Pre-Writing Activity: Science and Technology Dialogue Sessions

Concept You and your team are participating in a Science and Technology Dialogue Session. Depending on your role assignment, your team will either represent the calm, authoritative voice of the Government, or the angsty, antagonistic voice of the protestors. Government and dissenters will face off in this dialogue session. Both sides are expected to put forth persuasive arguments pertaining to their topic, bearing in mind a good mix of Logos, Pathos and Ethos. Scenario The Government, in the name of progress and advancement, has controversially decided to remove strict regulations on Genetic Engineering, Robotics, Nanotechnology, and Carbon Emissions. Once banned, scientists are now allowed to directly apply Genetic Engineering research and experiments on human beings. Restrictions on Robotics and the mass production of robots in all industries have been lifted, as is the case for Nanotechnology. Industries no longer need to cap their carbon emissions clean and green is a thing of the past. The corporate sector is celebrating with profit opportunities in abundance. Jobs are sure to be created, and the countrys GDP is set to soar. On the other hand, traditionalists and realists are up in arms, staging protests and strikes. This discussion forum and referendum will set things straight Task and Format Given the above scenario and based on your teams role assignment, your team is expected to present and market your case at the dialogue session. The government team will speak on the respective assigned topic first for 10 mins, followed by the team of dissenters for another 10 mins. This will then be followed by a 5 min cross-examination round. Following each dialogue session, a public referendum involving the audience will be held, and the votes received
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will determine the outcome of each dialogue session. Articles will be handed out to you to guide you, but you are also expected to tap on your existing notes and as well as conduct further research. Your presentation should be marketed with the following deliverables: - Posters (at least one per government team) and Placards (at least one per team of dissenters) that represent your teams key slogans and thrusts - Flyers (at least 5 to be distributed to classmates) that represent your teams key ideas - A 10 minute presentation with the help of visual aids (e.g. Powerpoint) - Preparatory material for the cross-examination round Topics: 1. Genetic Engineering will advance our country 2. Robotics will advance our country 3. Nanotechnology will advance our country 4. Global Warming will not affect our country

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Two Articles for Topic 1:

Article A: Triumph or Tragedy? The Moral Meaning of Genetic Technology Reprinted, with permission, from "The Moral Meaning of Genetic Engineering," by Leon R. Kass, Commentary, September 1999; all rights reserved. Leon R. Kass is Addie Clark Harding professor at the University of Chicago. Trained in medicine and biochemistry, he writes frequently about bioethical issues such as human genetic engineering and physician-assisted suicide. With James Q. Wilson, he is coauthor of The Ethics of Human Cloning. The public is right to doubt the ethics of applying gene-altering technology to humans. Unlike conventional medicine, this technology could affect not only existing individuals but others not yet born or even conceived. Knowledge of one's own genetic weaknesses may threaten human free will, and being able to change the genes of one's offspring may endanger human dignity by making children into manufactured commodities. Gene manipulation is likely to move from therapy (curing diseases) to enhancement, or adding characteristics that some members of society deem desirable. In doing so, it may alter the nature of the human species. It is thus a threat to humanity. When, less than a half-century ago, James D. Watson and Francis Crick first revealed to the world the structure of DNA, no one imagined how rapidly genetic technology would develop. Within a few years, we shall see the completion of the Human Genome Project, disclosing the DNA sequences of all 100,000 human genes. [The project was completed in June 2000.] And even without complete genomic knowledge, biotech business is booming: according to a recent report by the research director for Smith Kline Beecham [a drug company], enough sequencing data are already available to keep his researchers busy for the next twenty years, developing early-detection screening techniques, rationally designed vaccines, genetically-engineered changes in malignant tumors leading to enhanced immune response, and, ultimately, precise gene therapy for specific diseases. In short, the age of genetic technology has arrived. This technology comes into existence as part of the large humanitarian project to cure disease, prolong life, and alleviate suffering. As such, it occupies the moral high ground of compassionate healing. Who would not welcome surgery to correct the genetic defects that lead to sickle-cell anemia, Huntington's disease, and breast cancer, or to protect against the immune deficiency caused by the AIDS virus? And yet genetic technology has also aroused considerable public concern. Even people duly impressed by the astonishing achievements of the last decades are nonetheless ambivalent about these new developments. For they sense that genetic technology, while in some respects continuous with the traditional medical project of compassionate healing, also represents something radically new and disquieting. For their own part, enthusiasts of this technology are often impatient with such disquiet, which they tend to attribute to scientific ignorance or else to outmoded moral and religious notions. In my own view, the scientists' attempt to cast the debate as a battle of beneficent and knowledgeable cleverness versus ignorant and superstitious anxiety should be resisted. For the public is right to be ambivalent about genetic technology, and no amount of instruction in molecular biology and genetics should allay itsourlegitimate human concerns. In what follows, I mean to articulate some of those concerns, bearing in mind that genetic technology cannot be treated in isolation but must be seen in connection with other advances in reproductive and developmental biology, in neurobiology, and in the genetics of behaviorindeed, with all the techniques now and soon to be marshaled to intervene ever more directly and precisely into the bodies and minds of human beings. I shall proceed by raising a series of questions. What is different about genetic technology? At first glance, not much. Isolating a disease-inducing aberrant gene looks fairly continuous with isolating a disease-inducing intracellular virus; supplying diabetics with normal genes for producing insulin has the same medical goal as supplying them with insulin for injection.

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Nevertheless, despite these obvious similarities, genetic technology is also decisively different. When fully developed, it will wield two powers not shared by ordinary medical practice. Medicine treats only existing individuals, and it treats them only remedially, seeking to correct deviations from a more or less stable norm of health. Genetic engineering, by contrast, will, first of all, deliberately make changes that are transmissible into succeeding generations and may even alter in advance specific future individuals through direct "germ-line" or embryo interventions. Secondly, genetic engineering may be able, through so-called genetic enhancement, to create new human capacities and hence new norms of health and fitness. For the present, it is true, genetic technology is hailed primarily for its ability better to diagnose and treat disease in existing individuals. Confined to such practices, it would raise few questions (beyond the usual ones of safety and efficacy). Even intrauterine gene therapy for existing fetuses with diagnosable genetic disease could be seen as an extension of the growing field of fetal medicine. But there is no reason to believe that the use of gene-altering powers can be so confined, either in logic or in practice. For one thing "germ-line" gene therapy and manipulation, affecting not merely the unborn but also the unconceived, is surely in our future. The practice has numerous justifications, beginning with the desire to reverse the unintended dysgenic effects of modern medical success. Thanks to medicine, for example, individuals who would have died from diabetes now live long enough to transmit their disease-producing genes. Why, it has been argued, should we not reverse these unfortunate changes by deliberate intervention? More generally, why should we not effect precise genetic alteration in disease-carrying sperm or eggs or early embryos, in order to prevent in advance the emergence of disease that otherwise will later require expensive and burdensome treatment? Why should not parents eager to avoid either the birth of afflicted children or the trauma of eugenic abortion be able to avail themselves of such alteration? In sum, before we have had more than trivial experience with gene therapy for existing individuals none of it thus far successfulsober people have called for overturning the current (self-imposed) taboo on germ-line modification. The line between these two practices cannot hold. Despite the naive hopes of many, neither will we be able to defend the boundary between therapy and genetic enhancement. Will we reject novel additions to the human genome that enable us to produce, internally, vitamins or amino acids we now must get in our diet? Will we oppose the insertion of engineered foreign (or even animal) genes fatal to bacteria and parasites or offering us to increased resistance to cancer? Will we decline to make alterations in the immune system that will increase its efficacy or make it impervious to HIV? When genetic profiling becomes able to disclose the genetic contributions to height or memory or intelligence, will we deny prospective parents the right to enhance the potential of their children? Finally, should we discoveras no doubt we willthe genetic switches that control our biological clock, will we opt to keep our hands off the rate of aging or our natural human lifespan? Not a chance. We thus face a paradox. On the one hand, genetic technology really is different. It can and will go to work directly and deliberately on our basic, heritable, life-shaping capacities, at their biological roots. It can take us beyond existing norms of health and healingperhaps even alter fundamental features of human nature. On the other hand, precisely because the goals it will serve, at least to begin with, will be continuous with those of modern high-interventionist medicine, we will find its promise familiar and irresistible. This paradox itself contributes to public disquiet: rightly perceiving a difference in genetic technology, we also sense that we are powerless to establish, on the basis of that difference, clear limits to its use. The genetic genie, first unbottled to treat disease, will go its own way, whether we like it or not. How much genetic self-knowledge is good for us? Quite apart from worries about genetic engineering, gaining genetic knowledge is itself a legitimate cause of anxiety, not least because of one of its most touted benefitsthe genetic profiling of individuals. The deepest problem connected with learning your own genetic sins and unhealthy predispositions is neither the threat to confidentiality and privacy nor the risk of discrimination in employment or

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insurance, important though these issues may be. It is, rather, the various hazards and deformations in living your life that will attach to knowing in advance your likely or possible medical future. To be sure, in some cases such foreknowledge will be welcome, if it can lead to easy measures to prevent or treat the impending disorder, and if the disorder in question does not powerfully affect self-image or self-command. But will and should we welcome knowledge that we carry a predisposition to Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, or some other personality or behavior disorder, or genes that will definitely produce at an unknown future time a serious but untreatable disease? Still harder will it be for most people to live easily or wisely with less certain informationsay, where multigenic traits are involved or where the predictions are purely statistical, with no clear implication for any particular "predisposed" individual. The recent case of a father who insisted that ovariectomy and mastectomy be performed on his ten-year-old daughter because she happened to carry the BRCA-1 gene for breast cancer shows dramatically the toxic effect of genetic knowledge. Less dramatic but more profound is the threat to human freedom and spontaneity, a subject explored 25 years ago by the philosopher Hans Jonas. In a discussion of human cloning, Jonas argued eloquently for a "right to ignorance." That there can be (and mostly is) too little knowledge has always been realized; that there can be too much of it stands suddenly before us in a blinding light. ... The ethical command here entering the enlarged stage of our powers is: never to violate the right to that ignorance which is a condition for the possibility of authentic action; or: to respect the right of each human life to find its own way and be a surprise to itself. [Emphasis in the original] To scientists convinced that their knowledge of predispositions can only lead to rational preventive medicine, Jonas's defense of ignorance will look like obscurantism. It is not. Although everyone remembers that Prometheus was the philanthropic god who gave to human beings fire and the arts, it is often forgotten that he also gave them the greater gift of "blind hopes," precisely because he knew that ignorance of one's own future fate was indispensable to aspiration and achievement. I suspect that many people, taking their bearings from life lived open-endedly rather than from preventive medicine practiced rationally, would prefer ignorance of the future to the scientific astrology of knowing their genetic profile. In a free society, that would be their right. Or would it? This leads us to the next question. What about freedom? Even people who might otherwise welcome the growth of genetic knowledge and technology are worried about the coming power of geneticists, genetic engineers, and, in particular, governmental authorities armed with genetic technology.1 Precisely because we have been taught by these very scientists that genes hold the secret of life, and that our genotype is our essence if not quite our destiny, we are made nervous by those whose expert knowledge and technique touch our very being. Even apart from any particular abuses or misuses of power, friends of human freedom have deep cause for concern. The English humanist C.S. Lewis put the matter sharply in The Abolition of Man (1965): In reality, ... if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have preordained how they are to use them.... Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car. Most genetic technologists will hardly recognize themselves in this portrait. Though they concede that abuses or misuses of power may occur, they see themselves not as predestinators but as facilitators, merely providing knowledge and technique that people can freely choose to use in making decisions about their health or reproductive choices. Genetic power, they will say, thus serves not to limit freedom but to increase it.

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But as we can see from already existing practices like genetic screening and prenatal diagnosis, this claim is at best self-deceptive, at worst disingenuous [insincere]. The choice to develop and practice genetic screening and the choices of which genes to target for testing have been made not by the public but by scientistsand not on liberty-enhancing but on eugenic grounds. In many cases, practitioners of prenatal diagnosis refuse to do fetal genetic screening in the absence of a prior commitment from the pregnant woman to abort any afflicted fetus. In other situations, pregnant women who still wish not to know prenatal facts must withstand strong medical pressures for testing. While a small portion of the population may be sufficiently educated to participate knowingly and freely in genetic decisions, most people are and will no doubt always be subject to the benevolent tyranny of expertise. Every expert knows how easy it is to get most people to choose one way rather than another simply by the way one raises the questions, describes the prognosis, and presents the options. The preferences of counselors will always overtly or subtly shape the choices of the counseled. In addition, economic pressures to contain health-care costs will almost certainly constrain free choice. Refusal to provide insurance coverage for this or that genetic disease may eventually work to compel genetic abortion or intervention. State-mandated screening already occurs for PKU (phenylketonuria) and other diseases, and full-blown genetic-screening programs loom large on the horizon. Once these arrive, there will likely be an upsurge of economic pressures to limit reproductive freedom. All this will be done, of course, in the name of the well-being of children. Already in 1971, the geneticist Bentley Glass, in his presidential address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, enunciated "the right of every child to be born with a sound physical and mental constitution, based on a sound genotype." Looking ahead to the reproductive and genetic technologies that are today rapidly arriving, Glass proclaimed: "No parents will in that future time have a right to burden society with a malformed or a mentally incompetent child." It remains to be seen to what extent such prophecies will be realized. But they surely provide sufficient and reasonable grounds for being concerned about restrictions on human freedom, even in the absence of overt coercion, and even in liberal polities like our own. What about human dignity? Here, rather than in the more talked-about fears about freedom, lie our deepest concerns. Genetic technology, the practices it will engender, and above all the scientific teachings about human life on which it rests are not, as many would have it, morally and humanly neutral. Regardless of how they are practiced and taught, they are pregnant with their own moral meaning, and will necessarily bring with them changes in our practices, our institutions, our norms, our beliefs, and our self-conception. It is, I submit, these challenges to our dignity and humanity that are at the bottom of our anxiety over genetic science and technology. Let me touch briefly on four aspects of this most serious matter. "Playing God."

This complaint is too facilely dismissed by scientists and nonbelievers. The concern has meaning, God or no God. By it is meant one or more of the following: man, or some men, are becoming creators of life, and indeed of individual living human beings (in-vitro fertilization, cloning); not only are they creating life, but they stand in judgment of each being's worthiness to live or die (genetic screening and abortion)not on moral grounds, as is said of God's judgment, but on somatic [bodily] and genetic ones; they also hold out the promise of salvation from our genetic sins and defects (gene therapy and genetic engineering). Never mind the exaggeration that lurks in this conceit of man playing God: even at his most powerful, after all, man is capable only of playing God. Never mind the implicit innuendo that nobody has given to others this creative and judgmental authority, or the implicit retort that there is theological warrant for acting as God's co-creator in overcoming the ills and suffering of the world. Consider only that if scientists are seen in this godlike role of creator, judge, and savior, the rest of us must stand before them as supplicating, tainted creatures. That is worry enough.

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Not long ago, at my own university, a physician making rounds with medical students stood over the bed of an intelligent, otherwise normal ten-year-old boy with spina bifida. "Were he to have been conceived today," the physician casually informed his entourage, "he would have been aborted." Determining who shall live and who shall dieon the basis of genetic meritis a godlike power already wielded by genetic medicine. This power will only grow. Manufacture and commodification.

But, one might reply, genetic technology also holds out the promise of a cure for these lifecrippling and life-forfeiting disorders. Very well. But in order truly to practice their salvific power, genetic technologists will have to increase greatly their manipulations and interventions, well beyond merely screening and weeding out. True, in some cases genetic testing and riskmanagement to prevent disease may actually reduce the need for high-tech interventions aimed at cure. But in many other cases, ever greater genetic scrutiny will lead necessarily to ever more extensive manipulation. And, to produce Bentley Glass's healthy and well-endowed babies, let alone babies with the benefits of genetic enhancement, a new scientific obstetrics will be necessary, one that will come very close to turning human procreation into manufacture. This process has already crudely begun with in-vitro fertilization. It will soon take giant steps forward with the ability to screen in-vitro embryos before implantation; with cloning; and, eventually, with precise genetic engineering. The road we are traveling leads all the way to the world of designer babiesreached not by dictatorial fiat but by the march of benevolent humanitarianism, and cheered on by an ambivalent citizenry that also dreads becoming simply the last of man's manmade things. Make no mistake: the price to be paid for producing optimum or even only genetically sound babies will be the transfer of procreation from the home to the laboratory. Increasing control over the product can only be purchased by the increasing depersonalization of the entire process and its coincident transformation into manufacture. Such an arrangement will be profoundly dehumanizing, no matter how genetically good or healthy the resultant children. And let us not forget the powerful economic interests that will surely operate in this area; with their advent, the commodification of nascent human life will be unstoppable. Standards, norms, and goals

According to Genesis, God, in His creating, looked at His creatures and saw that they were good: intact, complete, well-working wholes, true to the spoken idea that guided their creation. What standards will guide the genetic engineers? For the time being, one might answer, the norm of health. But even before the genetic enhancers join the party, the standard of health is being deconstructed. Are you healthy if, although you show no symptoms, you carry genes that will definitely produce Huntington's disease, or that predispose you to diabetes, breast cancer, or coronary artery disease? What if you carry, say, 40 percent of the genetic markers thought to be linked to the appearance of Alzheimer's? And what will "healthy" or "normal" mean when we discover your genetic propensities for alcoholism, drug abuse, pederasty, or violence? The idea of health progressively becomes at once both imperial and vague: medicalization of what have hitherto been mental or moral matters paradoxically brings with it the disappearance of any clear standard of health itself. When genetic enhancement comes on the scene, standards of health, wholeness, or fitness will be needed more urgently than ever, but just then is when all pretense of standards will go out the window. " Enhancement" is a soft euphemism for "improvement," and the idea of improvement necessarily implies a good, a better, and perhaps even a best. If, however, we can no longer look to our previously unalterable human nature for a standard or norm of what is regarded as good or better, how will anyone know what constitutes an improvement? It will not do to assert that we can extrapolate from what we like about ourselves. Because memory is good, can we say how much more memory would be better? If sexual desire is good, how much more would be better? Life is good; but how much extension of life would be good for us? Only simplistic thinkers believe they can easily answer such questions.

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More modest enhancers, like more modest genetic therapists and technologists, eschew grandiose goals. They are valetudinarians [people who worry about health], not eugenicists. They pursue not some faraway positive good but the positive elimination of evils: disease, pain, suffering, the likelihood of death. But let us not be deceived. Hidden in all this avoidance of evil is nothing less than the quasi-messianic goal of a painless, suffering-free, and finally immortal existence. Only the presence of such a goal justifies the sweeping-aside of any opposition to the relentless march of medical science. Only such a goal gives trumping moral power to the principle, "cure disease, relieve suffering." "Cloning human beings is unethical and dehumanizing, you say? Never mind: it will help us treat infertility, avoid genetic disease, and provide perfect materials for organ replacement." Such, indeed, was the tenor of the June 1997 report of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission on Cloning Human Beings. Notwithstanding its call for a temporary ban on the practice, the only moral objection the commission could agree upon was that cloning "is not safe to use in humans at this time" because the technique has yet to be perfected. Even this elite ethical body, in other words, was unable to muster any other moral argument sufficient to cause us to forgo the possible health benefits of cloning. The same argument will inevitably also justify creating and growing human embryos for experimentation, revising the definition of death to facilitate organ transplantation, growing human body parts in the peritoneal cavities of animals, perfusing newly dead bodies as factories for useful biological substances, or reprogramming the human body and mind with genetic or neurobiological engineering. Who can sustain an objection if these practices will help us live longer and with less overt suffering? It turns out that even the more modest biogenetic engineers, whether they know it or not, are in the immortality business, proceeding on the basis of a quasi-religious faith that all innovation is by definition progress, no matter what is sacrificed to attain it. The tragedy of success.

What the enthusiasts do not see is that their utopian project will not eliminate suffering but merely shift it around. We are already witnessing a certain measure of public discontent as a paradoxical result of rising expectations in the health-care field: although their actual health has improved, people's satisfaction with their current health status has remained the same or declined. But that is hardly the highest cost of medical success. As Aldous Huxley made clear in his prophetic Brave New World, the conquest of disease, aggression, pain, anxiety, suffering, and grief unavoidably comes at the price of homogenization, mediocrity, pacification, trivialized attachments, debasement of taste, and souls without love or longing. Like Midas, bioengineered man will be cursed to acquire precisely what he wished for, only to discoverpainfully and too latethat what he wished for is not exactly what he wanted. Or, worse than Midas, he may be so dehumanized he will not even recognize that in aspiring to be perfect, he is no longer even truly human. The point here is not the rightness or wrongness of this or that imagined scenarioall this is admittedly highly speculative. I surely have no way of knowing whether my worst fears will be realized, but you surely have no way of knowing that they will not. The point is rather the plausibility, even the wisdom, of thinking about genetic technology, like the entire technological venture, under the ancient and profound idea of tragedy. In tragedy, the hero's failure is embedded in his very success, his defeats in his victories, his miseries in his glory. What I am suggesting is that the technological way of approaching both the world and human life, a way deeply rooted in the human soul and spurred on by the utopian promises of modern thought and its scientific crusaders, may very well turn out to be inevitable, heroic, and doomed. To say that technology, left to itself as a way of life, is doomed, does not yet mean that modern lifeour lifemust be tragic. Everything depends on whether the technological disposition is allowed to proceed to its self-augmenting limits, or whether it can be restricted and brought under intellectual, spiritual, moral, and political rule. But here, I regret to say, the news so far is not encouraging. For the relevant intellectual, spiritual, and moral resources of our society, the legacy

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of civilizing traditions painfully acquired and long preserved, are taking a beatingnot least because they are being called into question by the findings of modern science itself. The technologies present troublesome ethical dilemmas, but the underlying scientific notions call into question the very foundations of our ethics. This challenge goes far beyond the notorious case of evolution versus biblical religion. Is there any elevated view of human life and human goodness that is proof against the belief, trumpeted by contemporary biology's most public and prophetic voices, that man is just a collection of molecules, an accident on the stage of evolution, a freakish speck of mind in a mindless universe, fundamentally no different from other livingor even nonlivingthings? What chance have our treasured ideas of freedom and dignity against the teachings of biological determinism in behavior, the reductive notion of the "selfish gene" (or for that matter of "genes for altruism"), the belief that DNA is the essence of life, and the credo that the only natural concerns of living beings are survival and reproductive success? Dangers to humanity In 1997, the luminaries of the International Academy of Humanismincluding the biologists Francis Crick, Richard Dawkins, and E.O. Wilson and the humanists Isaiah Berlin, W.V. Quine, and Kurt Vonnegutissued a statement in defense of cloning research in higher mammals and human beings. Their reasons were revealing: What moral issues would human cloning raise? Some world religions teach that human beings are fundamentally different from other mammalsthat humans have been imbued by a deity with immortal souls, giving them a value that cannot be compared to that of other living things. Human nature is held to be unique and sacred. Scientific advances which pose a perceived risk of altering this "nature" are angrily opposed.... As far as the scientific enterprise can determine, [however] ... [h]uman capabilities appear to differ in degree, not in kind, from those found among the higher animals. Humanity's rich repertoire of thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and hopes seems to arise from electrochemical brain processes, not from an immaterial soul that operates in ways no instrument can discover.... Views of human nature rooted in humanity's tribal past ought not to be our primary criterion for making moral decisions about cloning. ... The potential benefits of cloning may be so immense that it would be a tragedy if ancient theological scruples should lead to a Luddite rejection of cloning. In order to justify ongoing research, these intellectuals were willing to shed not only traditional religious views but any view of human distinctiveness and special dignity, their own included. They fail to see that the scientific view of man they celebrate does more than insult our vanity. It undermines our self-conception as free, thoughtful, responsible beings, worthy of respect because we alone among the animals have minds and hearts that aim far higher than the mere perpetuation of our genes. It undermines, as well, the beliefs that sustain our mores, institutions, and practices including the practice of science itself. For why, on this radically reductive understanding of "the rich repertoire" of human thought, should anyone choose to accept as true the results of these men's "electrochemical brain processes," rather than his own? Thus do truth and error themselves, no less than freedom and dignity, become empty notions when the soul is reduced to chemicals. There is, of course, nothing novel about reductionism, materialism, and determinism of the kind displayed here; they are doctrines with which Socrates contended long ago. What is new is that, as philosophies, they seem to be vindicated by scientific advance. Here, in consequence, is the most pernicious result of our technological progressmore dehumanizing than any actual manipulation or technique, present or future: the erosion, perhaps the final erosion, of the idea of man as noble, dignified, precious, or godlike, and its replacement with a view of man, no less than of nature, as mere raw material for manipulation and homogenization. Hence our peculiar moral crisis: we adhere more and more to a view of human life that gives us enormous power and that, at the same time, denies every possibility of nonarbitrary standards for guiding the use of this power. Though well-equipped, we know not who we are or where we are going. We triumph over nature's unpredictabilities only to subject ourselves, tragically, to the still greater unpredictability of our capricious wills and our fickle opinions. That we do not recognize our predicament is itself a tribute to the depth of our infatuation with scientific progress and our naive faith in the sufficiency of our humanitarian impulses.

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Does this mean that I am therefore in favor of ignorance, suffering, and death? Of killing the goose of genetic technology even before she lays her golden eggs? Surely not. But unless 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 dangersnot 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. Footnotes 1. It is remarkable that most discussions of genetic technology naively neglect its potential usefulness in creating biological weapons, such as, to begin with, antibiotic-resistant plague bacteria, or later, aerosols containing cancer-inducing or mind-scrambling viruses. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Article B: Religion Should Not Interfere in Bioethics George Dvorsky, "The Separation of Church and Bioethics," Betterhumans, March 31, 2004. www.BetterHumans.com. Copyright 2004 George Dvorsky. Reproduced by permission. "[The] blind acceptance of mixing ethics and medical science with religion is unacceptable, and it has got to stop." In the following selection futurist George Dvorsky argues that religious interference in decisions about the ethics of reproductive technology is unwarranted and harmful. He argues that ethics have to evolve to keep up with scientific discoveries and technological possibilities. For example, brain death was not a concept available to people who lived in the era when the Bible was written, he notes. The moral absolutism of religious conservatives is particularly harmful, he claims, in an age when technology regularly prolongs and establishes life through artificial means. George Dvorsky is deputy editor of and a regular columnist for BetterHumans.com. He lives in Ontario, Canada. As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What's wrong with the "wisdom of repugnance," in Dvorsky's view? 2. What, according to the author, is the source of moral absolutism? 3. How might giving full rights to embryos lead to every human cell having full rights?
It is now a criminal offense in Canada to engage in therapeutic cloning, to create an in vitro embryo for any purpose other than creating a human being (or for improving assisted human reproductive procedures), to maintain an embryo outside a woman's body for more than 14 days, to genetically manipulate embryos, to choose the gender of one's offspring, to sell human eggs and sperm and to engage in commercial surrogacy. While I'm loath to admit it, and despite the merciful sanctioning of stem cell research (albeit under strict conditions), Canadian bioconservatives have clearly won a major battle hereand in this sense it's a de facto victory for religious interests. While not stated explicitly in the bill, it's quite obvious that C-61 upholds religious interpretations of personhood (namely the belief that life starts at conception) and theological injunctions against meddling in human biology and reproduction.... This blind acceptance of mixing ethics and medical science with religion is unacceptable, and it has got to stop. For centuries, societies have known better than to let religious influences interfere

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with democracy, due process, reason and scientific inquiry. The inalienable domains of human biology and procreation should be regarded no differently than the social and political arenas. Religious bioethics is full of inherent problems and inconsistencies. It's time to dismiss it and acknowledge the efficacy and validity of real and accountable secular bioethics. In biology as in politics, citizens have the right to be free from the pressures of organized religion. Influenced by Theology Leon Kass [then chairman of the President's Council of Bioethics], who is fully aware of the negative implications of chairing a religiously biased President's Council on Bioethics, has adamantly declared his brand of ethics to be untainted by theology. On closer inspection, however, his claim is as disingenuous as it is false. Kass has vigorously studied the Torah [Jewish law] and has written extensively about the Bible, including his book on Genesis, The Beginning of Wisdom. He adheres to a conservative form of Judaism, attends synagogue and fasts on Yom Kippur. As Kass himself half-jokingly concedes, "I suffer from a late-onset, probably lethal, rabbinic gene which has gradually expressed itself, and it has taken me over." Further, says Kass, "I've come to treasure the biblical strand of our Western tradition more than the strand that flows from Athens." So it's no surprise that his particular approach to bioethics betrays an adherence to long-standing Abrahamic [biblical] injunctions against meddling with the human body and reproductive processes. Kass's "wisdom of repugnance" ethics asks us to evaluate issues simply based on how we feel about them. "In crucial cases," says Kass, "repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it." According to Kass, those things we find offensive, grotesque, revolting and repulsive are illegitimate and immoral for inexpressible reasons and regardless of what our logic tells us. The Yuck Factor This so-called "yuck factor" ethics betrays its religious roots, what sociologist Emile Durkheim described as the religious fixation on the profane and sacred. "All known religious beliefs," wrote Durkheim, "whether simple or complex, present one common characteristic: they presuppose a classification of all the things, real and ideal, of which men think, into two classes or opposed groups, generally designated by two distinct terms which are translated well enough by [the] words profane and sacred." Dividing the world into two domains is a tendency that runs rampant in the Abrahamic religious traditions. It is a tradition that insists on the presence of good and evil, simplistic black and white arguments, good guys and bad guys, piety and sin, the natural and the unnatural and, of course, moral meaning in the delineation of those things we find appealing and those things we find yucky. Elizabeth Blackburn, one of two bioethicists recently removed from the President's Council, has some harsh words for Kass and his yuck factor ethics. "[Kass has] questioned modern medical and biomedical science and taken the stance of a 'moral philosopher,' often invoking a 'wisdom of repugnance'in other words, rejecting science, such as research involving embryonic stem cells, because it feels wrong to him. I remain convinced that this type of visceral reaction should launch, rather than end, debate." Blackburn is right. But we can trace the "wisdom of repugnance" beyond a single person. At the heart of his argument, and in true arrogant ultraconservative fashion, what Kass is really proclaiming is that the current cultural norm, or more specifically, the norm that has been established by longstanding religious traditions in the West, is the only true gauge to help us determine what is moral or immoral. And because scientists have a nasty habit of undermining antiquated religious beliefs, and by implication cultural norms, it is most certainly in the best interest of religious conservatives to interfere with scientific advancement to keep the veils of ignorance high and the taboos firmly rooted.

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Moral Absolutism Uninterested in reevaluating ethics and morality in the face of scientific progress, religious conservatives tend to defer to scripture for moral and existential authority. The Bible is treated as a portal into everything we need to know about anythingend of discussion. Thus, ethical guidelines that arise from scripture tend to take on the form of absolutism. Since God has supposedly endowed us with the ultimate moral rulebook, religious adherents argue that a fixed and unassailable universal ethics can and should be applied to all people and at all times. In my mind, there is very little that separates this type of reasoningthis moral absolutismfrom ideology. Some might find it comforting to think that we have the answers to everythingespecially the answers to deep and complex moral questionsbut we don't. By necessity, therefore, what we require is a more sensible approach to formulating our ethics. This is where a relativistic or normative methodology comes in, leading to what is known as situational ethics, as formulated by such thinkers as Joseph Fletcher. Religious followers tend to have fits over this notion, incredulous to the idea that moral values are editable over time or specific to a situation. Evolving Ethics Needed However, since the extent of our knowledge at any given point in history is partial at best, we have to continually take stock of what we know about the human condition and add to an evolving and improving set of ethical standards. And while the religious are unwilling to accept this, different social environmentswhether those differences arise from social or technological differenceswill require different ethics. Take life support systems for example. The prolongation of life by technological means is leading to some interesting dilemmas in how we treat and define death. We currently declare someone to be dead when their heart stops. But what if someone is completely brain dead and on life support? They are alive in the sense that their body is functioning, but for all intents and purposes, there's nobody home. Technologies are forcing us to redefine and rethink previously established conventions and practices. Is it right to leave someone who is clearly deadand permanently sohooked up to a machine? Christians in particular have no difficulty answering this one, defaulting to scripture and speaking of the "sanctity" of life. Yet the prescientific, ... authors of the Bible (assuming, of course, that God didn't write it) were never in a position where they had to distinguish between a fully conscious individual and a carcass with a beating heart. Consequently, Christian adherents are following an antiquated version of personhood. And while once reasonable and even helpful, many such religious beliefs are of little value today. Indeed, as our insight expands due to scientific progress, so too do our ethical sensibilities. What we considered harmful yesterday does not necessarily appear so today; what we consider harmful today, may not seem so tomorrow. Interracial marriages, for example, were not too long ago considered a repugnant and dangerous social experiment, but very few today would argue today that they are immoral or risky. It's a nonissue.... Similarly, today we are coping with the prospect of same-sex marriages. I predict that in a few decades from nowif not soonerwe will have the same kind of nonchalant attitude to gay and lesbian couples that we currently have to interracial couples. And I don't use this analogy lightly. Apropos of this discussion, a strong argument can be made that much of our racial and sexual inhibitions were induced by religious mores. Deep Christian values, often mutating into secularized offshoots, permeate our society to this very day. In the past,

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Christianity in particular has played no small part in the perpetuation of not just racism and antihomosexual bigotry (including heterocentrism and the insistence on monogamy), but has also contributed to misogyny, sexual repression and the ongoing struggle against biotechnology in general and reproductive freedoms in particular. Harmful Stands Religious interference with reproductive practices is particularly problematic, often leading to considerable harm. [In 2003,] the Catholic Church, in a move that I can only describe as pure evil (if I may be allowed to use such a term), declared that condoms do not halt the spread of AIDS because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass. The statement put literally millions of followers at risk. And in another example of religious meddling, in the US, thanks to the efforts of President Bush and his fourth-century stance on reproductive rights, some women who are about to undergo abortions are being terrorized by clinicians who force them to watch gruesome videos depicting bloody fetuses. In addition to being flawed, prejudicial and harmful, the Abrahamic ethic also tends to be contradictory, inconsistent and sometimes just plain nonsensical. As an example, while supposedly upholding the principle of the sanctity of life at all costs, a number of bioconservativesKass includedhave contradictorily railed against the prospect of life extension technologies. Apparently all life is equal, but some life is less equal than others. And because religious ethicists believe that personhood begins at conception, it has been argued that work in embryonic stem cells and therapeutic cloning is unethical. But as Reason's [columnist] Ronald Bailey has pointed out, this line of reasoning can lead to some rather bizarre conclusions, including the notion that every cell in the human body should be considered inviolable because, given the right circumstances, every cell could conceivably become a full-grown human being. It's this kind of alternate reality that religiously influenced bioconservatives tend to operate in, one in which a blastocysta microscopic clump of 150 cellsis actually considered not just a person, but a person with equal rights to someone who is fully sentient. And thus, liberals and social progressives in both Canada and the US march onward in their attempt to derail those who insist on using unfair, dangerous and illogical methodologies. In fact, many of today's reformers and activiststhose people who tend to reject absolutist religious ethicsare busy cleaning up the mess of the Christian legacy in the West. Footnotes 1. The name of the Canadian legislation that outlaws therapeutic cloning, etc.

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One Article for Topic 2

Article C: Robots for Fighting Future Wars Milan Vesely, "The Robot Revolution," Middle East, April 2005, pp. 22-25. Copyright 2005 IC Publications Ltd. Reproduced by permission. Milan Vesely is a Kenya-born journalist who lives in the United States. In the following article he describes the U.S. military's hopes to use robots in combat. On the one hand, this might save the lives of many human soldiers, but on the other hand, computer-savvy young insurgents might hack into the robots' programming and turn them against their original masters. So it is not yet known how effective they would be. Intelligent machines mounted on tracks are already being used for bomb disposal. Nevertheless, even advocates of robotic soldiers are not sure they can ever replace fighting men. Moreover, trusting robots with life-or-death decisions would surely raise ethical issues and questions of responsibility. Yet the monetary and political cost of sending human soldiers into battle is so high that robots may be rushed into the field before their usefulness has been proven. The scene is familiar, the Internet video tape grainy and slightly out of focus. A long line of US military vehicles is racing along the Baghdad airport road when suddenly one is enveloped in flames, the blast scatters pieces of palm tree and metal in a deadly 100-yard arc. Then comes the gunfire, rocket-propelled grenades flying in. Soon another sound joins in, as the Medevac helicopters arrive. But that scene may lack one important ingredient in the future. The helicopter may not be a Medevac one, its medical personnel replaced by eyeglass-wearing computer geeks with handheld laptops rapidly punching keyboards to get the truck back up and running. Welcome to the 21st Century US soldier; programmed robots that can do anything from drive an ammunition truck guided by global positioning system (GPS) coordinates to firing a 1,000-rounds-aminute M60 machine gun to beat off attacking insurgents. American military planners predict such robots will in the future become the major fighting force in wars such as that currently being fought in Iraq. "They don't get hungry, they're not afraid, they don't forget their orders, and they don't care if the robot next to them gets shot," Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at Pentagon headquarters says, his confidence based on the results of field trials now underway. But will they do a better job than the humans they replace, or will technically minded insurgents hack into the command codes and redirect the robot's lethality back against their original masters? that is still an open question for military analysts. Robo-Soldiers May Reduce Death Toll The IED (Improvised Explosive Device) has proved the insurgent's most effective weapon in the Iraqi conflict. Crude but safe for the attacker hidden 100 yards away in the palm grove, and highly lethal, the IED has developed from a standoff weapon detonated by wires, to a weapon ignited by a cellphone or wireless line-of-sight computer signal. The damage these devices have inflicted on the US military is vast, [as of early 2005] some 1,600 soldiers killed and at least 12,000 wounded since the Iraqi conflict began. But now with robosoldiers rapidly being brought into the arena the toll is expected to drop dramatically, and a whole new era of warfare is about to begin. The robotic soldier has been a Pentagon dream for 30 years. To achieve this, Pentagon planners have backed it to the hilt financially, allocating some $127bn [billion] to a project called Future Combat Systems, or FCS....

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The projected increase in funding for robot-soldiers is based on two assumptions; one already proven, one tantalisingly in sight. Following the success of track-mounted robots in Afghanistan where they have been successfully used to clear caves of booby traps and ambushes, US military planners believe that robot soldiers that think, see, and react increasingly like humans are possible. Advances in nanotechnologythe science of miniaturisationmake this goal achievable, they argue; crude examples are already able to mimic the walking gait of a normal human being. Battle-ready robots able to transport ammunition, gather intelligence and/or search and blow up buildings are already being tested, the first such thinking machine mounted on miniature tracks is expected to arrive in Iraq [in April 2005]. With a 1,000-round-a-minute M60 machine gun mounted on a 360-degree swivel, this bomb disposal machine will take up frontline positions, its machine gun able to deal death to any sighted enemy within a 1,000 yard radius. Already used to dig up roadside bombs, this latest version of robosoldier will be a radio controlled fighter, its computerised memory allowing it to react automatically to incoming fire. "It's more than just a dream now," Johnson of the robotics effort at the Joint Forces Command Research Centre, says. "Today we have an infantry soldier. We give him a set of instructions; if you find the enemy, this is what you do. We give the soldier enough information to recognise the enemy when he is fired upon. He is autonomous but he has to operate under certain controls. By 2015 we think we can do the same infantry missions with robots. The American military will certainly have these kinds of robots," Johnson asserts firmly. "It's not a question of if; it's just a question of when." Robots May Not Replace Men Many of the robo-soldier's advocates are not so sure that machines can ever replace the fighting human being however. "War will always be a human endeavour, one with death and disaster ever present," Robert Finkelstein, president of Robotic Technology in Potomac, Maryland, says. "It could take up to 2030 to develop a robot that looks, thinks, and fights like a soldier. The Pentagon's goal is there, but the path is not totally clear yet." And what of the insurgents; how will America's enemies counter a machine capable of spewing death while at the same time being protected by the latest advances in armour-plating? Will they turn its capabilities to their own advantage, much as they have countered the jamming signals used to disable their IED's in Iraq? "Will they decipher the operating codes; turn a robot's lethality back onto the operators via electronic hacking, or even capture a robot and re-programme it to recognise the US military as the enemy?" some computer experts wonder. One thing US military observers are certain about; it won't be long before counter-robot techniques surface and possibly even crude counter-robots appear to take on the real thing on the battlefield. "After all, a child's radio-controlled toy vehicle filled with explosives could disable the robo-soldier if it explodes close by," one military expert says. "Such items are now commonly sold at toy stores, the larger ones capable of carrying up to 10 pounds of high explosives." As has been seen in Iraq, technology is not the preserve of the US military alone. Each gruesome killing or deadly attack by the insurgents is shown on the Internet within minutes. The world is able to view the terrorist's actions even before any official announcement or CNN report is broadcast. Computer savvy, the younger insurgents are certain to take the arrival of the new soldiers as a personal challenge, certain to test their skills against the computer and wireless guided robosoldier, much as they have against the radio jamming devices now used to protect US convoys on Iraqi highways.

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Questions over the Geneva Convention and its rules of conduct during warfare undertaken by robosoldiers are now being raised. As history shows, every breakthrough in military technology leaves the ethical laws scrambling to catch up, the arrival of the longbow, the tank and the atomic bomb being some more obvious examples. Can Robots Be Trusted to Make Decisions? Trusting robots with life and death decisions at a roadblock is sure to raise issues and questions of responsibility, especially in the event of so called "friendly fire". "The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life or death decisions," Johnson says. "I have even been asked what happens if the robot destroys a school bus rather then a nearby tank." In a statement sure to be challenged by human rights activists Johnson states: "We will not entrust a robot with that decision until we are confident they can make it." Others, like Bill Joya co-founder of Sun Microsystemsare not so sure that the trend to robots making their own decisions is all that smart. Writing in Wired magazine, Joy says: "As machines become more intelligent people will let them make more of their decisions for them. A stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex humans will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage of development the machines themselves will be in effective control." Not surprisingly, money is a major factor in the US military's decision to mechanise its fighting forces. Future commitments for soldiers' retirement benefits already total $653bn [billion], a figure the military is unable to come up with if called upon to do so. The current median cost per basic infantry man is $4m [thousand] and growing, the cost of maintaining, or scrapping, a worn-out robot estimated at a tenth of that figure. To have robots do at least the basic tasks therefore makes economic sense to a US military watching the mounting cost of modern armaments with increasing alarm. To design a human replica is one of the most daunting aspects of the new technology. A four-foot high prototype with a single cyclops eye and a gun for a right arm is already being tested. In laboratory conditions this robot can aim and fire at a tin can, the first such machine able to identify targets and shoot at them. "We're at the mammal stage of development now," Jeff Grossman of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Centre in San Diego says. "We're trying to get to the level of a primate where we are making sensible decisions." Five categories of robots are envisioned by the US military. In addition to the hunter/killer cyclops prototype mentioned above, one robot is designed to scout buildings, tunnels and caves, a third will haul ammunition, weapons and gear as well as perform basic intelligence gathering, a fourth will be a drone in flight and a fifth originally designed for guard duty will be able to conduct psychological warfare and other missions. Most successful has been a robot driver, its progress far enough along so that operational models are already being tested at the Army Research Laboratory's Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.... As the insurgency in Iraq continues to grind away, the American military is bound to rush robots into the field before their capability has been fully proven. "The cost of the soldier in the field is so high, both in cash and in the political sense, that robots will be doing wildly dangerous tasks in battle in the very near future," says Colin M. Angle, 37, cofounder and chief executive of iRobot. How soon their human opponents will figure out a way of negating or even turning their advantages back on to their handlers will be an interesting issue, the time lag not too distant if the current conflict is any indicator. In that case, grainy, out-of-focus videos of two sets of robots duelling it out in a Fallujah street may not be that far away.

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Two Articles for Topic 3:

Article D: The Government Should Not Regulate Nanotechnology More Strictly

Sonia Arrison, "Nanotechnology Needs Nano-Scale Regulation," TechNewsWorld, January 13, 2006. www.technewsworld.com. Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. "The nascent [nanotech] industry faces threats from those who believe government should solve problems before they occur." In the following viewpoint, Sonia Arrison claims that nanotechnology is a growing field with a variety of applications. Although the new field may have risks, Arrison warns that focusing on unknown consequences can stifle innovation. Therefore, she states that the government should refrain from enacting regulation and let the scientific and production communities determine how nanotechnology should progress. Sonia Arrison is the director of Technology Studies at the Pacific Research Institute in California. As you read, consider the following questions:

1. How can nanotechnology be used to cure disease, according to Arrison? 2. What prediction does the author cite in reference to the global marketplace potential of 3. As Arrison reports, how can overregulation of nanotechnology possibly lead to
underregulation? Anyone who purchased clear sunscreen or wore stain-resistant pants during the holidays was probably enjoying the benefits of commercialized nanotechnology. While nanotech advances are exciting, some observers dangerously press for greater government oversight in the sector. Nanotechnology, the manipulation of matter at the molecular level, can create better materials, such as stronger metals and better paints. It also opens the door for self-replicating devices and particles so small that they may enter the bloodstream to help cure disease. This revolution, like any new technology, can be deployed for beneficial or nefarious purposes. Overestimating the Risks In a report released [in January 2006], environmental policy analyst J. Clarence Davies argued for greater regulation of nanotechnology. America's current laws, he says, "either suffer from major shortcomings of legal authority, or from a gross lack of resources, or both." The problem, according to Davies, is that current laws "provide a very weak basis for identifying and protecting the public from potential risk, especially as nanotechnologies become more complex in structure and function and the applications become more diverse." Of course, Davies also admits that "we know little about possible adverse effects of nanotechnology." That's partly because of the nascent status of the technology and perhaps also because the risks aren't that high. Even government officials seemed surprised at the suggestion of new regulations. Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, told the Associated Press that "until we have information that there are truly inadequacies in existing regulations, any additional regulations beyond what we already would have would be burdensome to industry and the advancement of the field." nanotechnology in 2015?

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It's encouraging to see national policy makers taking such a reasonable stand. Perhaps that's because they know that advances in nanotechnology will bring greater economic opportunities and tax dollars. Indeed, it has been estimated that by 2015, the global marketplace for products that use the technology will reach US$1 trillion and employ two million workers. The technology is so promising that the state of California recently released a report brainstorming on how to create a successful Nano-Valley, similar to Silicon Valley, which didn't face regulatory threats in its infancy. Regulation Paradox For his part, Davies argues that current levels of government oversight could create distrust and lead to a "public rejection of the technology." While government rules sometimes have a legitimizing effect, that's a poor reason to support them. Over-regulation comes with serious dangers too. Not only can too many regulations strangle innovation in the cradle, but over-regulation can ironically cause under-regulation, leading to safety hazards. In Forward to the Future, a Pacific Research Institute report, law professor and celebrity blogger Glenn Reynolds discusses this problem. "When statutes require especially stringent regulations, administrators will tend not to issue regulations at all. Extraordinarily strict rules on workplace toxins, for example, have led to a failure by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to address all but a tiny minority of chemicals believed to be toxic." And of course, government rules tend to discourage the creation of private-sector solutions. The Freedom to Be Innovative The scientific community is well aware of the potential dangers with nano-scale particles. The public will be glad to know that the discussion over proper methods is thriving and developing in tandem with the technology. In addition, concerned groups such as the Foresight Institute in California have released guidelines for self-regulation modeled on the extensive experience in biotechnology where there has been great technical progress and little danger to public safety. Nanotechnology holds much promise for advances in a number of areas such as material science and medicine, but the nascent industry faces threats from those who believe government should solve problems before they occur. Nanotech scientists must be free to develop their products, as well as the rules that govern their development, in order to reap the rewards and protect society from potential pitfalls. The best approach is the light regulation that already exists, combined with a strong scientific culture of self-regulation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Article E: The Government Should Regulate Nanotechnology More Strictly J. Clarence Davies, testimony: "Developments in Nanotechnology," U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing February 15, 2006. Reproduced by permission of the author. "Adequate government oversight of nanotechnology is an essential part of 'getting it right.'" J. Clarence Davies is the senior advisor to the Project on Emerging Technologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In the following viewpoint, Davies argues that nanotechnologythe production and use of materials at a molecular levelis a field of enormous promise and potential dangers. Because of the unknown risks of putting this technology to use in manufacturing consumer items, Davies believes nanotechnology should be more strictly regulated

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by the government. According to Davies, existing laws are not enough to protect the public from this emerging technology, and therefore the federal government will have to enact new statutes tailored to the possible hazards. As you read, consider the following questions:

1. Based on past experience and focus group surveys, what does Davies fear the public will do 2. What does the author believe are the three faults of using existing laws to govern
nanotechnology? 3. According to Davies, what problem exists in trusting companies to perform voluntary testing on their nanotech products? Nanotechnology is still very new and it is full of promise. It may offer solutions to many of the most serious problems our society faces. It offers the hope of significant breakthroughs in areas such as medicine, clean energy and water, environmental remediation, and green manufacturing. However, we currently know little about the short- and long-term effects of nanotechnology on human health or the environment. Additionally, the public's views of nanotechnology remain largely unformed. The vast majority of people have never heard of nanotechnology, though it is anticipated that they will learn about the technology as applications emerge and as products enter the market. For this reason, we now have a unique opportunity "to get it right"to introduce a major new technology without incurring significant public opposition and without gambling with the health of citizens, workers, consumers, or the environment. A lot depends on our ability to "get it right." If we fail, we run a double risk. First, we run the risk of unanticipated harm to health and the environment. Second, we run the risk of public rejection of the technology. Our past experienceswith agricultural biotechnology, nuclear power, and asbestos, just to name a fewillustrate how tragic either of these scenarios could be. Industry, as well as the general public, has a big stake in ensuring that nanotechnology is developed responsibly from the start. Adequate government oversight of nanotechnology is an essential part of "getting it right." The public does not trust industry to regulate itself. Past experience, as well as surveys and focus groups, show that if the public does not think that the government is exercising adequate regulatory oversight of a potentially hazardous new technology then it will mistrust and likely reject that technology. If this happens, literally billions of dollars of investment by government and industry in nanotechnology research and development may be jeopardized. To date, the National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office (NNCO) has maintained that the federal agencies have adequate statutory authority to deal with nanotechnology. E. Clayton Teague, director of the NNCO, has said that: "Until we have good, solid, scientifically validated information that would indicate significant inadequacies in existing regulatory authorities, additional regulations would just be unnecessarily burdensome." This is an insufficient response to the challenge, and, I believe, misleading to both the public and industry. By overstating the case for regulatory adequacy, one shifts risks onto corporate investors, shareholders, and the exposed public. Possible Health Threats The analysis in my report [Managing the Effects of Nanotechnology, 2006] clearly shows that the existing regulatory structure for nanotechnology is not adequate. It suffers from three types of problems: (1) gaps in statutory authority, (2) inadequate resources, and (3) a poor fit between some of the regulatory programs and the characteristics of nanotechnology. if nanotechnology is not regulated by the government?

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(1) The gaps in statutory authority are most obvious with respect to two of the most common uses of nanomaterialscosmetics and consumer products. In both cases, there is essentially no statutory authority to review the health and safety of these products. In both cases, the principle is caveat emptorlet the buyer beware. In both areas, there is large potential for human exposure to nanomaterials. A wide variety of nano-based consumer products have already begun to enter the market as sporting goods, clothing, cleaning materials, and kitchen appliances. Similarly, nanobased cosmetic products already range from skin creams to spray-on foot deodorizers, all with significant exposure potential (dermal, inhalation, and ingestion) and little publicly available risk data. A more subtle set of statutory problems relates to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which many have suggested as the primary law that should be used to regulate nanotechnology. TSCA is a very weak law.... One weakness is particularly important in relation to nanotechnology. TSCA implicitly assumes that if there is no information on the risk of a chemical then there is no risk. In other words, the law acts as a significant disincentive to generating information on possible risks of a chemical. This is exactly the opposite of what is needed. A major reason to adequately regulate nanotechnology is to provide an incentive for generating information. There is an interaction between regulation and information. A certain amount of information is needed to make regulation work, but regulation, properly crafted, can provide an important incentive to produce health and safety information. Lack of Experienced Overseers (2) All of the federal regulatory programs suffer from a shortage of resources. This shortage of resources is not only related to funding levels. There is also a shortage of personnelparticularly individuals with the appropriate expertise to deal with nanotechnology. For some of the programs most relevant to nanotechnology the deficiency is so great that it raises doubts about whether the program can function at all. In 1980, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had 2,950 employees, a number that was inadequate for its responsibilities then. Today, with a greatly expanded economy and workforce, OSHA has 2,208 employees, approximately 25% fewer. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has, since its creation, suffered from both statutory and resource problems. Today CPSC has half the staff that it had in 1980. Statutory authority without the resources for implementation will not lead to adequate oversight.... No Existing Laws Are Geared to Nanotechnology (3) None of the health and environment laws were drafted with nanotechnology in mind, and fitting nanotechnology into the existing statutory framework can be problematic. For example, many of the environmental statutes are based on an assumption that there is a direct relationship between quantity or volume on one hand and degree of risk on the other. This relationship does not hold for most nanomaterials. In the near term, we will have to make do with current laws and programs.... Though voluntary programs have been put forth as an interim solution, they are not a solution over the long-term. Voluntary programs tend to leave out the firms that most need to be regulated. Such programs also lack both transparency and accountability and thus do not contribute to public confidence in the regulatory system. When I began working on the report, I did not believe that new legislation would be necessary. However, given all of the shortcomings of the existing system, I now believe that it is in everyone's interest to start thinking about what a new law might look like. The existing laws are not adequate. They cannot provide protection for the public, or offer a predictable marketplace for nanotechnology businesses and investors. No amount of coordination or patching is likely to fix the problem.... Three Significant Questions

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Since its release in January 2006, the report has attracted a good deal of attention. I have frequently been asked three questions which are worth briefly addressing here:

1. Is there any reason to believe that there are any adverse effects from nanotechnology?
2. Can't industry be trusted to test new products since it is in its best interest to do so? 3. Don't we need to wait for more information before we can regulate nanotechnology? (1) Adverse effects: I am not a toxicologist, and I do not have the qualifications to address in depth the potential adverse effects of nanotechnology. However, there are three reasons to believe that such effects are likely. First, every technology of the scope of nanotechnology has had adverse effects. The idea that nanotechnology could be completely innocuous flies in the face of what we have learned over many years of dealing with technological innovation. Second, many decades of studying exposure to fine particlesin the workplace and the environment in generalhave shown that inhaling fine (and possibly nanometer-sized) particles can be harmful. Third, on-going research into the health implications of engineered nanomaterials raises many questions and concerns. For instance, we know that: Nanometer-scale particles behave differently from larger-sized particles in the lungs possibly moving to other organs in the body; The surface of some nano-structured particles is associated with toxicityrather than the more usually measured mass concentration; and Conventional toxicity tests do not seem to work well with nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes....

The debate over how safe nanotechnology is, and how risk should be governed, must be conducted in the knowledge that nanotechnologiesor the specific applications of nanotechnologyare diverse. Some will present a far greater risk to health and the environment than others.... (2) Voluntary testing: It is in the interest of most manufacturers to do some tests of their products. A number of companies have a reputation of exceeding current regulatory requirements in regards to product testing, and no manufacturer wants its customers or workers to be adversely affected by its products. However, testing, when done, is largely for short-term acute effects and not for longterm effects, such as cancer, mutagenesis, and environmental effects. Testing for long-term health and environmental effects can be expensive and, if there is some adverse effect, it is unlikely that the effect will ever be associated with the particular product. Thus it can be tempting not to do such testing, if not required. (3) Information and regulation: We do need more information before an adequate oversight system can succeed. But it is not too early to start thinking and talking about the outlines of such a system. It is not too early because nanotechnology products are being commercialized now, and the regulatory system must deal with them. A survey by EmTech Research of companies working in the field of nanotechnology has identified approximately 80 nanotechnology consumer products, and over 600 nanotechnology-based raw materials, intermediate components and industrial equipment items that are used by manufacturers. Experts at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies believe that the number of nanotechnology consumer products on the market worldwide is actually larger than the EmTech data suggest. Furthermore, it also is not too early to start thinking and talking about an oversight system because knowing what a regulatory structure will look like can provide important guidance about what information is needed. Given the realities of the legislative process, it could be years before new legislation is enacted.

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Two Articles for Topic 4:

Article F: The UN Is Creating Hysteria by Publishing Misinformation on Climate Change Marni Soupcoff, "Vain Attempts to Change the Weather," American Enterprise Online, December 15, 2003. Reproduced with permission of the American Enterprise, a national magazine of Politics, Business, and Culture (TAEmag.com). Marni Soupcoff is a columnist for the American Enterprise Online (TAEmag.com). Recently three United Nations organizations released a study claiming that climate change was responsible for one-hundred and fifty deaths in 2000. This conclusion is based on an irresponsible use of statistics, drawing conclusions about causalities that are not supported by the evidence. It would be better use of its resources for the United Nations to combat diseases directly instead of drawing questionable conclusions about the weather, leading to actions that will probably not be effective in addressing health issues. "Global warming kills 150,000 a year," read a dire headline in Britain's Guardian on Friday [December 12, 2003], which sounds a bit like an indictment of a particularly active serial killer. But before you go swearing out a warrant for global warming's arrest, keep in mind that frantic predictions of man's doom caused by his poisoning of the world's climate tend not to stand up to a reasoned look at the data. The Guardian's hyperbolic headline is no exception. The Guardian's indictment was precipitated by climate talks in Milan [Italy] at which three United Nations [UN] organizationsincluding the World Health Organizationreleased a study claiming that climate change was directly responsible for 150,000 deaths worldwide in 2000. A number of objections spring to mind. The most obvious is that, even assuming global warming did cause the deaths (an assumption that will be made by few people save enviro-alarmists like [actor] Ed Asner and [former vice president and presidential candidate] Al Gore), this would not warrant the Guardian's gloomy conclusion that the statistic is a representative one for every year. Numbers That Cannot Be Trusted More importantly, though, the very idea that one can calculate a precise statistic to represent deaths "directly caused" by global warming is ludicrous and irresponsible. Unlike the case of a natural disaster or a plane crash, where it is easy to take toll of those killed or injured, small increases in the earth's temperature do not create obvious and immediate victims whose deaths can be definitively chalked up to warming. For example, the U.N. report claims that global warming has caused a noticeable increase in malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. But the report fails to establish convincing proof for a causal connection between climate change and increased incidents of disease, relying instead on the simplistic notion that increases in temperature inevitably lead to more disease. By assigning an artificial number on the lives lost to global warming, the U.N. is misleadingly implying a scientific certainty and consensus that simply does not exist. The shortsightedness of this approach has been highlighted by malaria specialist Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute and Harvard University, who chides, "it is naive to predict the effects of 'global warming' on malaria on the mere basis of temperature." The history of mosquito-borne diseases is complex, and many factors other than temperature, including agricultural practices and living standards, are often more important in determining the extent of the diseases. How else to explain the fact that malaria was common throughout Europe during the freezing weather of its "Little Ice Age" of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

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Consensus That Does Not Exist And speaking of ice ages, I'd be remiss not to note that in the midst of the U.N.'s efforts to create hysteria about climate change and drum up support for the Kyoto protocol, a new report in the journal Climate Change shows that human-induced global warming may have started as early as 8,000 years ago (so much for blaming hairspray bottles) and might very well have saved the earth from experiencing a new ice agea fate significantly more perilous to the earth's population than the gradual, three-quarter degree Celsius rise in temperature that scientists predict. (I'm now waiting for the Guardian headline about the number of lives saved every year by global warming, but I have a feeling it may be a long wait.) The bottom line is that by assigning an artificial number on the lives lost to global warming, the U.N. is misleadingly implying a scientific certainty and consensus that simply does not exist. We do not really know if any lives are lost as a direct result of global warming, let alone a quantifiable number. As Professor Reiter sensibly concludes with respect to the mosquito-borne diseases the U.N. claims are caused by global warming: "Why don't we devote our resources to tackling these diseases directly, instead of spending billions in vain attempts to change the weather?" The same could rightly be said of all the other health and human rights problems the world faces. It's about time the U.N. and newspapers like the Guardian started paying attention to the global problems that really matter. Let's leave the vain attempts to change the weather to the out-oftouch environmental extremists who have nothing better to do with their time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Article G: Global Warming Is a Serious Threat to Humanity's Future Mark Lynas, Its Later than You Think, New Statesman, vol. 132, June 30, 2003. Copyright 2003 by New Statesman Ltd. Reproduced by permission. "I have witnessed major climate-driven changes across five continents, changes that are leaving millions homeless, destitute and in danger." Most scientists agree that the planet is warming, claims Mark Lynas in the following viewpoint. He argues that humanity's future is at risk unless all nations agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the principal cause of global warming. In Alaska, Lynas asserts, Eskimo villagers are going hungry because global warming has changed the migration patterns of seals and walruses, an important part of the Eskimo diet. In other parts of the world, he maintains, flooding, drought, and sea-level rise are forcing people to leave their homes, creating environmental refugees. Lynas is author of the book High Tide: News from a Warming World. As you read, consider the following questions: 1. According to Lynas, how do some residents of Fairbanks, Alaska, describe global warming? 2. What happened on the island of Funafuti, in the author's view? 3. In the author's opinion, what would be a good start in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Hardly anyone realises it, but the debate about climate change is over. Scientists around the world have now amassed an unassailable body of evidence to support the conclusion that a warming of our planetcaused principally by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuelis under way. The dwindling band of climate "sceptics", a rag-tag bunch of oil and coal industry frontmen, retired professors and semi-deranged obsessives, is now on the defensive....

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The Signs Meanwhile the world as we once knew it is beginning to unravel. The signs are everywhere, even in Britain. Horse chestnut, oak and ash trees are coming into leaf more than a week earlier than two decades ago. The growing season now lasts almost all year round: in 2000 there were just 39 official days of winter. Destructive winter floods are part of this warming trend, while in lowland England snow has become a thing of the past. Where I live in Oxford, six out of the past ten winters have been completely snowlesssomething that happened only twice during the whole 30-year period between 1960 and 1990. The rate of warming has now become so rapid that it is equivalent to your garden moving south by 20 metres every single day. In other parts of the world, the signs of global warming are more dramatic.... Researching a book on the subject, I have witnessed major climate-driven changes across five continents, changes that are leaving millions homeless, destitute and in danger. The Impact in Alaska In Alaska I spent a week in the Eskimo village of Shishmaref, on the state's remote western coast, just 70 miles from the eastern coast of Russia. While the midnight sun shone outside, I listened as the village elder, Clifford Weyiouanna, told me how the sea, which used to freeze in October, was now ice-free until Christmas. And even when the sea ice does eventually form, he explained, it is so thin that it is dangerous to walk and hunt on. The changing seasons are also affecting the animals: seals and walrusesstill crucial elements of the Eskimo dietare migrating earlier and are almost impossible to catch. The whole village caught only one walrus last year [2002], after covering thousands of miles by boat. Shishmaref lives in perpetual fear. The cliffs on which the 600-strong community sits are thawing, and during the last big storm 50 feet of ground was lost overnight. People battled 90-mph winds to save their houses from the crashing waves. I stood on the shoreline a year ago [in 2002] with Robert Iyatunguk, the co-ordinator of the Shishmaref Erosion Coalition, looking up at a house left hanging over the clifftop. "The wind is getting stronger, the water is getting higher, and it's noticeable to everybody in town," he told me. "It just kind of scares you inside your body and makes you wonder exactly when the big one is going to hit." In July 2002 the residents voted to abandon the site altogethera narrow barrier island that has been continuously occupied by Eskimos for centuriesand move elsewhere. In Fairbanks, Alaska's main town in the interior, everyone talks about warming. The manager of the hostel where I stayed, a keen hunter, told me how ducks had been swimming on the river in December (it's supposed to freeze over in autumn), how bears had become so confused they didn't know whether to hibernate or stay awake, and that winter temperatures, which used to plummet to 40 degrees below zero, now barely touched 25 below. All around the town, roads are buckling and houses sagging as the permafrost underneath them thaws. In one house, the occupants, a cleaning lady and her daughter, showed me that to walk across the kitchen meant going uphill (the house was tilting sideways) and how shelves had to be rebalanced with bits of wood to stop everything falling off. Other dwellings have been abandoned. New ones are built on adjustable stilts. Signs in the East Scientists have long predicted that global warming will lead in some places to intense flooding and drought. When I visited China in April [2002], the country's northern provinces were in the grip of the worst drought in more than a century. Entire lakes had dried up, and in many places sand dunes were advancing across the farmers' fields.

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One lakeside village in Gansu Province, just off the old Silk Road, was abandoned after the waters dried upapart from one woman, who lives amid the ruins with a few chickens and a cow for company. "Of course I'm lonely!" she cried in answer to my rather insensitive question. "Can you imagine how boring this life is? I can't move; I can do nothing. I have no relatives, no friends and no money." She was tormented by memories of how it had once been, when neighbours had chatted and swapped stories late into the evenings, before the place became a ghost town. Minutes after I had left, a dust storm blew in. These storms are getting more frequent, and even Beijing is now hit repeatedly every spring. During an earlier visit to a remote village in eastern Inner Mongolia, not far from the ruins of Kubla Khan's fabled Xanadu, I experienced an even stronger storm. Day was turned into night as a blizzard of sand and dust scoured the mud-brick buildings. I cowered inside one house with a Mongolian peasant family, sharing rice wine and listening to tales of how the grass had once grown waist-high on the surrounding plains. Now the land is little more than arid desert, thanks to persistent drought and overgrazing. The storm raged for hours. When it eased in the late afternoon and the sun appeared again, the village cockerels crowed, thinking that morning had come early. The drought in north-west China is partly caused by shrinking run-off from nearby mountains, which because of the rising temperatures are now capped with less snow and ice than before. Glacier shrinkage is a phenomenon repeated across the world's mountain ranges, and I also saw it at first hand in Peru, standing dizzy with altitude sickness in the high Andes 5,200 metres above the capital, Lima, where one of the main water-supplying glaciers has shrunk by more than a kilometre during the past century. A Threat to Freshwater Supplies A senior manager of Lima's water authority told me later how melting ice is now a critical threat to future freshwater supplies: this city of seven million is the world's second-largest desert metropolis after Cairo, and the mountains supply all its water through coastal rivers that pour down from the ice fields far above. It is the snows that keep the rivers running all year roundonce the glaciers are gone, the rivers will flow only in the wet season. The same problem afflicts the Indian subcontinent: overwhelmingly dependent on the mighty Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra rivers that flow from the Himalayas, hundreds of millions of people will suffer water shortages as their source glaciers decline over the coming century. Unless alternative water supplies can be secured, Lima will be left depopulated, its people scattered as environmental refugees. This is a category already familiar to the residents of Tuvalu, a group of nine coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific. Tuvalu, together with Kiribati, the Maldives and many other island nations, has made its plight well known to the world community, and an evacuation planshifting 75 people each year to New Zealandis already under way. I saw at first hand how the islands are already affected by the rising sea level, paddling in kneedeep floodwaters during last year's spring tides, which submerged much of Funafuti and almost surrounded the airstrip. Later that same evening the country's first post-independence prime minister, Toaripi Lauti, told me of his shock at finding his own crop of pulaka (a root vegetable like taro, grown in sunken pits) dying from saltwater intrusion. He recalled how everyone had awoken one morning a few years previously to find that one of the islets on the atoll's rim had disappeared from the horizon, washed over by the waves, its coconut trees smashed and destroyed by the rising sea. However severe these unfolding climate-change impacts seem, they arelike the canary in the coal minejust the first whispers of the holocaust that lies ahead if nothing is done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists meeting under the banner of the UN [United Nations]sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have predicted a warming during this century alone of up to six degrees Celsius, which would take the earth into dangerous uncharted waters. [In June 2003] scientists at the UK's [United Kingdom's] Hadley Centre reported that the warming might be even greater because of the complexities of the carbon cycle.

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The IPCC's worst-case forecast of six degrees could prove almost unimaginably catastrophic. It took only six degrees of warming to spark the end-Permian mass extinction 251 million years ago, the worst crisis ever to hit life on earth (expertly chronicled by Michael Benton in When Life Nearly Died), which led to the deaths of 95 per cent of all species alive at the time. Reducing Emissions If humanity is to avoid a similar fate, global greenhouse gas emissions need to be brought down to between 60 and 80 per cent below current levelsprecisely the reverse of emissions forecasts recently produced by the International Energy. Agency. A good start would be the ratification and speedy implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, which should be superseded after the following decade by the "contraction and convergence" model proposed by the Global Commons Institute in London (www.gci.org.uk), allocating equal per-person emissions rights among all the world's nations. In the meantime, a network of campaigning groups is currently mobilising under the banner of "No new oil", demanding an end to the exploration and development of new fossil fuel reserves, on the basis that current reserves alone include enough oil, coal and gas utterly to destabilise the world's climate. Searching for more is just as illogical as it is wasteful. Avoiding dangerous climate change and other large-scale environmental crises will need to become the key organising principle around which societies evolve. All the signs are that few in power realise thisleast of all the current US administration, which has committed itself to a policy of wanton destructiveness, with control and exploitation of oil supplies a central theme. We must abandon the old mindset that demands an oil-based economy, not just because it sparks wars and terrorism, but because the future of life on earth depends on leaving it behind.

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