The Rise of Transhumanism

From WND.Com

Is mankind’s quest for knowledge, power and longer life about to backfire and wipe human beings off the face of the Earth?

Secret experiments now underway in the U.S. and elsewhere are sparking fears of a potential extinction-level event hastening the 2nd Coming of Jesus.

For decades now, there have been science-fiction stories portraying a future filled with spectacular abilities for people, where the definition of what makes someone a human being is blurred by blending high technology and even animal traits into the human body.

In the 1970s, TV’s “Six Million Dollar Man” featured Lee Majors as a critically injured astronaut rebuilt by the government to “make him better than he was – better, stronger, faster.”

In 1982′s classic film “Blade Runner,” Harrison Ford portrayed a futuristic cop who falls in love with a genetically engineered female “Replicant” while he looked to kill renegade androids seeking immortality.

Since then, there’s been no shortage of tales with similar themes, from “Dollhouse” and “The Terminator” to “Spider-Man,” “Splice” and “The Matrix.”

And with major advances in technology in recent years, science fiction of the past could become science fact of our immediate future, with human minds connected wirelessly to computers and bionic bodies outperforming top athletes by leaps and bounds. That prospect has some sounding alarm bells about the fulfillment of End-times Bible prophecy and the possible vanishing of mankind through global warfare, disease, starvation or even – as strange as it sounds – replacement by other entities.

At the center of the debate is what is known as “transhumanism,” a term often used synonymously with “human enhancement.”

Basically, it’s a sort of regenesis, altering human bodies – genetically, mechanically or both – to make them better than they’ve been for thousands of years, affording them Superman-style abilities in both brains and brawn.

It’s sometimes described by futurists as being “posthuman,” what they believe is the next step in the evolutionary process.

Nick Bostrom, an Oxford University philosophy professor and director of the Future of Humanity Institute, says many transhumanists wish to follow life paths which would, sooner or later, require growing into posthuman persons who have a form of eternal life.

“They yearn to reach intellectual heights as far above any current human genius as humans are above other primates,” says Bostrom on a frequently-asked-questions page.

He says transhumanists want “to be resistant to disease and impervious to aging; to have unlimited youth and vigor; to exercise control over their own desires, moods, and mental states; to be able to avoid feeling tired, hateful, or irritated about petty things; to have an increased capacity for pleasure, love, artistic appreciation, and serenity; to experience novel states of consciousness that current human brains cannot access. It seems likely that the simple fact of living an indefinitely long, healthy, active life would take anyone to posthumanity if they went on accumulating memories, skills, and intelligence.”

High on technology

With that in mind, scientific breakthroughs seen as beneficial to mankind are often trumpted with great fanfare in the media.

Just this month, for instance, a tiny, high-tech, electronic body monitor resembling a temporary skin tattoo was a top story on news sites worldwide including the popular Drudge Report.

Resembling a skin tattoo, the Epidermal Electronic System (EES) consists of circuits which could contain electrodes to measure brain, heart and muscle activity, transmitting data wirelessly.

“What we are trying to do here is to really reshape and redefine electronics to look a lot more like the human body, in this case the surface layers of the skin,” said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The goal is really to blur the distinction between electronics and biological tissue.”

Meanwhile, IBM just unveiled an experimental computer chip it says mimics the human brain in that it perceives, acts and even thinks.

Additionally, researchers at Cambridge University created the first-ever animal with artificial information in its genetic code.

“The technique, they say, could give biologists ‘atom-by-atom control’ over the molecules in living organisms,” the BBC reported. “What makes the newly created animals different is that their genetic code has been extended to create biological molecules not known in the natural world.”

And 14-year-old British car-racing fan Matthew James made heartwarming headlines when he was given a state-of-the-art, cyborg-style hand and forearm at no charge in exchange for advertising.

“It is just amazing,” James told the Daily Mail. “My old artificial hand had a pretty basic open-close mechanism similar to a clamp. But with this one I can do everything. It also looks really cool – the outer-shell is see-through so you can actually see the mechanics working.”

Research and destroy

But behind closed doors, there is more sinister genetic tinkering taking place, and that has some voicing grave concern.

Among them is author and researcher Tom Horn, who stars in “Trans-Humanism: Destroying the Barriers,” an hourlong DVD exploring the radical transformation of humanity.

He suggests people, as we now know them, are in the process of a man-made redesign in order to make them superbeings or even non-human entities.

“In terms of what transhumanists are aspiring to do through the use of these new sciences – biotechnology, nanotechnology, neuropharmacology,” Horn says, “what they may do is lead us literally into the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.”

Horn cites concerns by the likes of Stanford political scientist and author Francis Fukuyama, who reviewed emerging fields of science and the philosophy of transhumanism.

“He wrote a white paper in which he considered the combination of those two to probably be the most dangerous science and technologcial and philosophical concepts in the history of mankind which he believes could very quickly lead to an extinction-level event,” Horn says.

Horn claims the effort to transform humans into a different style of being is now being fast-tracked with billions of dollars.

“One of the first things that President Obama did at the executive level as soon as he became president,” he says in “Trans-Humanism,” “is he overturned restrictions that had been put in place by President [George W.] Bush which would have prohibited federal dollars, American taxpayer money, flowing in to pay for experiments to be done on human-animal chimeras (combinations) and other forms of science such as stem-cell sciences – which is also important to the transhumanist movement.

“But what most of the public doesn’t realize is when we’re talking about stem-cell sciences, we’re almost always talking about the creation of a human-animal chimera from which those stem cells are being derived. But now, tax dollars in the United States from the federal level are flowing into thousands of laboratories.”

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services even provided $773,000 to Case Law School in Cleveland for a two-year project to develop legal standards for tests on human subjects in research involving genetic technologies to enhance “normal” individuals – to make them smarter, stronger or better-looking.

“It’s obvious that many of the genetic-based techniques used for diagnosis and treatment can also be used for enhancements,” Prof. Max Mehlman said at the time. Strangely, says Horn, no public statements on the school’s conclusions have been forthcoming.

Worthy of appaws?

As researchers have focused on blending animal attributes with human characteristics, the Reuters news agency published a report in 2009 in which scientists admitted their comfort with a “50/50 mix.”

“The public mostly is still under the impression that this is being done at the embryonic level, and that the amount of human DNA in a transgenic animal is so minute as to be excusable,” says Horn.

“But where they want the debate to go now is, ‘Can we raise these to full maturity in the public’s knowledge and experiment on part-humans, part-animals that are fully grown?’ And by admitting that that’s now where they want the public to be comfortable with this research, they also said that they knew that there are some rogue scientists out there that are not operating with federal dollars, and they’re getting ahead of them in this technology and it could even become a new kind of a weapon of mass destruction. It could, at a minimum, become a molecular biological nightmare.”

But why is there such a strong push for animal traits?

It might be desirable for some, says Horn, because, “Animals can also see into areas of the light spectrum that we cannot see into, and that is viewed in transhumanism as a future benefit and even one of the causal reasons we would want to merge ourselves with the animal kingdom so that we can open these new modes of perceptions into realities that right now we are blinded to.”

Such abilities could provide a huge military advantage, and Horn says for more than a decade, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has been pouring billions into research for what it calls “the extended performance warfighter,” also known as “supersoldier” technology.

“The interesting parts about the extended performance warfighter is that it even includes literally altering the DNA of soldiers,” he says.

DARPA calls its project “BioDesign,” and in its 2011 budget, the agency explains it “eliminates the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement primarily by advanced genetic engineering and molecular biology technologies to produce the intended biological effect.”

Horn says the real purpose has to do with immortalism.

“DARPA has an interest in figuring out how to get around the decaying process of cellular life, and they use the term creating an immortal organism,” he explains. “But it’s more than just an organism. They consider it to be potentially a lethal force that can be used in military application.

“Wired Magazine actually referred to it as a living, breathing creature. And DARPA admits that the force of this living creature, this immortal organism, could be so potent that it ought to also have what they call a ‘kill switch’ introduced into its organism so that in case it gets out of hand, we could throw the switch and stop it, or if it became available to our enemies, we could throw the switch and stop it.”

Horn says top minds at the Pentagon are marching humanity in this direction, even if it’s meant for self-defense.

“They were talking about this kind of technology in the hands of our enemies, and what they were saying was, ‘We have to get at the forefront of this technology,’” he explains. “See, this is how we’re going to be forced into this. It’s not a matter of whether we should or whether it’s ethical. We have to do it, because if we don’t, our enemies will, and then they’re going to subjugate us to their will.”

In the summer of 2008, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., chaired a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee focusing on the diplomatic and security implications of the spread of “genetics and other human-modification technologies.”

Journalist Mark Stencel covered the hearing for Congressional Quarterly (now known as Roll Call), and seemed surprised at the topics discussed, as he reported:

In some ways, the testimony sounded more like a Hollywood pitch for a sci-fi thriller than a sober discussion of scientific reality and diplomatic policy – with talk of biotech’s potential for creating supersoldiers, superintelligence and superanimals, as the chairman put it. Witnesses mused about the convergence of nanotech, biotech, computers and cognitive science, with one warning that new applications could “put agents of unprecedented lethal force in the hands of both state and non-state actors.”

There were discussions of genetic discrimination, eugenics and the civil rights of humans and animals whose intelligence might be enhanced or whose genes might be altered or integrated to the point that definitions become tricky. And witnesses warned of a genetic divide, in which enhancements would go only to the most privileged societies or individuals.

And if all this weren’t enough to dazzle you, Horn says some transhumanists have a keen spiritual interest, and studies are already underway to determine if human beings can now or eventually communicate with occupants of the unseen world.

“The Sophia Project” at the University of Arizona, for instance, declares it is investigating “the experiences of people who claim to channel or communicate with deceased people, spirit guides, angels, other-worldly entities / extraterrestrials, and/or a universal intelligence / God.”

In that light, Horn says some transhumanists desire animal traits since they suspect some creatures are aware of dimensions presently invisible to human eyes. He cites the Old Testament account of Balaam striking his donkey which refused his guidance because the animal saw the angel of the Lord, though Balaam couldn’t see the angel until his eyes were supernaturally opened.

Eat, drink and be wary

Horn points out just one the dangers of combining human and animal DNA is the potentially toxic effect it could have on our food supply.

“Very quickly we could have a human form of Mad Cow Disease,” he says. “If you’re sitting in a restaurant eating goat cheese that contains human DNA, we don’t know what the impact of that is going to be on a human. We certainly know what it did to cows and the kinds of brain diseases it created in them when they were eating their own DNA.”

From the early 1990s through the end of 2010, more than 184,500 cases of Mad Cow Disease had been confirmed in the United Kingdom alone in more than 35,000 herds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Controversy over genetically altering the food we consume has made major news in recent years.

A world-renowned scientist, Hungarian-born Arpad Pusztai, caused a firestorm in 1998 when his research reportedly showed eating genetically modified potatoes can stunt the growth of laboratory rats, harm brain development and damage the immune system. Though not a campaigner on either side of the so-called “Frankenfood” debate, he indicated if given the choice, he would not eat the modified potatoes.

“I find it’s very unfair to use our fellow citizens as guinea pigs,” said Pusztai, who spent 36 years at the prestigious Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, part of Scotland’s University of Aberdeen.

Though his remarks prompted his forced retirement, Pusztai in 2008 told Britain’s Guardian newspaper he felt it was his duty to speak out “just to inject some caution into this business.”

“Make no mistake, this is an irreversible technology,” Pusztai said. “It is no good 50 years later to say: ‘We should have known.’”

This is the End?

The possibility of humans eradicating their own existence through technological advancement has some Christians cracking open their Bibles to see what Scripture has to say on the matter.

The 24th chapter of the Book of Matthew is often cited, as Jesus talked specifically about the end of the current human age, saying, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” (Matthew 24:21–22)

Britt Gillette, the Virginia-based Christian publisher of End Times Bible Prophecy, has been studying transhumanism in the light of Scripture, and says:

Taken in its original context, Jesus did not necessarily say that unless those days are shortened, “humanity will not survive.” Instead, he said unless those days are shortened, “no flesh will survive.”

If the transhumanist movement suceeds in transforming the human race into a race of “posthumans” who no longer need flesh covered bones to survive, then these words of Jesus take on an entirely different meaning.

And it doesn’t take an illogical leap of faith to draw this conclusion.

After all, it seems reasonable to assume that humanity will have to undergo some sort of radical transformation in order to plot a war against God Almighty. The arrogant impulse already exists. All that remains is the need for an exponential increase in human power which deludes humanity into believing it can overcome the Lord of lords.

And make no mistake about it, the Bible is clear that this is where humanity is ultimately headed – physical conflict with God:

“Then I saw the beast gathering the kings of the earth and their armies in order to fight against the one sitting on the horse and his army.” (Revelation 19:19, NLT)

That point of an actual war between mankind – even if somewhat altered – and the Creator is echoed by author Steve Quayle, who warned of the dangers of transhumanism in an April 2010 radio interview with Horn.

“It’s the destruction of humanity and the introduction of ‘its’ and ‘things’ that will make war against God, believing they can prevail,” said Quayle. “But they won’t.”

The Bible says Jesus, who is called “the Lamb,” will intervene in human affairs and be victorious over the kings of the Earth and the so-called “beast” power: “Together they will go to war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will defeat them because he is Lord of all lords and King of all kings.” (Revelation 17:14, NLT)

During the discussion with Quayle, Horn sounded ominous as he talked of “that future moment … that gives birth overnight to some version of the artillects (artificial intellects) who suddenly come online as conscious, living, synthetic superminds that are immensely more powerful than humans.”

“It appears, at least in my belief system,” he continued, “to be the billion-pound elephant standing in the middle of prophecy circles right now that the lion’s share of critical Christian thinkers don’t seem to be recognizing, or very few of them are waking up to it.”

“This is coming whether people want it to or not. It is so close to being unveiled. I’m not talking cosmologically close. I mean it is very close now. It could happen literally at any moment, and I think it carries magnificent prophetic themes around it. We’re literally talking about large-scale genetic, neurological re-engineering of humanity. … Anybody who thinks this is wishful thinking on the part of the transhumanists, just pick up your newspaper, get your newest science magazine and start reading.”

- Prophecy News Watch

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Transhumanism and the Enhancement of Man – More Than Human

From KHouse.Org

Transhumanism and the Enhancement of Man

More Than Human

by Dr. Martin Erdmann

In his 1922 science fiction novel, The Chess Men of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs describes a Mars whose inhabitants are so advanced that they prize contemplation above all and exist simply as heads. They have no need for oxygen or food and move using the bodies of headless creatures.

Burroughs’s popularity demonstrates that people enjoy imagining such fantastic characters and societies. Many scientists, doctors, and philosophers today, however, say such ideas have ceased to be fantasy and are now realistic prospects for the next several decades.

The Mind Uploading Home Page, for example, “is dedicated to the putative future process of copying one’s mind from the natural substrate of the brain into an artificial one,” and speculates that “…[if mind uploading were developed], body manufacturing, sales, and rental would be a large industry.”¹

Human-machine integration is not simply a dream of the scientific and academic elite. In recent years, the concepts of intelligent machines and computers manipulating a person’s mind have become popular through movies such as Short Circuit, The Matrix, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The 2002 Star Trek film Star Trek Nemesis proclaims that to be human is to seek self-enhancement.

In a world where hugely popular fantasy movies hold audiences captivated with their entertaining capacities, a realm of posthuman thought is thriving and fast expanding in both followers and research.

Widely noticed publications, such as the NSF/DOC-sponsored report “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance”² and the final report of the President’s Council on Bioethics, “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness,”³ have given close attention to human enhancement through technology.

From Repair to Enhancement

Cardiology is a strong adopter of implants, some “dumb” like stents, some “intelligent” like implantable defibrillators, some powerful like artificial hearts. How-ever, cardiologists currently use implants exclusively for repair of failing organs.

But medicine is no longer restricted to healing. Bio-technology’s popular uses constitute a long list, among them weight loss, hair growth, birth control, teeth straightening, and sex selection of children.⁴

Transhumanism takes human enhancement even further, by morphing the vision of a perfect man into a human-machine complex properly called “posthuman.” This is an effort to break every human limitation and redefine personhood. Nick Bostrom, Oxford philosophy professor and co-founder of the World Transhumanism Association, writes that posthumans will realize eternal youth and health, gain complete control over their minds and emotions, and “experience novel states of conscious-ness” that present human minds cannot imagine.⁵

Posthumans may even choose to discard their bodies in favor of life as “information patterns on vast su-per-fast computer networks.”⁶

Though this sounds bizarre, many scientists, doc-tors, and philosophers call it attainable within decades. As the President’s Council on Bioethics wrote in their final report, “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness,” bioethics demands a current and public discussion of “what it means to be a human being and to be active as a human being.”⁷

Asked whether transhumanism tampers with nature, Nick Bostrom replied: “Absolutely, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is often right to tamper with nature.”8 According to Bostrom, the attempt to retain “humanness” would be bad. Instead, all a posthuman would need to do is to act humanely.⁹

Transhumanists distinguish the value of human life from biology and creation, and instead place its value in human ideals and experiences. This is because values “come from minds.”¹⁰ Since a man’s values are but the ones he chooses, opting for a new ethical paradigm would allow him to redefine all aspects of life.¹¹

In its “Transhumanist Declaration,” the World Trans-humanism Association affirms “the feasibility of redesigning the human condition” in areas including “aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, suffering, and our confinement to the planet earth.”¹²

Converging Technologies

These scenarios and many more could all become reality in this century with the proper investments in technology, according to a report issued by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce of the United States government.

Titled “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, In-formation Technology, and Cognitive Science,” the 405-page report could one day be remembered as a seminal road map to the future.

It calls for more research into the intersection of these fields. The payoff, the authors claim, isn’t just better bodies and more effective minds. Progress in these areas of technology could also play a key role in preventing a societal “catastrophe.” The answer to human brutality and new forms of lethal weapons, it suggests, is a kind of technology-triggered unity: “Techno-logical convergence could become the framework for human convergence.”

The report, edited by Mihail Roco, senior adviser for nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation, and William Sims Bainbridge, acting director of the Foundation’s Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, includes papers submitted by various participants as well as an overview by Roco and Bainbridge.

In the overview, the editors argue that a host of advances can be achieved in the next 20 years alone. Among these are wearable sensors that send health alerts, much more useful robots, invulnerable data networks, and direct broadband interfaces between our minds and machines.

The report thinks big when it comes to peering beyond the next two decades to the rest of the 21st century. Taking visionaries such as Ray Kurzweil—“The Transcendent Man”¹³—seriously, it imagines robots so advanced they may deserve political rights, building surfaces that automatically change shape and color to adjust to the weather, and the prospect of personality uploads that make death itself ambiguous.

Merging human consciousness with machines is tied to another nearly incredible concept: brain-to-brain connections. The report discusses the possibility of “local groups of linked enhanced individuals” as well as “a global collective intelligence.”

Transhumanism and Christianity

A large contingent of contemporary evangelicals has embraced some aspects of the technocratic ideals of Transhumanism and is drawn by its motivations. They embrace the belief that Christians are Christ’s “on-going incarnation in the world.”

Their new focus is on an earthly inheritance for the church. In concrete terms this means that Christians are called upon to usher humanity into a new stage of its existence. Through individual Christians’ labor, all the evils in society will slowly be conquered until they are no more. Only after the Kingdom of God has been established on earth by human effort, they believe, will the Second Coming of Christ occur.

The evangelicals who pursue these and similar goals are called Dominionists. They belong to a diverse conglomerate of movements, covering the entire theological spectrum of evangelicalism from the charismatic Manifested Sons of God to the neo-Puritan Reconstructionists.

What is missing in their thinking is the critical realization that while transhumanism aims at posthuman perfection through technology, it misses the true nature of moral “perfection” (progressive sanctification).

The transformation Christians should be seeking is not the physical or psychological enhancement found in science, reason, or technology, but rather the trans-forming work found only in God’s supernatural work through His Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). Romans 12:2 says:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:2

This is the ultimate transformation and the only kind that can be truly attained with God’s help in this world. The goal is the post-judgment attainment of perfect humanity in heaven, not the attainment of full technological perfection on earth, as a quasi-divine being (Philippians 3:20-21).

Christians need to be aware of Transhumanism and its various forms, but they need not concern them-selves with seeking something they cannot and should not attain—autonomous perfection in a utopian world society. Man’s salvation is found only in the perfect and complete atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and his promise of eternal life, as a free gift, to those who believe in him (Romans 3:23-26; Ephesians 2:8-9).

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**FOR A MORE IN-DEPTH STUDY**

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More Than Human -Transhumanism is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities. Click for more information – DVD

This article was originally published in the
August 2011 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

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**NOTES**

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1. Joe Strout, “Business and Travel”, The Mind Uploading
Home Page. http://www.ibiblio.org/jstrout/uploading.
2. Mihail C. Roco & William Sims Bainbridge,eds., Converging Technologies for Improving
Human Per formance Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science,
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, 423 pp.
3. President’s Council on Bioethics,“Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness”, Washington,D.C., October 2003, http://www. bioethics.gov.
4. President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, chapter one, footnote three (October 2003); http:// w w w. b i o e t h i c s .
gov/.
5. Nick Bostrom, “The Tra n s h u m a n i s m FAQ,” #1.2, World Transhumanism Association,

http://www.transhumanism.org/.

6. Ibid.
7. President’s Council on Bioethics, Beyond Therapy, chapter one, section two.
8. Nick Bostrom, “The Tra n s h u m a n i s m FAQ,” #4.2.
9. Ibid., #4.3.
10. N i c k B o s t r o m , “ Transhumanism and the True Nature of Mind: Creation
and Discovery!” World Transhumanism Association, http://www.transhumanism.org/.
11. Nick Bostrom, “The Tra n s h u m a n i s m FAQ,” #1.1.
12. World Transhumanism Association, “The Transhumanist Declaration,” http://transhumanism.org/.
13. http://transcendentman.com/

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Science Friction: Hybrid Embryos stir Controversy

From Koinonia House Archives May 2008

SCIENCE FRICTION: HYBRID EMBRYOS STIR CONTROVERSY -
Rapid advances in the field of biology have prompted lawmakers to consider creating guidelines to regulate experiments involving animal-human hybrids. As politicians debate the ethical and moral issues, scientists continue to explore uncharted territory, with each step forward prompting the question: how far is too far?

Animal-human hybrids were once purely the stuff of science fiction, however fiction has become reality. Scientists have created sheep that possess human hearts and livers, pigs that have been born with human blood, and a variety of other creatures whose genetic makeup has been tampered with. Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras. They are named after a mythical Greek creature that was said to possess a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.

In recent years cross-species experimentation has become more widespread. Scientists at Newcastle University recently created Britain’s first ever human-animal hybrid embryos. Researchers inserted human DNA from a skin cell into cow eggs from which the genetic information had been removed. The human-cow hybrid embryos will be used for stem cell research.

The Yuck Factor

The frightening reality is that there are not currently any federal guidelines to regulate chimeric experiments. Researchers have been left alone to regulate themselves, but there seems to be no consensus within the scientific community over what is and is not considered ethical.

Moral objections to chimeric research are often dismissed by proponents as simply knee-jerk reactions based on instinctual, rather than logical, thinking. These misgivings are sometime referred to by scientists as the “yuck factor.” Unfortunately, many researchers describe the “yuck factor” as though it were an obstacle to scientific discovery, instead of evidence of a troubled conscience.

Exploring these new frontiers of science and medicine without the guidance of a strong moral compass will lead us into an ethical quagmire with dangerous repercussions. Without some kind of clear guidelines, we risk adopting a form of logic that would leave us tempted, not only to ponder, but also to do the unthinkable.

We are embarking upon an enterprise unlike anything undertaken before. The avalanche of advances in the current biotech revolution is both exciting and frightening. The promise of new remedies and cures in many diverse fields of medicine has given new hope to those who suffer from diseases like diabetes and Parkinson’s. Meanwhile science continues to outrun lawmakers. The biotech revolution has produced a host of ethical questions that have yet to be answered. These questions strike at the very heart of what it means to be human. To learn more about this topic, click on the links below.
Related Links:
• First British Human-Animal Hybrid Embryos Created – Guardian
• Bill to Ban Human-Animal Hybrids Introduced in Congress – Life Site
• Genetically Modified Human Embryo Stirs Criticism – AP
• Strategic Trends: Biotech – Koinonia House
• BioTech: The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice? – MP3 Download
- From: Koinonia House News Letter

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Microbe Warfare: Bacterial Communication

From Koinonia House

Technical > Bio-Tech > Bacterial Communication

There have been some fascinating developments in the fight against disease that also portend some astonishing prophetic perspectives.

Researchers have discovered in recent years that some infectious and potentially lethal bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and Vibrio cholerae (the bug that causes cholera) exchange messages with one another in order to be dangerous. They are harmless if they can’t communicate.

These organisms have developed what researchers call a “bacterial language” – a set of chemical signals that enables them to take a head count, rather like a sergeant calling a platoon’s roll.  The bacteria don’t attack until they sense that their numbers are sufficient.

The messages are hormonelike molecules that certain microbes can send and receive-saying, in effect, “I’m here,” and responding, “So am I.”

In a recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Bonnie Bassler, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, in Princeton, NJ, said E. coli and salmonella bacteria wait until their numbers reach a critical mass before they start to release the poisonous toxins that have sickened or killed people who ate contaminated food.

Scientists call this bacterial communication system “quorum sensing.”  That’s because it works a bit like a quorum in human society, where it takes a certain minimum number of people to qualify as a meeting in certain kinds of proceedings.

“Quorum sensing enables bacteria to coordinate their behavior, to act like multicellular organisms and to acquire the benefits of cooperative activity,” Bassler said.  “If bacteria started producing toxins as soon as the infection began, it would be like waving a flag to alert the host’s immune system.”

Bassler continued,  “If the bacteria are in small numbers, they don’t stand a chance, but if they wait until they reach high cell densities, then they have a much better chance of establishing an infection.”

The phenomenon of signaling molecules was discovered in the 1970s in two sea-dwelling bacteria, Vibrio fischeri and Vibrio harveyi, which emit a blue glow when their population reaches a certain density.

Since then, more than 30 species of bacteria have been found to exchange messages this way.  Some talk only to their own kind; others communicate with alien species.

The Battle Against Disease

Battles in the information age involve controlling the enemies’ communication systems, as well as gaining adequate assessments of relative strengths.

What king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?  Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.  -Luke 14:31, 32

“Some bacteria both speak and understand a common chemical language,” said Jeffrey Stein, chief scientist at Quorex Pharmaceuticals, an experimental drug company in Carlsbad, Calif.  Stein likened it to a system of “wireless communication.”

Researchers figure they may be able to prevent or cure disease if they can jam the bacterial communication network – say, by blocking the apparatus that receives messages, known as a “receptor” – on the surface of the microbes.

New weapons and tactics to counter infectious microorganisms are becoming crucial, since these little creatures keep developing resistance to existing drugs.

For example, one such microbe, Staphylococcus aureus, resists all but one potent antibiotic, vancomycin, and even that line of defense is crumbling.

“There is a lot of interest in new drugs that turn off that (Staphylococcus) system,” said Stein, whose company is working to develop and patent such remedies.

“We’re developing compounds that interfere with molecular signaling [by] turning off receptors.  This is a new concept, a fundamentally new class of antimicrobial tools.”¹

This progress in the fight against disease is both encouraging and yet at the same time is also disturbing as we attempt to gain a broader perspective on our prophetic horizon.

The Latest Pandora’s Box?

There is a dark side to the emergent technologies that are ushering in the 21st century. These technologies include genetics, nano-technology, and robotics.

The field of genetics has been making grand strides as DNA is becoming better understood, and the human genome is beginning to yield to several mapping efforts.

Nanotechnology is the science of building tiny devices out of individual atoms or molecules; it was first theorized by Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman in 1959.

Here, too, technologists are beginning to make some impressive progress.

The field of robotics is also the beneficiary of strides in making sentient, programmable devices that can, in some contexts, outperform humans.

By combining robotics with the advances in nanotechnology, one of the goals is to develop molecule-sized machines that are injectable, programmable, and can navigate the human bloodstream.

As these advances combine further with developments in genetics, some are predicting the development of self-replicating machines that can lead to new, unexpected diseases.

It is expected that they may have the ability to be custom-built to attack genetically distinct groups of people, or even specific individuals!

The potential military and social engineering implications are extremely disturbing.  As these three areas of pursuit begin to converge, we can begin to see some terrifying possibilities that may prove far more dangerous than the weapons of mass destruction that cast their shadow over the 20th century.

The intense pursuit of these technologies, accelerated by unbridled corporate competition, is proceeding at an alarming pace.

The potential for accidents or abuse is of increasing concern to those who are concerned with the stewardship of our future and that of our grandchildren.

And the bizarre prospects being ushered in by these new technologies may also suggest some radically different perspectives for our Biblical eschatalogical conjectures.

The Prophetic Implications

Among the famed “four horsemen” of the Apocalypse, we find the pale [chloros, green] horse:

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.    -Revelation 6:8

We usually infer that the “beasts of the earth” are of the four-footed kind; we rarely include in our perspective the possibility that they might be microbial.²

Among the end-time prophecies are a number of passages which warn of some really strange maladies:

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. -Revelation 9:3-6

There are many passages that may take on a different complexion when viewed from the vantage point of the current technological revolution in genetics, nano-technologies, and robotics.

The potential Bibilical implications are so provocative that they will be the subject of further articles in the forthcoming issues of our news journal.

Stay tuned. Film at eleven.

*   *   *

1. Much of this article was excerpted from “Scientists Attack Germ Enigma,” Robert S. Boyd, Knight Ridder, q.v., Spokane Spokesman-Review , Sept. 19, 2000.

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Bio-Tech Updates: The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice?

From Koinonia House

Technical > Bio-Tech > The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice?

Who does not remember the old castle, Mickey clad in the sorcerer’s robe and hat, the psychedelic armies of brooms, and the relentless march of the Dukas symphony? Only when the castle was flooded did the sorcerer wake up and dry it with a spell. Mickey got off lightly with a swat of the broom. We may not be so fortunate.

Science often appears as a close cousin of sorcery. Science brings to life the tales of old: flying through the air at the speed of sound; communicating with images at the speed of light; traveling even to the moon; and, even the power of healing.

The explosive advances in science and technology have already gone far beyond what even science fiction writers once thought possible. Biotechnologists may well prove to be the ”Sorcerer’s Apprentices” of the 21^st century. And these advances raise challenging issues of ethics, morals, and even our theological perspectives.

Genetic Engineering

Of all the many scientific discoveries, the field which clearly has become the most controversial is the study of genetics. Farmers have been genetically manipulating plants long before they knew about genes. Selective breeding, however, can enhance or suppress only those traits already present in a population. Modern genetic engineering (including such techniques as gene deletion, gene doubling, introducing a foreign gene, and changing the positions of genes) has freed the process of genetic modification from limitations imposed by the existing characteristics of a species, creating something that could not exist in nature.

Commercial applications of this technology thus far have concentrated on bioengineering pest resistance and herbicide tolerance into widely planted crops like corn, soy, cotton, and potatoes. Growers adopting these ”first generation” genetically modified crops have been able to increase yields while significantly reducing costly inputs like chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

The StarLink Debacle

StarLink corn was a corn hybrid genetically modified to make it more profitable to grow. It contained two added genes – one for herbicide tolerance and one for insect resistance. The herbicide tolerance gene was the product of an earlier approval process. It was the addition of a gene derived from the bacterial species Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), coding for an insecticidal protein called Cry9C, that triggered the StarLink crisis. This controversial Cry9C variety, 50 to 100 times more potent than other Bt-spliced insecticides, caused critics to warn of dangerous food allergies in humans, with symptoms ranging from fever, rashes, and diarrhea to anaphylactic shock and sudden death. The FDA approved it only for animal feed.

On September 18, 2000, a coalition of consumer and environmental groups detected DNA fragments from StarLink corn in Taco Bell taco shells sold in grocery stores. Days later, Kraft Foods recalled all Taco Bell taco shells. Kraft’s action started a frenzy of recalls as other manufacturers discovered StarLink corn in their products, too.

By November 2000, the FDA recalled nearly three hundred types of adulterated snack chips, corn flour, and other corn foods. The cost of these recalls ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Complaints began pouring into the FDA and the CDC about allergic reactions to corn products attributable to StarLink contamination. Overnight, StarLink became a ”Frankenfood” poster child – the incarnation of critics’ worst nightmares. International corn exports plummeted. The ensuing crisis paralyzed an entire sector of American agriculture and food production and badly shook consumer confidence. Even two years later, StarLink corn was still popping up in corn shipments.

Implications

It is certainly a ”brave new world” in which science will obviously continue to outrun the lawmakers. The last time man pursued knowledge to such an extent, God intervened and scattered the people and confounded their languages. As the Bible says in Genesis 11:6, ”…now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” How long will it be before His patience is once again exhausted?

BioTech: The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice – Audio CD – Chuck MisslerUpdated April 2006! Chuck Missler surveys some of the most promising prospects and reviews the types of ventures emerging. He also reveals some of the concerns emerging among the informed, and includes some of the provocative Biblical implications. Click for more information – Audio CD with MP3

Behold A Pale Horse – MP3 Download – Chuck MisslerNot all beasts are large enough to see with the naked eye. Find out about emergent diseases and biochemical warfare. Click for more information – MP3 Download

Unbridled Apprentices? The Biotech Revolution – Chuck Missler

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Tampering with the Engines of Creation – Chuck Missler

Behold A Pale Horse – Emergent Diseases and Biochemical Warfare

• What is the lurking threat of biochemical terrorism?
• Was HIV / AIDS deliberately engineered?
• Is it part of a hidden agenda?

Biotech & Global Pestilence – Viruses Running Amok

Drug-resistant strains of diseases once thought to be eradicated, such as Tuberculosis and Legionnaires Disease are threatening our modern society. AIDS is no longer our worst problem. Are these outbreaks possibly precursors to the plague Judgements of Revelation?

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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice?: Tampering with the Engines of Creation

From Koinonia House

Technical > Bio-Tech > Tampering With The Engines Of Creation

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Tampering with the Engines of Creation by Chuck Missler

The search to decipher DNA and the development of drugs which could address the causes of diseases such as cancer, rheuma toid arthritis, and heart disease is accelerating.

Designer Genes

Each of the human body’s 75 trillion cells, except for the red blood cells, has a full complement of chromosomes in its nucleus. Each nucleus has 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. In each chromosome is a wadded-up strand of DNA, which includes hundreds of millions of base pairs. Stretched out straight, it would measure anywhere from three to nine feet long and about 20 atoms across.

The DNA code is universal, whether it be human, rat, bat, mouse, worm, fruit fly, or microbe. (All codes of life came from the same “software house.”)

The Human Genome Project, a $3 billion international effort to map the entire genome, was launched in 1990 and involves 350 labs. It isn’t expected to complete its task until 2005. One of the leading organizations, Human Genome Sciences, has 135 scientists using the most advanced computer, laser, and scientific technologies deciphering and decoding the molecular sequences making up the human genome.

Human Genome Sciences, along with its associated research foundation, the Institute of Genomic Research, is expected to have isolated and deciphered most of the important human genes within two years. (It is a public company with the backing of drug giant SmithKline Beecham.)

Designer Animals

Lambs are now being born on a farm in Scotland which have had their genetic construction so altered that they will produce a drug called Alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) in their milk. Clinical tests of this drug will begin in late 1995 on humans suffering from lung disorders.

Genzyme Transgenics hopes that its anti-thrombosis drug, anti- thrombin-III (AT-III), produced in the milk of genetically engineered goats, will be ready for clinical trials in early 1995.

GenPharm International (Mountain View, California) has just produced the first progeny from a Dutch biotech bull in the hopes of producing drug-manufacturing cows with a milk yield ten times that of goats or sheep.

In Britain, researchers at the government-backed Roslin Institute are reporting progress in breeding genetically engineered chickens which will be capable of producing drugs and vaccines in their eggs.

Giant Business Opportunities

The potential economic stake is enormous. Genzyme Transgenics (Cambridge, Massachusetts) anticipates that the market for milk- produced drugs alone will be worth over $1 billion per year within the next decade. New start-up companies as well as the big drug “giants” are rushing to build in-house gene-hunting capabilities.

Organ Factories

There are also organs being produced for eventual transplant into humans. Researchers at the British company Imutran estimate that hearts and other organs produced from genetically altered pigs could be transplanted into humans within three years. The first litter of suitably adapted pigs was born last month (June 1994). Estimates suggest that more than 100,000 patients a year could receive such pig organs.

Are Concerns Justified?

The proponents of genetic engineering claim that they have learned from the development of nuclear power, and environmental legislation is now being introduced to control potential damage. However, no laboratory security, no matter how effective, can deal with unforeseen post-release effects.

Controls designed to protect high-security farming of genetically manipulated farm animals can’t deal with the damage that would follow the release of genetically manipulated plants, fish, or animals. The areas of risk include: the escape of an introduced gene by crossing it with wild relatives; unexpected alterations of normal characteristics in different environments; and, unexpected advantages conferred by genetic manipulation which could lead to the establishment and persistence of an organism.

There are already many examples where the introduction of exotic species to a new environment has caused the displacement of indigenous fauna and flora without the added ingredient of genetic manipulation. Rabbits in Australia, zebra mussels in North America, and rhododendron in parts of north Wales are but a few examples.

There are some scientists and doctors who believe that the AIDS virus was the result of a government genetic experiment that went out of control. They point to some combinative aspects of the HIV virus which suggest that it was engineered in a laboratory. (See the Strecker Memorandum reference at the end of this article.)

Supporters of genetic engineering say that it is no different in concept from traditional breeding methods. This is misleading, since no traditional breeding method could result in the introduction of a human or pig growth hormone, for instance, into fish; or of insect genes into plants.

The instinctive shudder that passes down one’s spine is not limited to uninformed laymen; some scientists share these same misgivings. There is little doubt that these efforts could lead to adverse, possibly catastrophic, consequences.

“These are the risks of disturbing the integrity of nature.” As the experimentation continues and expands, and as increasing investments are made in this dynamic new field, the risks multiply. As the new “Sorcerer’s Apprentices” continue to tamper with the “engines of Creation,” no one can predict the results. There could be big trouble ahead.

It seems ironic that the vigorous and talented pursuit of solutions to relieve human suffering and misery might also be leading to some major, perhaps global, tragedies for mankind.

Apocalyptic Implications?

Revelation Chapter 9 is just one Biblical example which presents some pretty weird creatures of the future, described as “locusts.” However, they can’t be normal locusts since they have a king (and Proverbs 30:27 reveals that natural locusts have no king). Most commentators view them as a demonichorde. Could they be genetic mutants, brought on to fulfill an apocalyptic destiny? Rather wild. Who knows?

In this rapidly changing world, as we see the deterioration of morality, the increasing corruption at the highest levels of government, and the increasing risks in the unbridled application of only partially understood technologies, isn’t it reassuring that God is in control of your life? Or is He? Have you put Him in control, or are you “winging it” yourself?

If you are gambling your eternity that the Bible is wrong, you’ve got more guts than I have. Think about it.

Bibliography

1. Bylinsky, Gene, “Genetics: the money rush is on,” Fortune Magazine, May 30, 1994.
2. Various Briefs, Intelligence International Ltd., 17 Rodney Road, Cheltenham, Glos, GL50 1HX, UK.
3. The Strecker Memorandum (video), c/o Dr. Strecker, 1501 Colorado Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90041; (213) 254-7127.

Genesis – MP3 Commentary – Chuck MisslerRecent breakthroughs in the fields of physics, technology and biology led Chuck Missler to update and re-record this wonderful study in Genesis. Click for more information – MP3 on CD-ROM

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