Return of the Manimal

Britain is experiencing some dissent over research on human-animal hybrid embryos. One the one hand, you’ve got researchers and charities arguing that this is a technique to probe deeper into the genetic and molecular properties of developing organisms, and is key to developing treatments for genetic diseases and developmental abnormalities; on the other side, we have plaintive lowing from the do-nothings and ignoramuses about the “sacredness” of human life, and kneejerk rejection by the usual collection of suspects, the Catholic church.

In his Easter address today, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, will describe plans to allow hybrid human-animal embryos as “monstrous”.

I addressed this a couple of years ago when Bush wanted to ban this kind of research (by the way, we aren’t ahead of the Brits in this game; they’re at least discussing this, while our government has mostly acted to shut this work down, leaving little to argue over). This is not a science-fiction project to create half-human slave labor or anything silly like that — it is serious research in early development that puts human disease-related forms of genes into animal models so that we can try experimental treatments. “Monstrous” would be taking risks or doing experiments on Down syndrome children; humane would be inducing an analog of Down syndrome in mice so that we can figure out causes and treatments of health problems in an informed way. I would also put using ignorance and medieval dogma to prevent biomedical research in the “monstrous” category, but then, I put just about everything about the Catholic church in that bin.

Just so everyone knows precisely where I’m coming from, though, in addition to appreciating the practical value of hybrid research for alleviating human suffering, I also think all forms of reproductive biotechnology are just plain cool. Some people think the next revolution in humanity will be an outcome of advances in neuroscience and technology (the geek rapture), but I’m inclined to think that the most significant changes in how we think about who we are are going to arise from radical reproductive technologies.

An end to war?

That John Horgan fellow — he’s always going on and on about the end of something or other. This time, it’s about the end of war. There’s a little bit of “duh” about it — modern science can end war, all it has to do is end scarcity, or as it says, “Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear” — but also a good question. Are people intrinsically warlike by nature, or will they favor peace if given the opportunity?

I’m inclined to agree that people would rather avoid war, and that ending resource scarcity (which I’m not convinced that science can do) would reduce the incidence of war, but I think the article ignores one central source of conflict: ideology. Baboons and bonobos don’t seem to have it, but we do, and it can trigger wars for that other resource, human minds. We want people on our side. The Thirty Years War, the American Civil War, the Cold War … were those fought because one side wanted the other side’s food or land or minerals? Or over the spread of ideas that weren’t satisfied by science?

I have a suspicion that if we had a world of peace and plenty, where everyone was brought up to abhor war, and in which there was no biological imperative for conflict, we’d still have people coming up with ideas they’d be willing to die for … and we’d conjure up new tribes out of the contented hordes and set them to battling with one another.

The odious Sally Kern

Remember Sally Kern, the Oklahoma legislator caught on tape babbling about the gay conspiracy? It’s worse than it sounded: it seems Kern has a gay son who she has essentially deleted from her public life.

And these are the people who claim ownership of the word “family”…

Here’s something even worse than the self-destruction of her own family: Kerns is the sponsor of Oklahoma House Bill 2211, the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act”. You can tell from the title what it is: a bill that would privilege religious opinions over scientific information in public school classrooms. The story is all over the Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education page, as you might guess. The bad news is that the HB 2211 has passed in the House and is on its way to the Oklahoma senate, where we’d better hope it gets shot down. Here’s what it does:

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.

Oklahomans, call or write your state senators NOW.

Is this like a belated birthday present?

Yesterday, the Minnesota legislature introduced H.F. No. 3922, another of those “Academic Freedom” bills that are actually attempts to infringe on academic freedom. It’s full of high-minded language, but 1) they have not demonstrated that there is a problem, 2) they simply restate principles academics already hold, but 3) they turn those principles into opportunities for meddling legislators to police our campuses. It’s sponsored by Olson (R, 16B), Heidgerken (R, 13A), Drazkowksi (R, 28B), Erickson (R, 16A), and Emmer (R, 19B). I think you can see the common link in their party affiliation; these are conservatives who want a way to sneak their crude and stupid views into our universities. If they’re your representatives, blast them with email. If they’re not your representatives, write to the ones who are and tell them that this bill must die.

Those crazy Vermonters

A couple of small towns in Vermont passed an unenforceable law to declare Bush and Cheney criminals. I like it. Personally, I favor something more like Megan’s Law, in which Bush and Cheney would forever after be required to register with local law authorities where ever they go, with their names, photographs, addresses, and a list of their offenses made public. (I’m actually not a big fan of Megan’s Laws, but if we’re going to publicly track one kind of monster, I think far more wicked monsters should be subject to the same penalties.)

How much was that war?

We now have an estimate of the cost of the Iraq war. Remember when our administration was blithely proposing that it would require a few billion dollars?

The authors present a damning “Nightline” transcript in which one official, Andrew Natsios, blandly told Ted Koppel that Iraq could be completely reconstructed for only $1.7 billion. (With the war now costing $12.5 billion a month, Natsios’ estimate would have been accurate if he had stipulated that it would pay for four days’ worth of reconstruction. Which, considering the delusional nature of most of the Bush administration’s pre-invasion estimates, may have been how long it thought it would take to rebuild the country.) Other officials settled on a figure of $50 billion to $60 billion. Larry Lindsey, Bush’s economic advisor, went way out on a limb, suggesting that the war might cost $200 billion — a figure derided by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as “baloney.”

So how much has it cost? $3 trillion. That’s a bit of money.

In 2005, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the war had so far cost about $500 billion. That figure was obviously far higher than initial Bush administration estimates, but Stiglitz and Bilmes suspected it was still much too low. After researching the issue, they published a paper in January 2006 that conservatively estimated that the true cost of the war would be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Even at the time, they regarded that estimate as excessively conservative, but didn’t want to appear extreme. Stiglitz and Bilmes’ book, which is based on that paper, doubles their earlier estimates to $3 trillion, making Iraq the second most expensive war in U.S. history, trailing only World War II, which cost an adjusted $5 trillion (and in which 16.3 million Americans served in the armed forces, with 400,000 dying). But the authors regard even their new figure as conservative: Their estimates range from $2 trillion, in the best-case scenario in which the U.S. withdraws all combat troops by 2012 and fewer veterans need medical and disability pay, to more than $5 trillion. Add in the cost to the rest of the world, and the price tag could exceed $6 trillion.

Bush was the evil incompetent who got this wasted effort started, but I can’t blame him alone: anyone remember that immense principled effort the Democratic party made to oppose the ramp-up to war? Nah, neither do I.

It’s all connected

Huckabee may not stand a chance of winning a presidential nomination, but he can still make his pernicious influence felt.

Next year the Texas State Board of Education will be writing the science curriculum standards for Texas public schoolchildren, and Huckabee may bring enough conservative fundamentalist voters to the polls on March 4 to swing the balance of power on the board to the supporters of creationism. “If Huckabee marshals the religious right in Texas, particularly in North Texas, it has profound implications for the state board,” says Kathy Miller, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), an Austin-based advocacy group whose stated goal is to “counter the religious right” in public policy issues, particularly education.

Not mentioned in the article is a potential counterbalance: a lot of moderates and liberals are strongly motivated in this election cycle to boot the bozos out. At least in Minnesota we saw a tremendous surge in DFL participation in the caucuses — there are a few sensible moderates and liberals left in Texas, right? And 100% of you are going to get out and vote, right? You’d better. Complacency is not allowed.