It was late in the year 2011. I was traveling from Portland to San Diego to participate in a futurists’ conference. Shortly after entering California, I was pulled over by a Homeland Security trooper. I rolled down my window as he approached….
“Yes? Is there a problem officer?”
“Just a routine check,” he replied. As he scanned my eyes, I couldn’t help but notice he had an awfully long nose--a rather dog-like nose. Following the scan, he asked me to step out of the car, which I did. He sniffed me up and down, and then did the same with the car. He asked me to open the trunk, which I did. He then sniffed my luggage….
I had heard of this type of officer before, but had never encountered one, not until now. He was the product of a black bio-ops project originated by the shadow government back in 1991. He was called a “Rufus.”
A Rufus is a man-dog hybrid. As I recall from my reading of a Truth-Out article, the first Rufus had been created though a process called “SCNT”—stem cell nuclear transfer.
The creators had taken the nucleus from a somatic cell of a Navy Seal by the name of Ralph and enhanced Ralph’s DNA with the olfactory genes of a German shepherd. They then inserted the modified genes into the extracted egg of a comatose woman, after which they placed the egg in the woman’s womb. After six months, “Rufus” was removed by Caesarian section. Unfortunately, the “carrier” did not survive the operation.
As the Homeland Security officer sniffed my tires, I wondered what life was like for him. Did he go home at night to a bowl of beer and can of Alpo? Surely, life had to be very lonely for him. All of the Rufuses were male. The creators were afraid that if they created females, there’d be copulation and possibly the production of illegal Rufuses. (Rufuses can’t breed with humans.) FrankenFolks Inc. held the patent on the Rufus, and FrankenFolks was not about to in any way jeopardize its position as the world’s sole supplier of Rufuses.
When the Homeland Security officer completed his sniffing around, he motioned for me to get back behind the wheel. I did so. “Your vehicle and your person are clean,” he said. “You may proceed to your destination.”
“Thank you,” I said, then turned the key and drove off.
*****
The above fiction was inspired by a dream I had the night after reading Wesley J. Smith’s Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World [Encounter Books, 2004]. When I start exploring in dream the subject of a book I’m reading, I know the book is important!
Smith’s Consumer’s Guide presents an in-depth look at a range of issues involved in the current controversy regarding embryonic stem cell (ESC) research.
We’re not talking about adult stem cell (ASC) research and regenerative medicine, or about the extraction of stem cells from umbilical cord blood. No controversy there. However, concerning ESC research, Smith writes, “There is … great controversy over ESC research. And for good cause: the embryo is destroyed in the process of extracting the stem cells. Some opponents believe that this constitutes the taking of human life, and others, myself included, worry that destroying embryos for the purpose of harvesting their parts reduces nascent human life to the status of penicillin mold.”
“The worry is highlighted,” Smith continues, “by the wording of a press release from Geron Corporation, one of the biotech companies engaging in ESC research. In announcing a purported breakthrough, Geron bragged: ‘The finding greatly facilitates the development of scalable manufacturing processes to enable commercialization of hES [human embryonic stem] cell-based products.’” [8-9]
Smith’s major concern is with preparations now under way, and well under way, to legalize somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for the purpose of creating human clones. “It is the urgent need for all societies,” Smith writes, “to forbid human cloning. The first step is to prevent somatic cell nuclear transfer from being performed with human tissues and cells” and the second to “work unflaggingly to ensure that the laws prevent biotechnologists from finding and exploiting loopholes.” [165]
Why is SCNT such a negative in Smith’s view? Because SCNT opens the door to the nightmarish “Brave New World” envisioned by the novelist Aldous Huxley. Brave New World, Smith writes, “portrays a future in which science is not the savior of humankind, but our conqueror. The world of the novel is one in which human society has ceased to be truly human. People are no longer ‘of woman born’ … they are hatched from artificial wombs in Hatcheries run by the World State…. Families no longer exist because people do not have parents. The concept of the unique individual has been virtually eliminated. The ‘principles of mass production’ have been applied to biology: standard men and women are manufactured in uniform batches.” [1]
Does Smith have real reason for concern? Yes. “Legislation already introduced in a few states,” he writes, “offers further proof that Big Biotech’s ambitions extend far beyond the widely touted fourteen-day research limit. Under these proposals, cloners would be allowed legally to implant cloned human embryos into wombs and gestate them through the ninth month; they would only be required to kill them at the very point of birth….”
In 2004, New Jersey enacted just such a law, Smith continues. The law explicitly authorizes the manufacture of cloned human embryos via the SCNT cloning procedure. To mollify those who might be alarmed, the legislation criminalizes the “cloning of a human being” as a “crime of the first degree.” “The devil’s in the details,” Smith writes. “The key to understanding the dangerous depth and scope of S.1909 [the law in question] is found in the law’s definition of the term ‘human being’: ‘As used in this section, cloning a human being means the replication of a human individual by cultivating a cell with genetic material through the egg, embryo, and fetal and newborn stages into a new human individual.’ Because of this wording, it is now legal in New Jersey to create a human cloned embryo via SCNT, implant it in a willing woman’s uterus, and gestate it through the ninth month. As long as the fetus is killed before or at the moment of birth— that is, before the ‘newborn stages’ of life—the law will not have been broken.” [85-86]
*****
Let us turn our attention now to the major dots in the ESC controversy, with thanks to Mr. Smith for his detailed study:
Dot number 1: The public is generally ignorant of the fact that there are two forms of regenerative therapy by means of stem cells—ASC therapy and ESC therapy.
Dot number 2: You and I have adult stem cells in every part of our body. These can be extracted and used for regenerative purposes at a cost that is not prohibitive.
Dot number 3: ASC regenerative therapy is new, but already, it has proven extremely effective in a number of cases. In one case cited by Smith, ASC therapy resulted in the complete rebuilding of a badly damaged heart. When a report of the astonishing cure was published in a science journal, the FDA ordered the physician responsible for the cure not to perform the procedure on humans again—not until a great many tests on animals were completed.
Dot number 4: ESC regenerative therapy is also new. Today, the experimental results in animal tests range from problematic to negative. ESCs don’t always do what we want them to do, and rejection by the immune system in a continuing problem.
Dot number 5: If and when ESC therapy is used on humans, some positive results may be expected. However, it is likely that all recipients will have to remain on very expensive drugs for the rest of their lives in order to suppress the autoimmune rejection response.
Dot number 6: It is ESC research/therapy that is touted by Big Biotech and Big Pharma as mankind’s best hope for a healthful future! And most journalists go right along, tooting and touting ESC therapy.
Now … ESC therapy has become a major political issue, as we all know. Why, oh why, do you suppose this is so? Why so many television commercials supporting stem cell research/therapy? Why so many articles and legislative bills? Why have so many politicians made embryonic stem cell one of their key issues? Why the big push to enlist the support of the public?
Consider stem cell therapy from the point of view of the investor: Let us say that you are an investor who wants to throw a significant amount of money into stem cell research/therapy, and you’re very good about doing your “due diligence” (research). Are you going to invest your money in ASC research/therapy or in ESC research/therapy?
ASC therapy. The smart money is going into ASC, and that leaves Big Biotech and Big Pharma with the problem of raising tens of millions to conduct the necessary research to make ESC therapy marketable. Where are the brothers Big going to find the “dumb money” to realize their dream of creating a therapy that keeps people drug-dependent all their lives?
The public sector, of course.
The Biggies are going after John and Jane Q. Public, i.e., they’re going after public funding. That’s where the “dumb money” is.
But wait … there’s another reason behind the big push for public funding … a reason far more subtle than “gotta have big bucks,” a reason that has do with salvation. Let’s consider this issue briefly….
*****
Underlying societies and civilizations are “life vision” paradigms. Underlying the civilization we call “Western” are at least five life vision paradigms, the most recent of these being the Judaic/Christian vision and the Darwinian vision. When there are more than two life visions underlying a civilization, which is the dominant vision? The answer to this question is quite simple: The vision that the ruling powers prefer.
The American and French revolutions shocked the rulers of Europe. “What’s wrong with the common folk these days?” they asked. An English clergyman by the name of Thomas Malthus provided them with what they considered a very good, very scientific answer to their question: “Too many people.”
“It may be safely pronounced,” Malthus declared, “that population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases at a geometrical rate.” Thus was born the “population problem” we hear so much about. After Malthus, the rulers of Europe made population control the number one item on their To Do lists. Among the rulers of our time, population control remains a high priority item.
Do you suppose that it’s easier to maintain an iron grip on people and population growth when the prevailing view is that people are children of God?—or when the prevailing view is that people are little more than beasts of the jungle? Darwinism provided the rulers of the nineteenth century with just the sort of definition of man they required … to suppress man.
Now … a life vision paradigm has to offer three things: A story of the creation of life; a story about the human condition (which is usually viewed as pretty dismal); and a story about “salvation”—the way up and out of the dismal human condition. Darwinism has been able to offer believable (more or less) stories about creation (we all come from the unicellulars) and the condition of man (constant struggle for survival); but it has run into a few problems in scripting its salvation story. For instance: Its earliest salvational plan, called “eugenics” (science of good breeding), is now generally regarded as a monstrous pseudo-science.
Wesley Smith provides a very good re-cap of the eugenics movement, from its inception in the work of Sir Francis Galton (a cousin of Darwin) to its demise along with the demise of it most fervent advocate—Adolph Hitler. Smith goes on to argue that a “new eugenics” has emerged in recent decades under the name “transhumanism.”
Darwinism, as indicated earlier, is a life vision paradigm. All life vision paradigms must offer a salvational plan that jazzes the populace. No exceptions. Transhumanism is the Darwin paradigm’s latest salvational plan, and much is riding on its success (or seeming success)—including the credibility of the parental paradigm itself.
To succeed in their genetic re-engineering of the species (or at least that part of the species able to pay for the treatments), transhumanists believe they must have an absolutely free hand to do what they will with human embryos. The transhumanists are a very major factor behind the great public push to legalize somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for the purpose of creating human clones.
If they fail, we may never see a “Rufus.” We will never be able to order up “designer babies.” Our children will never get the chance to see a real mermaid in the Brave New World Aquarium. Alas.
Postscript: The term “transhumanism” was coined in the late fifties by the biologist Julian Huxley, a post-war apologist for eugenics (see Evolution In Action, 1957) and a chief figure in the neo-Darwinian Salvational Army. Key figure in the promulgation of transhumanism in academe was B.F. Skinner, father of behaviorism (the sister science of eugenics), and the key work in this regard was Beyond Freedom & Dignity (1971). “We could solve our problems quickly enough,” Skinner writes, “if we could adjust the growth of the world’s population as precisely as we adjust the course of a spaceship.” How to accomplish the “adjustment process?” Through genetic engineering.
From the seventies forward, transhumanism gained possession of the minds of a number of (mostly) young philosophers who were generally blind to transhumanism’s underlying eugenics agenda. Transhumanism was converted by these supporters into a relatively powerful cultural movement. A major figure in the movement these days is the philosopher Nick Bostrom, director of the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute. “Transhumanists,” Bostrom writes, “view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways….”
