A Brave New World of Aldous Huxley...or the « mad scientist » complex
Thursday 12 May 2005, in the morning on the French radio France-Inter a biologist, Henri Atlan, who is also a specialist of Kabbale, was interviewed. I had to study his texts during my own bioethics studies, because he was a friend of a lecturer at the UCL, Mrs. Baum (who, I am opening a parenthesis, had a liking for all the weirdest « scientific » theories, and went up to justifying reproductive human cloning).
The book this biologist came to present spoke of researches in the field of prospective science, and notably of an « artificial uterus », which would enable humans embryos and fetuses to be grown outside of a woman’s womb. This is an idea which appears already in a famous anticipation fiction of Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World. You may read the whole book by Huxley online here: http://somaweb.org/w/sub/Brave%20New%20World%20fulltext.html
According to Atlan, the problem was being approached under two angles: the first was that of scientists seeking to perfect incubators so as to allow great prematures to survive, under 24 weeks (the absolute limit for viability nowadays). The second angle was that of studying how to maintain alive uterus cells in vitro in order for them to grow out and form an artificial uterus.
One of the problems in the discussion of Atlan was precisely that his starting point was ideological: he made it clear that he was seeking to suppress the « curse » contained in the Bible (Genesis) which explains that as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, God told to the woman:
There is a problem when scientists imagine they have accounts to settle with God. In the first place, in an era where people have taken to consider sacred texts with a historical eye, and beyond its primary meaning, Mr. Atlan betrays the dangers of his too litteral interpretation of a sacred text. Ancients sought to explain the pain in the birth by an answer attributing the reason for the woman’s pain to an ancient malediction. And it might also be construed as a poetic explanation to the fallibility and fragility of human existence.
Mr. Atlan (maybe betraying his kabbalistic training there) took the text in its first meaning, its litteral meaning, but he would certainly be most astonished if you compared him to the orthodox Jews or Muslims of the Wahabit sect. I refer the readers of this blog to this interesting site for an exegesis (Catholic) on the meaning of the passage of Genesis quoted by Atlan: http://biblescripture.net/First.html It explains how the passage does not mean "curse", but hope! I particularly commend the theological references in the endnotes.
The second problem is that science is not there to settle personal accounts with God. It is there to help humanity to progress, not to act upon feelings.
The journalist, Stéphane Paoli, went even further with his (secrete) dreams by asking : « is it then the end of paradise and/or hell ?» The secrete dream of secular activists (and France-Inter is a nest of them) is precisely of putting an end to what they view as dangerous myths for the advancement of man - i.e. religions as a whole. Despite these shortcomings, and the all too frequent reports of journalists who tend to confound fact and opinion I must confess to finding that radio about the only French radio which may be tolerably be listened to. Maybe because I seldom hear intellectual subjects being considered on other radios. The parenthesis is closed.
It is maybe a Promothean dream, of being able to master life from its beginning to its end, but it misses one important factor. The human being has not overcome the one decisive factor: the fact that he is destined to have a limited existence, and that he is vulnerable. However long time you may maintain your existence with new cures, you remain a poor human vulnerable to the hand of Fate under the form of an accident.
It is however this Promothean dream of telling God « look, I have emancipated from You, and I decide totally from the moment of my death! » that brings people to accept ideas such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research.
The drama of what might be considered as the elucubrations of « mad scientists » is that they fail to see how they think to emancipate from a transcending power to fall into the hands of a very temporal power. Giving birth outside of a woman’s womb may also mean a closer control and monitoring by other actors of your child, and your access to fertility - as in « A Brave new world». There is also another more harmful meaning behind this technique: access to such dispendious techniques will mean in the future that « painless » reproduction for the woman will be reserved to the elites, and not to the rank-and-file citizen. It is already the basis for a society of discrimination and social domination.
There is another point, but it concerns the child: what sort of child will be a child born in such circumstances? We have on the one hand the positive evidence of children conceived in vitro, and who seem to be quite natural and well-adapted in society. But they grew within a woman’s womb, a womb which loved them. What about children in a totally disincarnate environment? Atlan seemed to try to reply to the objection when he said that the stimuli of the womb could try to be reproduced by the parents... But we do not know enough of the psyche of the children to reply to that.
It is always worth going beyond the arguments of proponents of « scientific advances » to discover their hidden motivations. In the case of Atlan, he was rather honest in exposing his personal motivations for pushing forward this idea. But maybe that his ideas are pushing forward a greater curse for humanity than the one he reads in the Genesis...
The book this biologist came to present spoke of researches in the field of prospective science, and notably of an « artificial uterus », which would enable humans embryos and fetuses to be grown outside of a woman’s womb. This is an idea which appears already in a famous anticipation fiction of Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World. You may read the whole book by Huxley online here: http://somaweb.org/w/sub/Brave%20New%20World%20fulltext.html
According to Atlan, the problem was being approached under two angles: the first was that of scientists seeking to perfect incubators so as to allow great prematures to survive, under 24 weeks (the absolute limit for viability nowadays). The second angle was that of studying how to maintain alive uterus cells in vitro in order for them to grow out and form an artificial uterus.
One of the problems in the discussion of Atlan was precisely that his starting point was ideological: he made it clear that he was seeking to suppress the « curse » contained in the Bible (Genesis) which explains that as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, God told to the woman:
I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;
in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; (Gen., 3, v. 16)
There is a problem when scientists imagine they have accounts to settle with God. In the first place, in an era where people have taken to consider sacred texts with a historical eye, and beyond its primary meaning, Mr. Atlan betrays the dangers of his too litteral interpretation of a sacred text. Ancients sought to explain the pain in the birth by an answer attributing the reason for the woman’s pain to an ancient malediction. And it might also be construed as a poetic explanation to the fallibility and fragility of human existence.
Mr. Atlan (maybe betraying his kabbalistic training there) took the text in its first meaning, its litteral meaning, but he would certainly be most astonished if you compared him to the orthodox Jews or Muslims of the Wahabit sect. I refer the readers of this blog to this interesting site for an exegesis (Catholic) on the meaning of the passage of Genesis quoted by Atlan: http://biblescripture.net/First.html It explains how the passage does not mean "curse", but hope! I particularly commend the theological references in the endnotes.
The second problem is that science is not there to settle personal accounts with God. It is there to help humanity to progress, not to act upon feelings.
The journalist, Stéphane Paoli, went even further with his (secrete) dreams by asking : « is it then the end of paradise and/or hell ?» The secrete dream of secular activists (and France-Inter is a nest of them) is precisely of putting an end to what they view as dangerous myths for the advancement of man - i.e. religions as a whole. Despite these shortcomings, and the all too frequent reports of journalists who tend to confound fact and opinion I must confess to finding that radio about the only French radio which may be tolerably be listened to. Maybe because I seldom hear intellectual subjects being considered on other radios. The parenthesis is closed.
It is maybe a Promothean dream, of being able to master life from its beginning to its end, but it misses one important factor. The human being has not overcome the one decisive factor: the fact that he is destined to have a limited existence, and that he is vulnerable. However long time you may maintain your existence with new cures, you remain a poor human vulnerable to the hand of Fate under the form of an accident.
It is however this Promothean dream of telling God « look, I have emancipated from You, and I decide totally from the moment of my death! » that brings people to accept ideas such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research.
The drama of what might be considered as the elucubrations of « mad scientists » is that they fail to see how they think to emancipate from a transcending power to fall into the hands of a very temporal power. Giving birth outside of a woman’s womb may also mean a closer control and monitoring by other actors of your child, and your access to fertility - as in « A Brave new world». There is also another more harmful meaning behind this technique: access to such dispendious techniques will mean in the future that « painless » reproduction for the woman will be reserved to the elites, and not to the rank-and-file citizen. It is already the basis for a society of discrimination and social domination.
There is another point, but it concerns the child: what sort of child will be a child born in such circumstances? We have on the one hand the positive evidence of children conceived in vitro, and who seem to be quite natural and well-adapted in society. But they grew within a woman’s womb, a womb which loved them. What about children in a totally disincarnate environment? Atlan seemed to try to reply to the objection when he said that the stimuli of the womb could try to be reproduced by the parents... But we do not know enough of the psyche of the children to reply to that.
It is always worth going beyond the arguments of proponents of « scientific advances » to discover their hidden motivations. In the case of Atlan, he was rather honest in exposing his personal motivations for pushing forward this idea. But maybe that his ideas are pushing forward a greater curse for humanity than the one he reads in the Genesis...
posted by dawnofeurope | 9:15 pm
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