I am making my way through *Lifelines* by Steve Rose and I am finding it
very interesting. He was interviewed as one of the influential individuals
who are working on a cure for Altzheimers. He is also very critical of
Dawkins and others who speak the ideology of a selfish gene which is not
even scientifically accurate.
Dawkins for example uses genes as a theoretical concept not as in dna in
which it is often understood. Dawkins is striaght forward about this
differentiation but doesn't think it makes a difference. Rose thinks it
does and makes some good arguments against threoretical reductionism. It
is not so much things should be / should not be known but the deterministic
way it which those things are being reasoned about.
I think Ethel's challenge is important in that we need to become
knowledgeable about such things to combat the dangerous reasoning that so
often occurs in that field. Even at the genetic level we need to be
concerned what happens within and outside the garden. I also think that
because of our history biological explanations have been seen as god,
Darwin, or nature in a very deterministic way as in that is how things
should be.
So for me, it the dialectical relationship between the baby and the bath
water. They are mutually transforming each other and centrating solely on
one or the other give us a very limited view of the process. Is shooting
up children who have cancer with morphine because of the children's pain or
the desire to hire fewer nurses. ADHD is one of those scenarials that
school teachers observe and its true that some kids are able to perform in
school better with Ritilin than without. And those same kids probally feel
they are somehow different than other kids. But is this a problem in the
kids or in the activity we call schooling. Many of those children do not
take Ritilin during the summer or vacations because it isn't needed.
There seems to be evidence mounting that some of the recent school
shootings are related to an undialectical approach of giving children
certain medication. The success or lack of success in curing Altzheimers
will only occur if a dialectical approach to medicine occurs. So, as Rose
points out it is not so much a question of bad ideology, which it is, but
even more so bad science. A science that refers to genes as an abstract
unit of anaysis that has no material basis. Of course, this talk of genes
is consumed materially which is very dangerous.
Nate
----- Original Message -----
From: John St. Julien <stjulien who-is-at UDel.Edu>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 25, 1999 11:30 AM
Subject: Re: If your brain is sick, or you're over-emotional, the news
isgood!
Phil, others,
I am not sure where the moral outrage I see expressed fairly regularly here
about biology and technology comes from.
Is it that such things simply should not be known?
or
is it that folks don't trust people to act humanely if biology is well
understood?
or, I suppose
both?
I sometimes get the feelling that the ideas themselves are considered
anti-human and that demostrating that some of them are resulting in
consequential technologies is understood as morally bankrupt.
Am I misreading the position?
Should we be angry at the theorists, the technologizers, or the people who
consume the technology?
Instant caveat: I too am outraged by the idea of Soma; but, that outrage
has to share some place of honor with my outrage at the presence in the
lives of friends and relatives of Altzheimers, aids dementia, Parkinson's,
suicidal depression, and other, demonstrably organic, definitely
dehumanizing, conditions. Where does the baby end and the bath water begin?
John St. Julien
>Re our recent discussion on the emerging neo-eugenics:
>
>I just had to share this with you all. It's especially nasty. I've come
>across some insidious stuff lately, but this one really takes the cherry.
>It's from a piece by
>
>Coates, J. (1998). "The next twenty-five years of technology:
opportunities
>and risks". In 21st Century technologies: Promises and perils of a dynamic
>future, OECD. (1998), (pp. 33-46). Paris: OECD.
>
>"Every mental characteristic, whether it is a matter of personality,
>cognition, or emotionality, will eventually be identified as a biochemical
>process which is itself largely genetically determined and hence a
>candidate for intervention. Those interventions may be pharmaceutical or
>they may be genetic, acoustic, visual, or by means yet to be developed [as
>if the former already had been PG]. A substantial step in the direction of
>brain technology is the current popularity (!) of the drug Prozac , which
>was developed to deal with depression. So far it is the closest approach
to
>Aldous Huxley's soma, the "feel good" drug. It has in just a few years
>become one of the most widely sold drugs in the United States.
>
>The demand is there for mental improvement and enhancement, and the
>technologies are just beginning to emerge. Within the next decade,
>schizophrenia and psychotic depression will be history in World 1 [I
assume
>he means the First World here PG], as the fundamental physiology, genetics
>and biochemistry are worked out and the appropriate cures - or more
>importantly, preventative strategies - are developed. Brain technologies
>will go well beyond disease, offering relief for the person who is
>short-tempered the person who has no sense of humour, the person who is
>overly emotional. And relief from these conditions will find a substantial
>market. Beyond that will be the possibility and later the practice of
>enhancing people's cognitive processes, enabling them to think more
>clearly, to have a better command of arithmetic, to have a better memory
>for faces, to be more generous and loving, or to be less prideful or
>slothful." (Coates, 1998, p. 42).
>
>Policy goons are formulating laws (the US has already ratified this
>perspective in law) on the basis of these fundamentalist lunatics' work.
>This guy _wants_ Huxley's Brave New World. He really believes in it.
Huxley
>was also a eugenicist, wasn't he? Or was that his father? ... Arrrhgggggg,
>what the hell ..
>
>Phil
>Phil Graham
>p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
>http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html