what they can and cannot do. There is even a claim that there is a right to be found in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to engage in human cloning and other scientific research. This is very dangerous given that the prevailing view in science and bioethics rejects the sanctity/equality of life ethic.

If this advocacy succeeds, we may face a situation in which science will cease to serve society but come to dominate it. Frankly, if we aren’t careful, we could find ourselves in a science-ocracy in which religion is belittled and the culture is dominated by the amoral views of philosophical scientism.

Responses to: Look Who Is Dogmatic Now

I was interested in the glaring bias that showed up in the National Geographic article. It blamed the number of adults who believe in creation on fundamentalists who interfere with the teaching of evolution. I don’t think I’ve met any Christians who wanted to interfere in the teaching of evolution. Most Christians I know simply want the theory of Intelligent Design put side by side as an alternative model. It is a significant part of the scientific community that blocks presentation of an alternative model. Why such resistance? It seems the resistance is not scientific as much as philosophical. Intelligent Design implies an Intelligent Designer, a Creator. That’s the rub. - R. L.

Aye, and it seems to rub some people the wrong way—for reasons other than scientific.
-- Benjamin Wiker

Would you people please check your scriptures and see that what God requires of you is not to waste time, effort, and resources arguing about things that are irrelevant to the Biblical call to love God and neighbor. I am as educated and informed about scripture as any of you, and nowhere in scripture do I hear God calling me to argue with scientists about scientific endeavors. If you spent as much time and effort doing what God does call you to do, you'd touch a lot of lives with the truth of the Gospel (love God, love neighbor) instead of confusing people and involving them in non-productive side-show silliness that actually serves to keep people distracted from the real issues of faith and life that confront us today. Please don't email me any further. I've already wasted too much time bothering with your silliness. - R. L. H.

There is a very good reason to clear up questions concerning Darwinism—very good moral reasons, the kind that directly affect how we love. As I have argued at length in Moral Darwinism, the moral implications of Darwinism imply that we ought to embrace eugenics. Darwin himself was a eugenicist, as is amply clear from his Descent of Man, published just over a decade after the more famous Origin of Species. Many, many Darwinists after Darwin argued that it was an act of love to remove the unfit from the human populace—indeed, science demanded it. So whose definition of love is correct?
 -- Benjamin Wiker

Dr. Benjamin Wiker is not helping us to become informed about the situation. He critiques the National Geographic article as "fluff and flash" and an "unambiguous public relations presentation of evolution" but then he focuses his attention on Darwin, Darwin's theory, and whether Darwin is right or wrong. Anyone who takes a cursory look at the history of science will see that there is a difference between biological evolutionism and Darwinism. When serious scientists question "Darwinism," they are not questioning that biological evolution has occurred. There is enough evidence that microevolution and macroevolution has occurred in nature and continues to occur. When serious scientists question "Darwinism" they are questioning whether Darwin's theory of natural selection is sufficient for explaining how biological evolution has occurred. - J. M.

On the contrary, there is not sufficient evidence that macroevolution has occurred, anymore than there is sufficient evidence that the first living cell arose from some fortuitous pre-biotic chemical soup. There is a difference between “biological evolutionism and Darwinism,” but the National Geographic article was explicitly focusing on the truth of Darwin’s theory. Thus, I agree—serious scientists do question whether Darwin’s theory of natural selection is sufficient, and that is precisely why the National Geographic article should have given readers a full dose of the actual ambiguity rather than a public relations hurrah for Darwin.
--Benjamin Wiker

(Evolution means nothing more than change) - R. P.

Often those who insist that evolution can't possibly be right talk about Creationism, based of course, on Judeo-Christian scripture, as the alternative. Perhaps they're not aware that a whole spectrum of creation explanations exist in the vast array of non-Judeo-Christian religions, past and present. If their Creationism is taught in schools, as an alternative to evolution, then I think that the ancient Egyptian, Norse, Chinese, Incan, Polynesian, and Greek/Roman explanations (to name a few) deserve at least equal time, inasmuch as there is just as much data supporting those stories as the Judeo-Christian one. Those who deny the truth of evolution basically are saying that mere matter couldn't possibly give rise to life, intelligence, and by extension, themselves (isn't human ego marvelous?). The problem with their objection is this...there is nothing "mere" about matter. And if you don't like it, complain to God about it. He's the one who set it up that way. - H. M.

I agree, at least in part. We should keep these two questions separate: (1) Is Darwinism or even neo-Darwinism an adequate scientific theory, and (2) Is the Judeo-Christian creation account, or some other religious account, supported by science. My article and the National Geographic article both focused only on the first question. As for mere matter giving rise to life, merely materialistic origins research has fallen on hard times. The latest scientific evidence does not support a merely material production of the first living cells (and so I am not complaining to God).
--Benjamin Wiker

I fail to see the validity of the INtelligent Design approach to origins. I think it argues exactly opposite to what its proponents try to defend. If God is such an intelligent designer, why all the "goofs" - 99.99% of all species that have appeared have disappeared. How about cancer? How about disfigurement? Placing God as the origin of something can, in addition, fall on its face when science later proves a natural explanation of that very thing. I like God as the underlying grounding support of novel forms of order instead, rather than a fixed designer (cf. Haught, "Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution.") Why do multiple sciences independently from their discoveries point to evolution if evolution is not true? No, I disagree with you. I believe evolution is a valid theory ("theory" is not a "guess"in science!!), and is indeed the process by which God has created. I find no contradiction with Scripture - unless someone opts for a literalistic reading of Scripture. In which case his approach to Scripture is deficient, not the scientific evidence he refutes. signed, a strong-faithed believing and faithfully practicing follower of Jesus Christ... and, I might add, faithful and loving reading of Scripture. - E. D.

You are certainly correct that a theist does not have to believe that God created every single species from scratch, and that God can act to support the production of new species through natural causes, including through evolution (properly understood). But you should note that, on your own terms, the problem of evil does not go away, it is only reformulated: Why did God use evolution as a means of creating new life forms in such a way that there are “goofs” and “99% of the species…have disappeared”?
--Benjamin Wiker

The issue is not (or should not be) whether Darwin is right or wrong but whether Darwin's theory of evolution is BOTH necessary and sufficient. Necessary it rightly is, even on a microscale, as it is based on sound observational science. However, the problem arises when we try to extrapolate it to the earliest events in the succession of life: any scientist will admit that the further away from the data base a process is extrapolated, the greater the possible error; in this case, the greater the uncertainty. The question comes down to the issue of cause and effect: whether one assumes a gdanken experiment (electricity in the warm puddle) or a Big Bang or divine intervention as the first act of life, each of these events must be, by scientific definition, uncaused since they are claimed to be the first in the succession. And if, so, the actual singularity would be the ONLY uncaused event in the modern theory of cause and effect which is dominant in scientific investigation. Would it not rather be better to accept Hume's position that there is no cause and effect, only, in matters of human conduct, experience, existence and choice? Then evolution is established as an ongoing process, part of the great interdependent web of which we are a part, and the issue of first causes becomes moot, one for discussion during long winter nights. One of the key features in modern education is an unwillingness to teach this principle: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." If this were taught, one could start with Darwin's account of evolution, examine the data concerning the events to which it is applied and regard all other related issues as indeterminant, neither favoring nor disfavoring evolutionary theory on one hand or creation theory on the other. Or to put it more simply, there is no need for an argument between the proponents of evolution and creation science, as neither are presently (or theoretically) provable to be both a necessary AND sufficient account of how we come to find ourselves here. The energies devoted to this attractive question of credo, could be better applied to the harder, uglier question of praxis: How can we each live a good enough life?- One which can draw gracefully to a close with no regrets or remorse for acts done or not done. - J. B.

I agree that evolutionists should provide evidence, rather than mere extrapolation, especially in regard to macroevolution and the origin of life, and that we ought to distinguish in all things, between necessary and sufficient conditions. But I do not see that we are forced to accept Hume’s notion that there is somehow no actual cause and effect, and I doubt Mr. Hume would either if he could be brought back to life and put in a sufficiently bracing position, such as having to hold a lit stick of dynamite. As the fuse got shorter, I’m sure he would become an ever more ardent believer in cause and effect.
--Benjamin Wiker

While I do work for a church and consider myself to be a Christian, I cannot say that I agree with the argument put forth in this article. It seems as though the author was attacking Darwinian evolution, or the theory that evolution occurred very slowly over long periods of time, while completely ignoring the more recently theorized versions of evolution which involve a more realistic answer to the difficult questions of how evolution might be conceivable. These more modern versions hold that evolution, at least not macroevolution, did not take place gradually but was a result of a mutation in one member of the species which caused that member to be superior in one way or another. An example of this would be that rabbits used to have very small ears, but one rabbit was born with larger ears and was better able to hear approaching prey, thus making that rabbit and any rabbit that it past that gene down to more likely to survive than a rabbit without large ears. It seems to me that this article argued the easy points while ignoring the more difficult issues. That being said, I don’t see why Christians have such a problem with evolution. To me, it is very similar to the question of, “why does it rain?” There are two answers: one, God made it rain; the other, moisture collected in the form of water vapor in clouds until the pressure changed and the water could no longer stay in the form of vapor and turned into liquid and fell from the sky. Both answers are correct, why can’t evolution and creation work in the same way? The only difference is that it would require fundamentalists to admit that the creation story in their respective sacred texts had to be taken on a more figurative level, at least in respects to their timeline. - T. Q.

Mutations are almost invariably harmful, rather than helpful, and the one that you note would probably not be a mutation but would rely on existing gene variations in among the population. It is only by very wishful extrapolation that Darwinists have thought it possible to rely on a string of such lucky accidents to build entirely new body plans. What extraordinary explosion of beneficent mutations could have caused the Cambrian explosion? I agree that the question of the truth about the various claims of evolution should be similar to the question of “why does it rain?” That would keep them much more honest about supplying supportive data.
--Benjamin Wiker

I may not always agree with your perspectives, but I absolutely love the fact that you are trying to integrate theology and the real world. Keep up the good work! - R. M.

My contention has been this: even if we do accept the THRORY of evolution, how can you accept a progression from simple to advanced live forms. One would assume that it would have gone the opposite way, from simple to more simple. Thanks for your article. - R. L.

I was notably impressed by Dr. Benjamin Wiker's evaluation of the National Geographic article on Darwinism's current credibility among academia and the scientific community. As an avid proponent of intelligent design (God being the Intelligent Designer), I am encouraged that there still exists learned men and women of intellect and insight, like Wiker, Saunders, Goodwin, etc. who recognize that truth is not relative to its evidence, but rather, evidence is relative to its truth. Proponents of Darwinism presuppose a specific truth and strive to validate this presumption by an application of unsubstantiated and highly suspect evidence to the exclusion of any other possibilities. That, I am afraid, exhibits the epitome of dogmatic bigotry and intellectual arrogance. But, then again what do I know............ I'm one of those narrow-minded, Bible-thumping fundamentalists that everyone keeps talking about. - D. P.

I am just so sad about this subject. How did we ever come up with all of this embyro's in the first place? I have a daughter ( 5 yrs.) diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy and if they said they could cure her with this research I still would be against it. Kill a life to save a life. NO thank you, I will wait upon the Lord. - J. M.

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We live complex lives. We strive to sort out priorities that sometimes conflict or seem incompatible. A moral framework is needed to help us understand the reality around us. Our Judeo-Christian heritage provides a framework to help us comprehend the choices we make and the conflicts that arise over them. It is not only the main source of our spiritual values, but also many of the secular values we depend on.

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  Wesley J. Smith's
Smith is an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. His book Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder (1997), a broad-based criticism of the assisted suicide/euthanasia movement was published in 1997. His book Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America, a warning about the dangers of the modern bioethics movement, was named One of the Ten Outstanding Books of the Year and Best Health Book of the Year for 2001 (Independent Publisher Book Awards). Smith is an international lecturer and public speaker, appearing frequently at political, university, medical, legal, disability rights, bioethics, and community gatherings across the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia.
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