God at the Patent Office: The Attempt to Manufacture & Own Life
How do you feel about patenting living organisms?
Do you trust those working on creating new life-forms to consider the ethical implications?
Is the “playing God” accusation valid?
19 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Our Society can't even create a good definition of life, how is it that we can create and own life. Not having a clear definition of life is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I don't know what to tell you other then the world is screwed up. And are we truly creating life, or just manipulating life into the form we desire it to be. Is it possible that life isn't a group of seperate individual products, but just one entity. Is it possible that instead of each having our own life force, that we all sharing one large entity of energy. Is it possible that the reason God works in each of our lives, is because God is life. Maybe that is why we have such a hard time defining life, because we can't define God, which is ironic because although God is a complex being, if he is a being, he is never changing, which indecates that, "God is not Complex" The issue there is why do we have such a hard time defining him. I think people look at God as they look at a recipe.
God the Recipe
5 cups of Love 2 cups of Truth 1/2 tablespoon of wrath 1 cup of M&M's
Sorry about that last one, I really like M&M's. Anyway, people look at God as being many things, but I beleive God is "Never Changing" not because he doesn't get older, but because of his purity. Through out the Bible, all the stories and all His Actions have one common goal. Which brings me back to Life. God created life, so there would be life. There is no other reason, God punished life because life was bad. There is no other reason. God didn't kill life immideatly because He created Life. There is no other reason. God loves us because he made us. There is no other reason. It is all connected. So does mankind have a jealosy for God, is that why we are trying to create life like him. Maybe, I don't have the answers. Maybe, God does?
Now some of you may think that I'm crazy and this, for a lack of a better word, rant sermon, is rediculus. It probably is. The truth is that I was just argueing with myself in my head and typing stuff down. Now I leave you with some math.
Okay ~ I'm gonna be the voice of descent. I'm not sure I have a problem with the guy who created "life" in the lab patenting it.
I guess I agree with Tavin's comment about defining life. I think that's important.
We don't (typically) have a problem with people owning pets (much more complex then the critter in the lab). When it comes to "patenting" life, breeders (horses, dogs etc.) own a creature and make money from that. No problem. At least not for me.
So what's the issue?
If it's not "owning" life, maybe we're uncomfortable with us "creating" life.
Again I have no major problem. The argument that only God should create life, seems like the argument that only birds should fly. Humans weren't meant to fly or else God would have given them wings. Those trying to push the front of science and innovation were considered heretics, messing with things only God himself had any right to be dealing with.
But I flew home from a trip recently and I don't think my soul was imperiled.
I agree, people can own animals. Farmers own livestock, I had a dog once. But to patent something, that's like saying, if someone owns a dog that has puppies, they have to pay royalties to some company that owns the patents on some DNA strands, that's where I start getting nervous. I think that corporate institutions have not shown themsevles to be too trustworthy, so I'm looking at the issue as a slippery slope one.
My gut reaction to this issue surprises me because I don't think of myself as a cynical person. But I do feel cynical when I think about human beings set loose in a DNA candy store. Perhaps we will inadvertently do some good along the way, but I can't help but feel that if there are brutal and bestial ways to mismanage this new frontier, we'll find them.
The thing on the blond girl's shoulder is a boom mic. She was part of a student film crew at SAIT. I had a heck of a time getting SAIT students to respond to this week's questions, so I approached the film folks cuz I thought they of all people couldn't say "no" to me.
I really wanted to find a picture of bacteria under a microscope that looked like the boom mic, and insert it into the shot so that by comparison the boom mic looked like a massive lab-engineered bacterium, but I ran out of time.
But, since it's 10:15pm and I'm finished my work day, I now have time, so paste this address into your browser to see what I mean: http://members.shaw.ca/kbstorage/Blank.html
Thanks, Rob! I checked out the link. It's hilarious! Not to mention alarming! Too bad you don't have the girl's contact info. You could send her the link. She'd probably get a kick out of it. Either that or she'd slap you with a law suit.
So, not to get back to the topic, but I was curious about anonymous's "slippery slop". I don't mean to be slow on the up-take, but where is the slippery slop supposed to lead?
You mean slope? Slippery slop is something quite different I think. (He, he! Love you, Stace!)
I'm not sure what she meant by slippery slope, but when I let my imagination go, I get sci-fi visions of a whole race of engineered and patented soldiers...or test subjects...or 7-11 employees. The jump from owning lab-spawned animals to lab-spawned people is far fetched, I suppose. But it would make a good movie. And sometimes, today's fiction turns out to be tomorrow's fact.
There have certainly been human-corporate interactions that have been injurious to the human participants (usually in developing nations). And the horrors of Nazi "medical" experimentation on humans is not that far back in history.
I think these real-world scenarios are in the minds of many who fear a slippery slope, and want solid legislation to rein in those who may not be as concerned with the ethical issues involved in human experimentation.
Of course there's also a less-rational camp that sees a slippery slope in every issue all the time, but they usually are of the same disposition as the Jesus Camp lady in last week's vid.
It really comes up against the question of humanism vs religion: Are we essentially good beings or is there a dark-side to us that needs outside (Divine) intervention to rein it in or heal it?
Yes, I meant "slippery slope"...sigh... how embarrassing.
Okay, but aren't we a bit far from creating whole armies of people for enslavement or experimentation? This guy has some kind of amoeba thing in a tube. It has to go a lot further before I get worried.
So where is the line is for me? I guess it's when life becomes sentient. But I guess defining what that means could be problematic.
But of course non-sentient life affects sentient life. A bacterium that has never existed before, that can convert waste to fuels for all us gas-hungry sentients may also have unforseen affects on the environment if it escapes the lab. If profit is the sole motivator to create these things, the HUGE profits that would result from a waste-converting, gas maker may sway some to overlook possible negative outcomes and only do very basic iquiry into the negative affects this could have.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't research things like this. I'm just saying that the reality of our interconnected ecology is incredibly complex. And as such, we have to be very careful ... and ensure that those creating things that have never been seen on the earth before are equally careful.
Outside of creating new bacterium, there is of course a whole other biotech sentient-life issue as well that gets into human exerimentation, stem cell research, fetal life etc.
Hey Rob, thanks for including us (being me and the blond girl, Kelsey) in this. I'll share it with her ASAP! (i'm the brunette girl with a piercing in her nose, by the way!). really love this crossthebridge project you have going on. keep it up!
The Free Soul has every right to live properly. If the life of TFS is violated, the soul will die. If the life of TFS is treated poorly, the soul will die. A higher power controls this. I believe that god has created life, but no longer controls it. I intended god not to be capitalized for a number of reasons that will remain in my mind. Life is balanced by a mental gravitational pull from the atmosphere. This is the higher power that some have interpreted as a sign to make a religion based on fiction, not fact. Anyway, the idea of patenting life is absurd. Anybody that thinks that they can own life and sell it however they see fit can be labeled as somebody who doesn't care for life. I am fine with the idea of pets, but they are being taken care of, not sold for profit only. When anything is patented, it is saying "This is mine, don't steal it, because I am going to sell it for profit!" That can't be done with life. If life is patented, can life be made again? Nothing will be able to stop life from being created, so how can somebody own the idea of life? God has already made life, so are we going to mass produce life in factories someday? Even if cloning becomes available to be done, new, horrible diseases will come into play. If it were to be possible to mass produce "helpful" bacteria, everything on Earth could be in danger.
Most of this is just random words being put together, but some of it is, uh... Yeah, most of it is pointless talk. (: The Cross The Bridge project is going great so far!
I like a.g.r.'s comments, especially "I believe that god has created life, but no longer controls it." That gets me thinking (which is always a dangerous prospect). If there is a personal God, I don't think he is exerting complete control over life. If he were, wouldn't life be better than this? Wouldn't he stop us from destroying each other and ourselves? We obviously have control over our own actions - which means that at some point the Creator voluntarily surrendered some measure of his control to us. And that blows my mind. We have the god-like ability to create and destroy. We decide whether to love, give, help and grow.
I think we have way more power than we realize, and I'm not sure I like that. I'd rather not be responsible for this mess.
It's interesting how many Christians stand firmly against both philosophical and scientific determinism; yet adhere to a sort of extreme Calvinism that is just another form of determinism. I find conversations with people who have this perspective difficult (but not without merit).
Free will is both a wonderful liberation and a little scary. Of course, I think our free will is moderated by all the factors that various determinists take to extremes: socializing factors, genetic & other physical limits & God's interaction with the created world.
On a side note: A big thanks to all of you that are contributing to these Bridge Talk conversations … your insights are keeping me coming back even when I’m away on holidays (and grabbing a tenuous internet connection at a little mountain café). And they are helping me to get excited about the full launch of Bridge Talk coming in the fall.
Hmmmm, interesting, very interesting. Well, I'm not sure I want to got into a big definition of ownership, patent rights, God/god, or life, and the relationships they have to one another. Especially - once people start sticking their fingers in the pot. And I almost feel like I'd need more background on all those things to really be able to think this through fairly. ...but I have this little thought towards that general neck of the woods.
1. I think God and Life are both too big to be threatened by anything we can do (but perhaps not any one god or any one life).
19 comments:
Our Society can't even create a good definition of life, how is it that we can create and own life. Not having a clear definition of life is one of the reasons we are in this mess. I don't know what to tell you other then the world is screwed up. And are we truly creating life, or just manipulating life into the form we desire it to be. Is it possible that life isn't a group of seperate individual products, but just one entity. Is it possible that instead of each having our own life force, that we all sharing one large entity of energy. Is it possible that the reason God works in each of our lives,
is because God is life. Maybe that is why we have such a hard time defining life, because we can't define God, which is ironic because although God is a complex being, if he is a being, he is never changing, which indecates that, "God is not Complex" The issue there is why do we have such a hard time defining him. I think people look at God as they look at a recipe.
God the Recipe
5 cups of Love
2 cups of Truth
1/2 tablespoon of wrath
1 cup of M&M's
Sorry about that last one, I really like M&M's. Anyway, people look at God as being many things, but I beleive God is "Never Changing" not because he doesn't get older, but because of his purity. Through out the Bible, all the stories and all His Actions have one common goal. Which brings me back to Life. God created life, so there would be life. There is no other reason, God punished life because life was bad. There is no other reason. God didn't kill life immideatly because He created Life. There is no other reason. God loves us because he made us. There is no other reason. It is all connected. So does mankind have a jealosy for God, is that why we are trying to create life like him. Maybe, I don't have the answers. Maybe, God does?
Now some of you may think that I'm crazy and this, for a lack of a better word, rant sermon, is rediculus. It probably is. The truth is that I was just argueing with myself in my head and typing stuff down. Now I leave you with some math.
God's Love > God's Love - Trippy eh?
Okay ~ I'm gonna be the voice of descent. I'm not sure I have a problem with the guy who created "life" in the lab patenting it.
I guess I agree with Tavin's comment about defining life. I think that's important.
We don't (typically) have a problem with people owning pets (much more complex then the critter in the lab). When it comes to "patenting" life, breeders (horses, dogs etc.) own a creature and make money from that. No problem. At least not for me.
So what's the issue?
If it's not "owning" life, maybe we're uncomfortable with us "creating" life.
Again I have no major problem. The argument that only God should create life, seems like the argument that only birds should fly. Humans weren't meant to fly or else God would have given them wings. Those trying to push the front of science and innovation were considered heretics, messing with things only God himself had any right to be dealing with.
But I flew home from a trip recently and I don't think my soul was imperiled.
Stacey
I agree, people can own animals. Farmers own livestock, I had a dog once. But to patent something, that's like saying, if someone owns a dog that has puppies, they have to pay royalties to some company that owns the patents on some DNA strands, that's where I start getting nervous. I think that corporate institutions have not shown themsevles to be too trustworthy, so I'm looking at the issue as a slippery slope one.
My gut reaction to this issue surprises me because I don't think of myself as a cynical person. But I do feel cynical when I think about human beings set loose in a DNA candy store. Perhaps we will inadvertently do some good along the way, but I can't help but feel that if there are brutal and bestial ways to mismanage this new frontier, we'll find them.
I hope I'm wrong.
Oh, I forgot to ask, what DOES the blond girl in the video have on her shoulder?!
The thing on the blond girl's shoulder is a boom mic. She was part of a student film crew at SAIT. I had a heck of a time getting SAIT students to respond to this week's questions, so I approached the film folks cuz I thought they of all people couldn't say "no" to me.
I really wanted to find a picture of bacteria under a microscope that looked like the boom mic, and insert it into the shot so that by comparison the boom mic looked like a massive lab-engineered bacterium, but I ran out of time.
But, since it's 10:15pm and I'm finished my work day, I now have time, so paste this address into your browser to see what I mean:
http://members.shaw.ca/kbstorage/Blank.html
Thanks, Rob! I checked out the link. It's hilarious! Not to mention alarming! Too bad you don't have the girl's contact info. You could send her the link. She'd probably get a kick out of it. Either that or she'd slap you with a law suit.
You can get sued for saying boom mic looks like a big bacteria? Did we get annexed by the States overnight?
So, not to get back to the topic, but I was curious about anonymous's "slippery slop". I don't mean to be slow on the up-take, but where is the slippery slop supposed to lead?
You mean slope? Slippery slop is something quite different I think. (He, he! Love you, Stace!)
I'm not sure what she meant by slippery slope, but when I let my imagination go, I get sci-fi visions of a whole race of engineered and patented soldiers...or test subjects...or 7-11 employees. The jump from owning lab-spawned animals to lab-spawned people is far fetched, I suppose. But it would make a good movie. And sometimes, today's fiction turns out to be tomorrow's fact.
There have certainly been human-corporate interactions that have been injurious to the human participants (usually in developing nations). And the horrors of Nazi "medical" experimentation on humans is not that far back in history.
I think these real-world scenarios are in the minds of many who fear a slippery slope, and want solid legislation to rein in those who may not be as concerned with the ethical issues involved in human experimentation.
Of course there's also a less-rational camp that sees a slippery slope in every issue all the time, but they usually are of the same disposition as the Jesus Camp lady in last week's vid.
It really comes up against the question of humanism vs religion: Are we essentially good beings or is there a dark-side to us that needs outside (Divine) intervention to rein it in or heal it?
Yes, I meant "slippery slope"...sigh... how embarrassing.
Okay, but aren't we a bit far from creating whole armies of people for enslavement or experimentation? This guy has some kind of amoeba thing in a tube. It has to go a lot further before I get worried.
So where is the line is for me? I guess it's when life becomes sentient. But I guess defining what that means could be problematic.
But of course non-sentient life affects sentient life. A bacterium that has never existed before, that can convert waste to fuels for all us gas-hungry sentients may also have unforseen affects on the environment if it escapes the lab. If profit is the sole motivator to create these things, the HUGE profits that would result from a waste-converting, gas maker may sway some to overlook possible negative outcomes and only do very basic iquiry into the negative affects this could have.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't research things like this. I'm just saying that the reality of our interconnected ecology is incredibly complex. And as such, we have to be very careful ... and ensure that those creating things that have never been seen on the earth before are equally careful.
Outside of creating new bacterium, there is of course a whole other biotech sentient-life issue as well that gets into human exerimentation, stem cell research, fetal life etc.
Hey Rob, thanks for including us (being me and the blond girl, Kelsey) in this. I'll share it with her ASAP!
(i'm the brunette girl with a piercing in her nose, by the way!).
really love this crossthebridge project you have going on. keep it up!
Martine,
Thanks for visiting, participating and sharing your thoughts for the video. I'm glad you found your way to the Bridge Talk site.
The Free Soul has every right to live properly. If the life of TFS is violated, the soul will die. If the life of TFS is treated poorly, the soul will die. A higher power controls this. I believe that god has created life, but no longer controls it. I intended god not to be capitalized for a number of reasons that will remain in my mind. Life is balanced by a mental gravitational pull from the atmosphere. This is the higher power that some have interpreted as a sign to make a religion based on fiction, not fact. Anyway, the idea of patenting life is absurd. Anybody that thinks that they can own life and sell it however they see fit can be labeled as somebody who doesn't care for life. I am fine with the idea of pets, but they are being taken care of, not sold for profit only. When anything is patented, it is saying "This is mine, don't steal it, because I am going to sell it for profit!" That can't be done with life. If life is patented, can life be made again? Nothing will be able to stop life from being created, so how can somebody own the idea of life? God has already made life, so are we going to mass produce life in factories someday? Even if cloning becomes available to be done, new, horrible diseases will come into play. If it were to be possible to mass produce "helpful" bacteria, everything on Earth could be in danger.
Most of this is just random words being put together, but some of it is, uh... Yeah, most of it is pointless talk. (: The Cross The Bridge project is going great so far!
I like a.g.r.'s comments, especially "I believe that god has created life, but no longer controls it." That gets me thinking (which is always a dangerous prospect). If there is a personal God, I don't think he is exerting complete control over life. If he were, wouldn't life be better than this? Wouldn't he stop us from destroying each other and ourselves? We obviously have control over our own actions - which means that at some point the Creator voluntarily surrendered some measure of his control to us. And that blows my mind. We have the god-like ability to create and destroy. We decide whether to love, give, help and grow.
I think we have way more power than we realize, and I'm not sure I like that. I'd rather not be responsible for this mess.
It's interesting how many Christians stand firmly against both philosophical and scientific determinism; yet adhere to a sort of extreme Calvinism that is just another form of determinism. I find conversations with people who have this perspective difficult (but not without merit).
Free will is both a wonderful liberation and a little scary. Of course, I think our free will is moderated by all the factors that various determinists take to extremes: socializing factors, genetic & other physical limits & God's interaction with the created world.
On a side note: A big thanks to all of you that are contributing to these Bridge Talk conversations … your insights are keeping me coming back even when I’m away on holidays (and grabbing a tenuous internet connection at a little mountain café). And they are helping me to get excited about the full launch of Bridge Talk coming in the fall.
Hmmmm, interesting, very interesting. Well, I'm not sure I want to got into a big definition of ownership, patent rights, God/god, or life, and the relationships they have to one another. Especially - once people start sticking their fingers in the pot. And I almost feel like I'd need more background on all those things to really be able to think this through fairly. ...but I have this little thought towards that general neck of the woods.
1. I think God and Life are both too big to be threatened by anything we can do (but perhaps not any one god or any one life).
Hey, capitals ARE useful!
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