On Origins and the Molecular Basis of Life

I've said on a number of posts, mostly about the possibility of life on other planets, that I don't particularly buy into the idea of a chemical origin of life. This often leads to some awkwardness in my professional life. I have advanced degrees in life sciences; how can I disregard actual science in favor of a purely religious point of view?

I don't reject a naturalistic explanation of the origin of life on purely religious grounds. Even in the absence of a motivating faith, the ideas regarding the chemical origin of life don't inspire confidence. Frankly, I find it requires more faith to believe that life arose out of a primordial soup than not, a conclusion in search of evidence to support it, and the evidence is wanting.

In all of the posts where I've mentioned this, I've said that I ought to explain why at some point. This is an attempt to do so, and like the theory itself, this explanation is complicated.

A Tale of Two Men

It's been utterly bizarre to see the riots ripping across Ferguson, the massive protests, and general mayhem all around. I grew up in the St. Louis area. These are the sorts of things that happen elsewhere. St. Louis has its problems, but it's always seemed like a rational place, a safe place. Perhaps that was naivete on the part of a sheltered youth.

Nevertheless, the firestorm all began because of the actions and death of a man, Michael Brown. At this time, here's what we can say with certainty: On August 9th, Brown stole cigars from a convenience store, using his imposing figure to intimidate the proprietor, even shoving him around. A few minutes later, he was stopped by a police officer, Darren Wilson, leading to a confrontation that prompted Wilson to fatally shoot Brown. We learn more about that confrontation as the days go on; a lot of people have already reached conclusions as to whether the shooting was justified or not. My point actually has little to do with that.
(See the rest below the fold.)

Pelosi and the Pope

Not a news story per se, but I enjoy this National Review post discussing Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to the Vatican. The short version is that the Pope gave her (and by extension, all pro-choice Catholic politicians) a dressing down for supporting abortion.

While it's no secret that I disagree with Catholic theology (one of these days we'll finish a conversation, Ryan) on everything that separates them from Protestants, I appreciate that the Pope doesn't pull any punches on this issue. In the structure of the Catholic church, there is no room for "disagreement" on issues like this. If you're going to claim the church as your own, you have some requirements to meet. I think that the broader Christian church is the same in principle, though there's obviously no central power structure for enforcement. Not that we've seen any pro-choice Catholic politicians excommunicated recently.

I must disagree with the author of this on one point, however. He states that politicians like Pelosi are where they are because they're poorly catechized, getting their teachings from high-brow Catholic intellectuals who don't want to deal with "embarrassing" teachings. I can't give them this much leeway. The teachings of the Catholic church are accessible enough that there should be no mystery on what it really teaches. For crying out loud, Pelosi just got it from the horse's mouth (so to speak). If she suddenly changes course and becomes a pro-life politician, I'll offer up a heartfelt apology, but I doubt she, nor any other pro-choice Catholic politician, is going to change anytime soon. These people hold onto their religious affiliation, I suspect, out of political expediency, even necessity, rather than any heartfelt conviction. Perhaps it's the cultural identity that they desire instead. Either way, there is no other explanation for people who claim a title while denying its most important or relevant teachings.

Why a pro-life person can't vote for Obama

This is related to my post below. The Hot Air piece did include a section on abortion. However, this is a much more comprehensive article on that subject in itself, so it's a must read if you consider yourself pro-life and are considering voting for Obama this year.

The most eye-catching indictment is that Obama intends to sign the freedom of choice act as soon as he's in office, which would make abortions a right in federal law, provide public funds for abortions (though public health aid), and remove conscience clauses that allow physicians and nurses to opt out of such procedures on moral grounds.

There's lots more, including analysis both on what he would do as president and what he has already done as a senator (state and national).

The bottom line is that Obama is in no way, shape, or form a pro-life candidate. If that platform is important to you, then there is no justifying a vote for him.

The Banality of Evil

Today in lecture, we were discussing the diagnosis of genetic diseases, sickle cell anemia and thalassemia in particular.

Thalassemia is a rather brutal disease when one is homozygous for the disease. It's not pretty. The lecturer discussed various methods by which the Italian island of Sardinia reduced the number of cases of people with the advanced form of the disease. Genetic counseling and widespread testing lead to people not having children if they were at risk of having diseased children.

If that had been all, I would have been fine with it. The professor also decided to mention prenatal testing, and cited abortion as the obvious outcome of such a procedure. She made reference to Italy legalizing abortion in the 70s, and apparently no one has looked back. She made a joke about the Pope being free to mind his own business. Some people in the class chuckled.

I'm not going to pretend that such decisions are easy to make. It's certainly a heavy matter to find out that your child is going to be born with a painfully crippling disease. This doesn't change the morality of such a decision, but I'm not going to trivialize it.

Still, the amazing thing to me was how glib the professor was about the matter, as if she was referring to something as simple as an appendectomy. Some people laughed when she acted glibly about it; I think you could have picked my jaw off the floor.

There are some thing I'll just never understand.

For Me, Not Thee

I saw something about this in an article the other day, but it was mentioned in an off-hand way so that I didn't think too much about it.

At York University (Canada), the student government is voting on a measure to ban all student-led pro-life groups from campus. Their reasoning? It violates women's rights to allow someone to tell them that abortion is wrong or to call it murder.

One of the things to keep in mind is that most of the student body has left for the summer, so some people might be returning in the fall to find out that their group has been disbanded by order of the student government. What better time to enact such matters than when the plebians are least likely to complain?

I can't fathom the mindset of such people. Is it that they think there is some redeeming quality to taking away someone's right to free speech? Or is it that they genuinely think women have a right to be inoculated against pro-life messages? Either way, the thinking is alien to me.

Hat tip: Ace

What is the definition of awkward?

Awkward adj.

6.	hard to deal with; difficult; requiring skill, tact, or the like: an awkward situation; an awkward customer.

7.	embarrassing or inconvenient; caused by lack of social grace: an awkward moment

Example: Woman orders her husband, in a coma, taken off of life support. Two weeks later, he wakes up.

Awkward . . .

A Stem Cell Solution?

Here's a very interesting tidbit of news: Some scientists have developed a method for turning adult cells into "embryonic" stem cells.

Nature reports that the scientists have manged to turn fibroblasts, a type of skin cell, into pluripotent cells. Pluripotency is the ability to transform into any cell type, and it's the major attraction to embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can transform into other cell types, but not into any type.

The method works by transduction of four genes into the fibroblasts. These genes code for proteins which transform the cells into pluripotent cells.

While the experiments were done in mice, similar techniques have so far been unsuccessful in humans. Still, these results hold the potential to allow for pluripotent "stem cells" to be made from a patient's own cells, without the need to destroy embryos or clone them for the purpose of destroying them.

Again, the process isn't perfected yet. Transplantation of these cells into the mice resulted in cancer in ~20% of the test animals. As I recall, this kind of result is not unusual for implantation of embryonic stem cells into an adult subject. Still, there is promise to these results, and as the authors conclude, should have immediate application in the lab.

The political implications of this research could (or should) be far reaching. Embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) should become less necessary. Without any need to destroy embryos, there is no reason for anybody to object to the areas of research previously considered taboo.

Hopefully, this will also apply to those supporters of ESCR whose rhetoric displayed what seemed like a creepy eagerness to destroy embryos for the sake of research. I'd prefer that changes in political policy such as this be directed by a change in respect for the sanctity of life. However, I'm a pragmatic man, and anything that will ultimately help save lives that might have been sacrificed on the altar of science is a good development to me.

Pro-choice . . . but which one?

Over at his blog, Dr. Mohler writes about a NYT article regarding selective abortions.

Side Note: Is it weird for me to be writing an article about an article about an article? It seems like some sort of joke waiting to happen.

The gist of the original article centers around decisions to abort for defects such as Down's Syndrome, which is relatively non-controversial in pro-choice circles. However, the more interesting part comes from the selective abortions which are starting to become more commonplace.

I've written about sex-selection abortions in India before on this blog. It's a horrible topic, partly because abortion itself is so horrible and partly because so many people are unwilling to say that such a thing is wrong, even the feminists. The NYT article seems to highlight the latter, as abortions for sex or for cosmetic defect are becoming more prevalent.

Is there no dignity left to mankind? Have we fallen so far as to think one better off dead than to live with even minor inconveniences?

I shouldn't have to say it, but selective abortions are the height of selfishness. It's not an abortion for reasons like, "I can't take care of the child, I want to pursue my career, my parents will be angry," etc. It's, "Oh, I want a child, just not this child." I cannot begin to describe how that attitude makes me feel.

To me, this is indicative of the problem of abortion in total. Let's say you wanted to outlaw selective abortions. How do you distinguish between selective abortions and those for "normal" reasons? It strikes me as similar to hate crime laws. Something that is legal (or a minor infraction) might become super-duper bad based solely on the mindset of the action. In this case, an action would be seen as bad based on one motive but good (or at least neutral) under another.

Shouldn't it be bad always? What makes the difference? Or is it a lack of imagination on my part to not see the distinction?

Designer Defects

Here's a story that just makes me shake my head in disgust: A New York Post article all about parents who design their children to have the same disabilities as them, such as dwarfism or deafness.

Such is the madness of our time, I suppose. I've read some people attributing this phenomenon to the very strident identity politics for some of these groups, but all I can think is that such a thing is a sickness.

There was a time when people actually considered defects to be, well, defects. Curses of fate, or what not. Not something you would actively want, or worse, willfully inflict on another person.

Yes, yes, you want a child that is like you. But why would you curse your child to share your disability? Why put them through a lifetime of hardship and trauma just to satisfy your ego? Yes, hardship can bring character, but we usually prefer to have our character built by fate and not by purpose.

What will you tell your children? How will you explain to them that they might have lead a normal life, but you handicapped them to stroke your self-satisfaction?

And where should we draw the line? If parents are allowed to design their children to be deaf or dwarfed, what about paralysis? Should parents be given the liberty to sever their children's spinal columns? How about amputation? What makes genetic defects all right but physical handicaps off limits?

No, this is only a sign of people who love themselves more than their children, as evidenced that they would deliberately inflict this on their offspring. It's utterly degenerate, and I hope such practices are put to an end.

Stem Wars Over?

I've devoted many an electron towards blogging about embryonic stem cell research; reasons why I opposed it, developments in alternative extraction, and so forth. It's a rough issue because many of its proponents frame it in a, "We're doing moral good with this research, so you have to support it!" It's half-way convincing, of course, but isn't that the problem with any good lie? You only have to spend a moment to voice it but a lifetime to refute it.

Anyhow, it seems that a compromise everyone can live with may have arrived. A group, publishing in Nature Biotech., has reported taking stem cells from amniotic fluid and creating both viable cell lines as well as differentiated tissue.

Are the cells the same as embryonic stem cells? Well, the researchers are uncertain at this point. However, because these cells seem to offer the same flexibility as those coveted embryonic cells, it seems that they may be a suitable alternative.

Like I always say, the science needs to progress further before any definitive pronouncements can be made on the subject. But I can only hope that people will let the politics slide out of this issue and support a morally neutral source of cells compared to methods that are morally disputed.

Hat tip: Big Lizards, who is, incidentally, guest blogging for Michelle Malkin while she's away in Iraq.

Life: What is it good for?

You may have noticed, but I'm pretty much taking a "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" approach to blogging today (Thanks Fark). With that in mind, here are three articles I found interesting, and actually quite related:

Yuval Levin Dissects the results of the Amendment 2 vote in Missouri
Church of England wants to let sick newborns die
Doctor to pay support for unwanted baby after birth control device fails

They're all interesting articles, and I could do a big write-up on all three of them. I won't, of course; I'm feeling too lazy for that today. But I notice a trend floating through these three articles: Respect for human life.

I'm one of those people who argue that there is something intrisically special about human life, that ending the life of another person should be carefully considered and not taken lightly. I've argued about slippery slopes with people, and there are many who think that the "slippery slope" argument is faulty logic. And sometimes it is. But consider the evidence before us: A state consitutional amendment guaranteeing the creation of human embryos for the purpose of destroying them; A major Christian sect declaring that some life just isn't worth trying to save; A mother suing a doctor because she never wanted her son.

Think what you will, but I see a disturbing trend, and I'd rather not think about where this could lead.

The Value of Life

In a previous discussion, there was some debate over the difference in value between animal life and human life. I thought it might be worthwhile to lay my cards on the table over the distinction I place on the two.

I could make a theological argument here, but I don't think that would be very helpful. Not only because most of my readers aren't Christians, but also because it would make for a very short post. A quick reference to the first few chapters of Genesis, and there you go. Humans > animals.

For the philosophical, non-religious approach, I can sum up my argument in two words: Intellectual Capacity.

Though humanity displays varying degrees of it, intelligence is the factor that distinguishes us from the lower life forms. A few different manifestations of this capability of humanity are worth expanding on:

Science, Art/Music, Culture - Some of the greatest accomplishments of mankind are summed up in those concepts. The quest to explore the natural order and better the lot of humanity through those discoveries is only possible because of mankind's capacity for rational thought. The fine arts are sometimes rationalized as being evolutionarily similar to mating rituals in other species, be it colorful displays or sound-based mating calls. I think, however, that the reliance of abstract principles in art and music take it well beyond simply an attempt to impress the opposite sex and increase mating potential.

Conservation - Mankind is unique amongst the denizens of this planet in its approach to conservation. Yes, people do argue over the best way to implement conservatory principles. Some want to consume away and let scientific advancement deal with the consequences. Others would prefer that we level our cities and do nothing to disrupt the natural balance anywhere. But inbetween those two extremes, mankind agrees that nature should be preserved in some way. We recognize that our dependence on the world around us requires us to ensure its survival so that we, as a species, will also survive.

Contrast this with animals. Nature has many controls built in so that most ecosystems are in balance. Food supply, predatory population, reproductive capacity; these things keep animal populations in check. But as we see with deer, as an example, if you remove one of those controls, the animals have no sense of conservation. They will eat and breed until their territory can no longer sustain them. They then either die or spread out. Mankind, at least in part, recognizes that it cannot live in that manner.

Morality and Ethics - I'd consider this one of the most important aspects of intellectual thought that sets man apart from animals. Animals are driven, by and large, by physical and instinctual impulses. The questions an animal usually has to answer at any given time mostly consist of, "Am I hungry? Am I safe? Am I in danger? Am I bored? Could I be mating?" Ethics and morality do not enter into this. A bear will not wonder about the ethical ramifications of eating a smaller animal. Its thoughts, I can only assume, center around satiating its hunger and finding an animal small enough to kill but large enough to satisfy.

That mankind can ponder the morality of animal life is a sign of its superiority. And part of what sets human life above animals is that we recognize this capacity in others. When we consider our actions, we do not account only for how it affects us. We also account for how it affects those around us. Any number of specific examples could be cited to contradict this, but it is the case in general.

I could write more. The point is that mankind's intelligence sets it apart from the animal kingdom, and it is the value of this capacity, and also a function of it, that sets the value of a human life above that of an animal.

Stem Cells from "Dead" Embryos

According to this article at Science, some researchers in Europe report that they were able to develop human embryonic stem cell lines from embryos, left over from in vitro fertilization, that had ceased to divide. I'm not certain, but I'm assuming that they're dead or dying if they've ceased to divide.

In a paper published online yesterday in Stem Cells, the researchers report that they succeeded in generating pluripotent human ES cell lines--i.e., cells that can develop into many different kinds of cells-- from one of the 13 late-arrested embryos. To ascertain that they had stopped growing permanently, the scientists waited up to 2 days after the last cell division before trying to cultivate them. They then plated the embryos on a growth medium. Five of the 13 cultures generated outgrowths. And of these, two developed cells with ES cell characteristics. One of these was cultivated into a "fully characterized" human ES cell line, proving that it could differentiate into all three germ layers both in the dish and in live mice. The earlier-arrested embryos did not produce ES cell lines.

On the one hand, this seems like a decent compromise. They only use embryos that had ceased to divide, meaning that potentially viable embryos are spared the treatment.

On the other, there's a whole host of other concerns. There's always the fear that scientists or doctors will simply make embryos wholesale to be used for research. Alternatively, researchers might artificially "arrest" the development of the embryos to make them qualify for research. And for people who find IVF morally untenable, this is just another unfit solution.

If this is the best compromise we can get on ESCR, then I suppose I'll take it. The biggest issue will be regulating the harvesting. Time, and more research, will show the potential of this new development.