Cerebral Fodder
October 2009
Genetic Destiny—reflections on the
new biology
by Jayant Deshpande
first appeared in
NEW Quest, No. 175-176 (Jan-June 2009)
The swine flu virus—H1N1 strain—made a
dramatic appearance in April this year, with its first human hosts in
A pandemic virus transcends all boundaries,
and is truly global in its reach—it’s yet another form of terror; a threat
unlike the premeditated bombings by human terrorists, suicidal or not. I began
with the swine flu virus—which could mutate and evolve into more deadly
strains—not only because it is topical, but because it ties in with ideas
concerning Darwinian evolution and its ongoing conflict with genetic
experiments, or interventions, that are already underway in various forms like
cloning or genetically modified foods.
Genetic modification has been going on for
eons in the open laboratory that is Darwinian evolution by natural selection
(or survival of the fittest)—and now also in man-made labs by genetic
engineering. But in natural selection the modification is obviously not ‘designed’.
The eminent geneticist, Richard Dawkins, has fleshed this out:
“Both natural selection (which gave us the
maize plant) and artificial selection (which lengthened its cobs thirty-fold)
depend upon random genetic error—mutation—and recombination, followed by
non-random survival. The difference is that in natural selection the fittest
automatically survive. In artificial selection we choose the survivors, and we
may also arrange cunning hybridization regimes. In genetic engineering we
additionally exercise control over the mutations themselves. We do this either
by directly doctoring the genes, or by importing them from another species.”
(from the article “Where do the real dangers of genetic engineering lie?”—August, 1998)
And he has warned that engineering can
upset the balance achieved by natural selection, which “favors genes that have
had plenty of time to get adjusted to the other genes that are also being
favored in the species.” So the potential for abuse, foul play, commercial
exploitation and damage to the natural environment is greater.
‘Designer genes’ has become the catch
phrase for products of human genetic engineering. We can try to ‘acquire’ the
traits we desire—like good looks, better health, athletic ability, a high IQ—by
genetically interfering with the reproductive process, now called
reprogenetics. The older term, eugenics, refers to the improvement of the human
gene pool by continual selective breeding—choosing the ‘fit’ over the ‘unfit’,
a kind of artificial version of Darwinian evolution which man has been
practising for millennia. Reprogenetics would supposedly be pursued voluntarily
by individuals, whereas eugenics had, and has, a whiff of the political about
it since dictatorial or illegitimate governments can force it on their people.
There are two different ways to change
human genes. One is at the body level: somatic gene therapy, in which new,
modified genes are delivered to the cells of an individual with an existing
medical condition, hoping that those cells can be coaxed into making its own
medicine. The other is at the embryonic level: germline genetic engineering,
where ‘germ’ refers to human egg and sperm cells—scientists would select a cell
from a week-old fertilized embryo, and would add to, remove or modify some of
its genes. They could also insert artificial chromosomes that contain
predesigned genes. Then the cell would be placed inside an egg—with its nucleus
removed—and the resulting new embryo would be implanted in a woman; if all went
according to plan, that embryo would grow into a genetically engineered child,
whose genes would make proteins that meet his parents’ choices and those of the
companies and clinicians who sell the genes.
There is in nature the innate power to
outwit us, as random mutations may also produce genes that could turn out to be
superior to the ones we design. What would compromising that diversity in
nature lead to? A side-effect of designing genes to gain a certain advantage is
what the writer, Bill McKibben, calls “setting off a kind of biological arms
race”—people will compete with each other and try to come up with
better-designed genes for the same desirable traits. The only impediment would
be the divide between the rich and poor, which would be sustained by those who
already possess relatively superior traits, and are more affluent. So this
becomes a war on perceived ‘imperfections’: hired genetic engineers would
continually select and fine tune the genes involved to stay one step ahead of
competitors, in a frantic bid to control their client’s destiny.
But even as we engage in all this
manipulation we face the age-old question: what does it mean to be human?
When asked about human cloning, Jonathan
Sacks, the British rabbi, felt that it violated the “mystery at the heart of
the human condition,” which is the quality of “otherness” among people. Echoing
that sentiment, McKibben notes that “Right now both the genes, and the limits
they set on us, connect us with every human being that came before.”
Let’s probe this
further.
Is being human related to flesh and blood,
and consciousness? To the seemingly irrational: intuition, emotion, sympathy,
empathy, pity, dreaming, religious belief, superstition? And to these
qualities: intent, reason and imagination, humour, introspection, foresight?
Steven Pinker, the evolutionary psychologist, has posed a deceptively simple
question: Where does being human end and the in-human or non-human begin? Not
an easy question to answer.
Artificial intelligence started with programmable
robots, but hasn't got much further than that in terms of qualities we
recognize as human. In his book, Mind
Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (1988), Hans Moravec
actually speaks of robots or machine intelligence as an aspect of human
evolution: Darwinian evolution by natural selection led to our intelligent
brain. Similarly, our intelligence could build machine intelligence to
replicate and surpass our intelligence—the 'Mind Children' he speaks of. That's
the next step in the evolutionary process. These ‘children’ will be free of the
biological constraints that now define us, thus defining a new level of
awareness.
Perhaps the vision here is to transcend the
biological basis for intelligence—and to also rid ourselves of all the other
problems associated with the limitations of the flesh: emotional stress,
disease, aging.
Moravec's ideas seem to run in parallel
with the older notion of eugenics, or selective breeding to create an ideal or
superior community. But evolutionary theorists are warning us about the perils
of eugenics: the physical disparities among humans will increase, and the
natural immunities we now enjoy might be reduced as our reliance on science and
technology increases. Moravec's 'Mind Children' will be even less 'human' in
the sense we now think of humans: they will have superior intelligence and will
also be free of all the biological ills that plague us. In a very strong sense
Moravec wants to bequeath only the best traits humans now possess—the implicit
meaning would be that humans will, by way of machine intelligence, really and
truly evolve to a higher state of being within our lifetime, without the
limitations of Darwinian evolution.
The 'Turing' test is likely still the
benchmark to decide whether that 'human' quality has been attained: can someone
interacting with both the robot and a flesh and blood human being tell the
difference? If he can't, the robot has passed the test!
But here's the rub: no matter what utopia we
manage to attain, we'll only exchange one set of problems for another—in that
sense there can really be no utopia. Perfection is just an abstraction. What
obtains in practice are degrees of closeness—or approximation—to that ideal,
and the hope that goes with it. I've always believed that in the end that is
the indefinable yet eternal quality of human life. Uncertainty and variety are
its hallmarks. Let the genes fall where they may, and let the mind wander where
it might. Revel in the unpredictability of
it all, not fear it. The moral absolutes will provide the anchor.
In his pursuit of a transcendent machine
intelligence, Moravec is really emphasizing the inexorable process of man's
evolution in every way possible—a result of that eternal quest for the ‘other’
by an ever-curious brain.
We now have virtual representations of just
about everything, including human beings, thus leading to notions of bionic
man, as though the merely functional were a substitute for God's creatures. Can
everything actually be programmed to mimic the living, minus the key
characteristics of being like intention, awareness? Logical thinking, brilliant
deductions made by connecting disparate things could be mimicked by software
for that purpose. But what about the totality?
The predictability of disease and death,
and other failings, has heretofore been the foundation of what it means to be
human. But through reprogenetics, or what could be called cyber-genics,* an artificial method of ensuring desirable traits
seems to be taking over the imagination, leading to new states of 'humanity' or
quasi-humanity and new forms of human societies with their own norms and
values—a sort of cyber-genic vision that is now on the cards as a possible
utopia that is considered by many critics to be just another dystopia conjured
up by those fed up with the fallibility of present-day humans. In fact, the
current obsession with computers, or the computable and programmable, along with
the new genetics—genetic screening and profiling, gene modification, gene
therapy, reprogenetics—has quickly morphed into visions of a more predictable
existence where every ill has a remedy, every function has built-in perfection
and 100% efficiency. Even virtual sex, with every manner of cyber-aid, is not
exempt. And morality itself would be obsolete, since any perceived wrong could
be righted.
But let's deal with the idea of
immortality. Many of us entertain this possibility, in whatever form. Two approaches
face us: slow down aging or help it along with new technologies that alter the
properties or resilience of our cellular tissue, or repair-replace damaged
tissue through stem cell regeneration. Or resort to artificial body parts,
whether they mimic the qualities of flesh or not—an aspect of bionics, now
exemplified by programmable robots. (Artificial limbs are already used widely).
We discern an essential difference between biological material and materials
currently used to make robots. Is gross function sufficient to define human
qualities? Where does the flesh and blood human end and the artificial being
begin? Does mind and consciousness distinguish the two, or can that also be
mimicked? And even if that could be replicated somehow, would the fact of
reproduction by intention and self-organization be the dividing line between
robots and humans? How do we define the natural as opposed to the artificial?
Whatever path we eventually choose, whether
it is quality aging, with repair, or artificial replacements to the extent
possible, longevity seems inevitable and death becomes a choice. To live on and
on may not be a problem, but to choose not
to live will be. Survival of the fittest—by design—is all very well, but we’d
still face this question: survival for what purpose?
In an anthology he edited, titled Future on Ice (1998), Orson Scott Card
argues in his introduction that religion permeates not only ordinary human
life, but it figures prominently even in science fiction (scifi) writing. After
all, in spite of the hard science context or futuristic bent, scifi has at its
core the 'human' nature of being; and so metaphysical, ethical and
psychological questions will always loom large. The different worlds or times
portrayed in the background are man's imaginings; he faces what he has himself
created, but then his thinking or behavior reveals his human nature. Man as a
human being with human persuasions, in the historical sense, takes over to give
meaning to the imagined world. No escape from that.
Yet one can also imagine that scientific
tinkering may well lead to states of mind hitherto unknown, thus redefining the
idea of 'human'. In that case the concerns could conceivably verge on the
super-human; still, that world would only be a fantasy. Intriguing, but hardly
as satisfying as looking at what we already know and recognize as human in
situations that seem plausible—hard scifi, some call it.
In his foreword to Brave New World (1932) Aldous Huxley speaks of the real revolution
being in the flesh and souls of human beings, not the way in which we alter our
external world with the sciences of matter—but how human individuals respond or
are affected by changes due to increased scientific knowledge of one kind or
other. The possibilities for the future are either mere prophecies or solid
predictions of what the world will be like. But the human mind is still the
arbiter.
But such visions might only end up as
metaphorical leaps of the imagination, a brain in overdrive, frustrated with
life as it actually is, and entertaining different worlds of possibility.
Extending our present pre-occupations, or simply giving a new dimension to what
already ails us now. Is that progress, or just a transformation?
To me this whole business of understanding
man and his world is an interplay between the physical—which includes the
emotional, as science tells us—moral and intellectual. Things just assume
different forms as these three dimensions are tossed around, permutated,
possibly leading to new levels of awareness, while the essence remains
unchanged. Perfection of one kind can also mean degradation of another. Left
alone, Darwinian evolution moves at snail's pace, taking eons. If tampered
with, we might speed it up, but the overall consequences would be just as complex
and unpredictable as they are now, with our primordial instincts and limited
means. Progress is really a self-referential idea. We hold up a mirror and
conjure up things.
My guess is that long before we go
extra-terrestrial, extra-solar or intergalactic, we will be experimenting with
the new biology-married-to-the-virtual here on earth. In a rudimentary way this
has already begun. It has been implanted in fertile minds and is even on the
cards in labs toying with an imagined future—the futuristic itch.
As the late J.G. Ballard once said, science
fiction may be set in the distant future, but it's really about the present,
the here and now. What we recognize as ordinarily human about ourselves is forever
in a struggle with the change we're witnessing as we stand perpetually on the
threshold of new knowledge and new technologies that threaten to alter our
existence irreversibly. The way we might respond to and cope with such change
is not a fantasy in some imagined future, but a kind of science fiction that
permeates our daily life in an atmosphere of accelerated change. That is the
scifi that interests me, much more than the fantastic tales set in distant
times in distant worlds. Many creative writers are exploring this ‘fantastic
present', putting their characters in situations that challenge their lives at
this moment.
Culturally, and in a sense even
biologically, we've evolved through trial and error. So there's a kind of
historical relativism in the choices before us on this threshold of
ground-breaking knowledge: they'll be based largely on the way things are at
present. The kind of world we want will depend on the kind of man who can make
it happen. Yet ironically, as soon as we attain a utopia, it ceases to be one.
We're forever reaching new states, each measured in relation to the previous
one. A utopia is just one goal among many.
In the final analysis it's not the
technological possibilities that matter so much as how we respond to the challenges
they throw up. It's easier to adopt the new than to deal with its fallout.
Choice is everything—it determines the outcomes.
Again, whatever the new biology or new
technology has in store, man is still faced with choice and the values that go
with it. We can always build artificial substitutes, like intelligent robots
(or biological clones) to do our drudge work, but not without impacting the
environment—the materials for these substitutes must come from somewhere. If
the Earth continues to be ravaged as we engage less and less of the human in
those drudge tasks, its imbalance poses a threat to all life on earth.
That is the real challenge of new
knowledge: how do we harness it so we continue to survive, develop and evolve
to conquer those frontiers of excessive—misplaced?—hubris. That future is
largely unknown and unpredictable, fraught with unintended consequences. Moral
law in effect sets up rules to go where angels fear to tread, but to then tread
with great care to preserve what we have. Perhaps change only means that we
adopt new values, and morals to secure them. Man may be a curious, searching
being, but he is concomitantly an ethical being—life and existence without
ethics would mean little. And as a collective being he will never be free of
organization and the rules to govern it. Whatever his biologic status, he will
still be governed by ethics and
intelligence. That 'government' can only subsume evil, anarchy, chaos
and destruction—these elements of 'disorder' will not sustain what we value
most: survival with dignity—worn-out clichés, to be sure, but weighted with
profound meaning, no matter how we look at them.
Our cultural evolution is now taking place
at an unprecedented pace, due mainly to the advent of transforming technologies
like advanced computers and communications—intricate devices that are part of
an intricate web that has permeated every aspect of our lives. Cultural
evolution has always outstripped biological evolution. Till now. Today,
advances in genetics make biologic engineering possible. We needn't be trapped
by biology, hence mocking the adage, ‘Biology is destiny’. Now that adage
becomes: ‘Altering that biology to suit us can become our new destiny.’
For genetics to transform our bodies,
making our age irrelevant, or aging obsolete, may take some time. But sooner or
later, we'll be able to acquire the traits we want or fix what is wrong, so
that our physical condition will no longer be an issue when our mind takes
those leaps of the imagination to conquer this world and look for others. Yet
the moral and political questions remain. Bodies keeping pace with ever more
intricate minds will be a kind of mutual escalation of life itself, a
spiralling state of human existence where one aspect challenges the other. And
poses even greater challenges with regard to the kind of society we wish to
'engineer'. That word conjures up nightmares: how and what to engineer? Those
are basically moral, political and philosophical concerns.
Whatever is willfully made possible faces
those concerns—there's no escape from addressing them. Knowledge and biological
invincibility (or power) inevitably means choices, and with those choices comes
politics and moral debate. A pernicious form of reprogenetics infused with
dangerous politics (let’s call it ‘poligenics’) could become the defining
character of human life and society. The knowledge society is already here.
Will a society fashioned by reprogenetics, overcoming the constraints of
nature, follow suit? Darwinian evolution, now the weaker link, need not be a
limiting factor, but will that usher in a politics and social order the likes
of which we've never seen before? As long as we're sentient beings, those
questions will hound us. As they have since the advent of science and the
industrial revolution. The essence of those puzzles, dilemmas, debates—call
them what you will—remains much the same. Whether that highly evolved form of
existence is desirable is a debate we can imagine and engage in even today.
Trying to survive as humans also means
being inquisitive and inventive. That process will go on as always. What it
gives rise to is another thing. That will involve choice—an implicit and
immutable element in any discussion. All else is not necessarily a given, and
will forever be open to debate.
The pleasures of the mind are different
from those of the senses. Sensual pleasures might also get enhanced by genetic
tinkering. Spirit and flesh may vie with each other for supremacy.
It's difficult to predict the possibilities
technology may throw up, whether it is bio- or otherwise. The problems of
survival and choice interact in ways that are unpredictable. But the challenges
they'll present to the way we organize ourselves and act are not so mysterious.
Yet one thing seems certain enough for now:
adaptation through natural selection will not keep pace with the monsters we've
created, affecting both the environment and our lifestyle. The changes we've
wrought—a product of our cultural evolution—have been too rapid for the
mechanism of Darwinian evolution to cope with. Can our genetic experiments to
remove, or reduce, the uncertainty of hereditary outcomes change the pace of
evolution? That is the ever-present challenge—and perhaps fear.
As for the engineering of our external
environment alluded to earlier, we’ve been doing that for centuries in the
interests of creating tangible wealth, convenience and comfort, with obvious
consequences: the collapse of delicate ecosystems and extinction of many
species, widespread pollution of air and water, global warming and the
accompanying climate change, not to mention a host of other ills. Could we,
would we, genetically engineer our immune system to help us cope with the
onslaught of not just virulent pathogens, but also toxic pollutants? Or, for
that matter, engineer our metabolism to handle the increasing carbohydrate
stress it’s been under since the mid-20th century? Natural selection
cannot deal with such problems within a human lifetime.
Science has the potential for evil as well
as good—all the more reason why social wisdom matters, and why making the right
choices, fraught with the politics of who makes the decisions, is critical. And
to ask the right questions about the nature and consequence of choice—the
‘what’—is far more important than the ‘how’ of genetic engineering.
In closing, I would ask: is Darwinian
evolution purpose-driven, or does it need to be tampered with in order to do
justice to our relatively immediate
concerns? To address such a question in an all-encompassing way I quote a
reflective passage near the end of a section titled “Creative Evolution” in
Arthur Koestler’s analytical and breathtakingly insightful book, Janus: A Summing Up (1978):
“Evolution has been compared to a journey
from an unknown origin towards an unknown destination, a sailing along a vast
ocean; but we can at least chart the route which carried us from the
sea-cucumber stage to the conquest of the moon; and there is no denying that
there is a wind which makes the sails move. But whether we say that the wind,
coming from the distant past, pushes the boat along, or whether we say that it
drags us along, is a matter of choice. The purposiveness of all vital
processes, the strategy of the genes and the power of the exploratory drive in
animal and man, all seem to indicate that the pull of the future is as real as
the pressure of the past. Causality and finality are complementary in the
sciences of life; if you take out finality and purpose you have taken the life
out of biology as well as psychology.”
Koestler calls this vitalism (or what Erwin
Schrödinger, one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, called negentropy): a concept that—as opposed
to entropy, the degree of disorder in
any system—emphasizes the complexity of organization in living things, not
found in the non-living, leading to ever more complex and subtle qualities. And
suggests that there is an integrative principle at work that reconciles the
seemingly aimless drift of evolution by natural selection over a daunting
geologic time scale with the vital, deliberate, purpose-filled and creative
actions of human beings in their own lifetimes.