Scientific American The First Human Cloned Embryo

"THEY WERE SUCH TINY DOTS, YET THEY HELD SUCH immense promise. After months of trying, on October 13, 2001, we came into our laboratory at Advanced Cell Technology to see under the microscope what we’d been striving for—little balls of dividing cells not even visible to the naked eye. Insignificant as they appeared, the specks were precious because they were, to our knowledge, the first human embryos produced using the technique of nuclear transplantation, otherwise known as cloning."

BBC News Human embryo clone created

"A United States company says it has created a human embryo clone.

Although this is not the first time such a claim has been made, it is the first time a research institute with an established track record in the use of cloning and other novel cell technologies has come forward with the announcement."

redux [02.04.00]
The New York Times Magazine The Recycled Generation
[requires 'free' registration]

"After stuffing every cow egg with its little spud of human DNA, Sawyer prepares the next step. She gives the cells a zap of 120 volts. The jolt of electricity effectively fuses man and beast into a single biological fate. After one final step, this . . . this thing will believe it has been fertilized and, if all goes well, begin cleaving, or dividing, in the bubbling, momentous arithmetic of life lifting off the pad: 2 cells, 4 cells, 8 cells, 16 cells, 32 cells --"

redux [04.27.00]
The Third Culture The Coming Transformation in Human Life and Society in the Post-Genomic World

"Although there hasn't been any shortage of stories on genes in the press, public dialogue hasn't even begun to seriously consider how radically genetic technologies will alter human life and society — and probably all much sooner than we think."

"My bet is that feasible technologies to retool human life will put us face to face with the basic dilemma of deciding what it means to be human within two decades."

redux [05.23.01]
Reason Magazine Techno Baby Steps

"In the past month, a coterie of prominent naysayers have strongly condemned a new biomedical advance as going dangerously beyond what they regard as the ethical pale. While shrouded in the usual mystifying and hyperbolic rhetoric--we're creating Aldous Huxley's Brave New World! say critics--such attacks on what most people view as progress are instructive. The critics argue that science and medicine are advancing at a rate that far outstrips our ability to make wise and informed decisions. The only proper course of action, they say, is to stop what we're doing immediately.

This point of view packs a certain emotional wallop, but it is based on a completely mistaken understanding of how societies actually develop and adopt new technologies. History has repeatedly demonstrated that, far from promiscuously embracing every new scientific and medical procedure that comes along, societies incorporate them gradually and incrementally--and while working out important practical and ethical concerns."

redux [08.28.00]
MIT Technology Review Not by Reason Alone

"In a recent Wired magazine article, Bill Joy argued that the consequences of research on robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology may lead to “knowledge-enabled mass destruction...hugely amplified by the power of self-replication.” His medicine: “relinquishment...by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge.” I don’t buy it.

What troubles me with this argument is the arrogant notion that human logic can anticipate the effects of intended or unintended acts, and the more arrogant notion that human reasoning can determine the course of the universe"

"I suggest we broaden our perspective to the fullness of our humanity, which besides reason includes feelings and beliefs. Sometimes, as we drive the car of scientific and technological progress, we’ll veer because our reason says so. At other times we’ll follow our feelings, or we’ll be guided by faith. Most of the time, we’ll steer with all three of these human forces guiding us in concert, as they have guided human actions for thousands of years. As we do so, we should stay vigilant, ready to stop, when danger is imminent, using our full humanity to make that determination. If we do so, our turning point will be very different from where it may seem today, based on early rational assessments...that have failed us so often. Let us have faith in ourselves, our fellow human beings and our universe. And let’s keep in mind that our car is not the only moving thing out there."