Genesis, Biotechnology

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Genesis, Biotechnology The Future of Us

• How will the Church respond to the brave new
  world of biotech?

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The Instructional Team

• Wayne Bowman, PhD Physics, Duke
• John Dishman, PhD Physics, Carnegie Mellon
• Heather Zeiger, MS Chemistry, UTD
• Staff member, Probe Ministries
• Focus Biotechnology

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What is This?
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Tower of Babel.
1563. Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna, Austria
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Genesis 11
 1Now the whole earth had one language and the
same words. 2And as people migrated from the
east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar
and settled there. 3And they said to one another,
"Come, let us make bricks, and burn them
thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and
bitumen for mortar. 4Then they said, "Come, let
us build ourselves a city and a tower with its
top in the heavens, and let us make a name for
ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of
the whole earth."
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Genesis 11
5And the LORD came down to see the city and the
tower, which the children of man had built. 6And
the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and
they have all one language, and this is only the
beginning of what they will do. And nothing that
they propose to do will now be impossible for
them. 7Come, let us go down and there confuse
their language, so that they may not understand
one another's speech." 8So the LORD dispersed
them from there over the face of all the earth,
and they left off building the city. 9Therefore
its name was called Babel, because there the LORD
confuseda the language of all the earth. And
from there the LORD dispersed them over the face
of all the earth.
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Issues in Genesis 11

• The earth had one language
• This enabled the people to do potentially great
  things through
• Teamwork
• Sharing of Data
• Sharing Discoveries
• New technologies had been discovered
• Bitumen bricks

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Issues in Genesis 11

• The LORDs diagnosis
• Nothing that they propose to do will now be
  impossible for them.
• Why does He scatter them give them a babel of
  languages?
• Recall Noah at the flood every inclination of
  the thoughts of mans heart was only evil all the
  time.

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Comparison with Today

• Universal Languages Examples
• Microsoft Windows XP estimated to be 500 Million
  installations
• The English Language estimated to be 500 Million
  1st or 2nd language speakers (second only to
  Chinese)
• The Genetic Code 3 Billion bits of information
  in every cell of every person

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Comparisons to Today

• New Technologies the last 100 years
• Automobiles
• Airplanes / Space Travel
• Electrification
• Nuclear fission / fusion / bombs / power
• Silicon Integrated Circuits
• Optical Transmission
• Biotechnology stem cells, cloning, etc.

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Is man once again on the verge of having nothing
he proposes to do be impossible for him?

• Answering this question is a key motivator for
  this class

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C. Ben Mitchell, PhD

• Associate professor of Bioethics and Contemporary
  Culture at Trinity International University
• Director of The Center for Bioethics and Human
  Dignity
• Adjunct professor in the Bioethics Certificate
  program at Covenant Theological Seminary
• Editor of the journal Ethics and Medicine

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Dr. Mitchells Article in Covenant Magazine
Fall 2006

• Why the Biotech Future Needs the Church
• Biotech Expansion, Moral Vacuity the Role
  of the Church
• The conclusions of this article were a major
  motivator for proposing this course to be taught
  this quarter

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Mitchell Article Online Access

• www.covenantseminary.edu/resource/CovMag_06Q.pdf

• Go to link above to access this
• article
• Article begins on page 18 of
• the pdf file

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A Review of Mitchells Article

• The Cover a melange of front covers of various
  magazines with lead articles on the coming
  revolution of life
• Note the Robo-Sapien from Wired Mag.

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(No Transcript)
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Side Excursion Bill Joy Article

• One of Sun Microsystems founders
• Co-architect of Unix BSD and Java software
  operating systems
• Featured in cover article of Fortune Magazine as
  Edison of the Internet

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Why the future doesn't need us.Wired. April,
2000

• Our most powerful 21st-century technologies -
  robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are
  threatening to make humans an endangered
  species.
• Intelligent robots will replace humanity, at the
  very least in intellectual and social dominance,
  in the relatively near future.
• Alarmed by what he felt was the fact that
  although many knowledgeable people considered
  these futures possible or probable, that very few
  of them shared as serious a concern for the
  dangers as he seemed to.

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Hans Moravec Carnegie Mellon U.

• Adjunct prof. CMU
• Long time member of Robotics Institute at CMU
• Founder of SEEGRID a firm that specializes in
  practical robotics vision guiding material
  handling robots
• Author of several books on robotics the future
  of man

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Movarvecs Curve
MIPS Million Instructions per Second
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Movarvecs Conclusions

• Robots with the computational power / thinking
  ability of humans will be available at affordable
  costs by 2030-2050
• Robotic industries would compete vigorously among
  themselves for matter, energy, and space,
  incidentally driving their price beyond human
  reach. Unable to afford the necessities of life,
  biological humans would be squeezed out of
  existence. (quoted by Mitchell)

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Movarvecs Conclusions - 2

• Humans can be enhanced by both biological and
  hard robotic technologies
• Mind Children his 1988 book speculated on ways
  to preserve a person while replacing every part
  of body and brain with superior artificial
  substitutes.
• A biological human...could grow into something
  seriously dangerous once transformed into an
  unbounded superintelligent robot.

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Extrapolations

• The first one or few human-transformed
  superintelligent robots would likely become
  dominant over human society
• Moravec points out when the isthmus connecting
  North and South America rose, it took only a few
  thousand years for the northern placental
  species, with slightly more effective metabolisms
  and reproductive nervous systems, to displace and
  eliminate almost all the southern marsupials.
• Would the same thing happen with superintelligent
  genetically-enhanced homanoid-robot hybrids
  replacing.us?

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Is this your great grandchild??
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Ray Kurzweil

• Inventor in fields of optical character
  recognition (OCR), music synthesizers,
  print-to-sound readers for the blind, CCD
  scanning
• Received national medal of technology from
  President Clinton along with numerous other
  awards
• Wrote The Age of Spiritual Machines The
  Singularity is Near

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Kurzweils Singularity
"An analysis of the history of technology shows
that technological change is exponential,
contrary to the common-sense 'intuitive linear'
view. So we won't experience 100 years of
progress in the 21st centuryit will be more like
20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). .
Within a few decades, machine intelligence will
surpass human intelligence, leading to the
Singularitytechnological change so rapid and
profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of
human history. The implications include the
merger of biological and nonbiological
intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and
ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand
outward in the universe at the speed of light."
Quote from essay The Law of Accelerating Returns
Kurzweil predicts the singularity will occur in
2045
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Biotechnology

• Against this background we want to focus
  primarily on biological systems and their
  possible role in reaching the so-called
  singularity
• The definition of biotechnology varies depending
  on the source

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Biotechnology The UN Definition

• Biotechnology means any technological
  application that uses biological systems, living
  organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or
  modify products or processes for specific use.
• Thus, animal or plant breedingcarried on for
  centuries, would be a part of biotechnology

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Biotechnology Common US Usage

• Biotechnology is the commercial use of processes
  which combine DNA from different biological
  sources, and use this recombinant DNA by
  inserting it in an organism to modify it
• For example, a red gene from a rose might be
  inserted into a guinea pig to create a pink pet

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So what is DNA, you ask.
We will answer this in future sessions of this
class Suffice it to say for now that is the
molecule, found in every cell of our bodies,
which contains the genetic code that describes
how our bodies are constructed, how they
function, and even provides programming for our
development from a single cell to mature adults
who eventually become senior citizens!
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Biotechnology Mitchells Definition
We must acknowledge that biotechnology is a
market-driven body of businesses whose primary
purpose is to make profits. As Colin Ratledge
says, Biotechnology is not then a science it is
a means of applying science for the benefit of
man and society. In practice, this means that
biotechnology is used to make moneyor in certain
instances to save money.
Rather than knowledge for knowledges sake, the
biotech industry pursues knowledge for moneys
sake.
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Mitchells Conclusion
To add to the benefits and burdens of biotech
entrepreneurialism, biotechnology is becoming
increasingly naturalistic and materialist,
threatening to recast our understanding of what
it means to be humanwhat it means to be one of
us.
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What does it mean to be human?
But being human is actually all about having a
mother. That is to say, according to the Biblical
witness, being human means being the offspring of
human parents. Furthermore, beings that are human
are not so because they possess or lack certain
functional capacities such as reason, volition,
and self awareness. Any given functional capacity
can be gained or lost, but humanness is
neitherit either is, or it is not.
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What do the following have in common in the last
200 years?

• Black Slaves in America in the 1800s
• Jews in Germany in the 1930s
• Fetuses in America Today

Answer Not one of us. Not fully human.
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Mitchells Point

• Scripture says that humansunlike any other
  living beingsare created in Gods image.
• To define humanness in terms of functional
  categories or activities invites those in power
  to say some lives are not worth living
• Further, it says that some biological beings with
  human mothers are not to be treated as such,
  whereas non-biological beings with adequate
  computational power are to be treated as if they
  had the rights that are associated with being
  human

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Where this can lead

• Some humans are less than persons
• and do not deserve protection as such
• While some non-humans are persons and deserve
  protection before humans
• Thus, Moravecs assertion that some day robots
  will rule the world may be correct, and Bill
  Joys fear of this may be right!

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One day it may be illegal to unplug a computer
and so end its life at the same time that it is
an ethical duty to unplug a human being whose
biology has ceased to function efficiently.
C. Ben Mitchell Why the Biotech Future Needs the
Church
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Prophet, Priest King

• Against this backdrop of possible utopia or
  extinction for the human race, the Church needs
  to be reminded of the 3-fold office of Christ as
  prophet, priest king.
• Likewise, every believer is a prophet, priest
  king
• As prophets, we are forth-tellers and
  fore-tellers of the truth found in Scripture

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As Forth-Tellers

• All human life is created in the image of its
  Creator the imago Dei
• It is the duty of the Church to proclaim to the
  culture the sanctity of life
• Human beingsunborn, born, disabled, healthy,
  unhealthy, or agedpossess sacred value because
  they are made by God in His own image.

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As Fore-Tellers

• Believers can predict accurately that tragic
  results will follow when any precept, principle,
  or virtue revealed in Scripture is violated.
• Example violation of marital bond brings about
  the dissolution of the family
• Based on its knowledge of the depravity of man
  the Church can predict the possible evil that
  will be done to men by other men if biotechnology
  is allowed to develop without restrictions
• Example Nazi experiments on Jewish holocaust
  victims

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What should the Church do?

• Mitchell gives 6 recommendations see his article
  online for details
• This class is in response to one of these
• Church educators must rethink the
  educational ministry of their churches and give
  increased attention to bioethical and
  biotechnological issues.

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Where were headed in this course
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Where were headed in this course
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Where were headed in this course