NY Times's John Tierney blasts Leon Kass's anti-biotech arguments


	NY Times's John Tierney blasts Leon Kass's anti-biotech arguments

enbar

11-27-2007 12:47 AM

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religion, ethics, technology, biology, science, biotechnology, medicine, post:facebook(clip)

enbar says:

A bemused science journalist laughs into his hand at Leon Kass. We used to read Kass as part of our suite of texts on cloning at the end of CIE 2. Tierney puts some of the objections to Kass's thinking in succinct and pungent language.

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11-29-2007 4:49 PM

AcesLucky

Knowledge destroys myth. And that's a danger.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/d2bd9873-4783-4241-b5bd-bd0f8a8e166b/B3C0A103-1567-4891-9DE9-733B62D35B4F/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/" href="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/" style="font-size: 11px;">tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/"><H2 class="post-title">Who’s Afraid of “Soulless Scientism”?</H2></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/"><A href="http://www.bioethics.gov/about/kass.html">Leon Kass</A>, the former chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, recently gave a <A href="http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/wl2007.htm">lecture</A> at the Manhattan Institute in which he listed some of the threats to our “human nature” coming from biotechnology: cloning, genetic engineering, organ swapping, mechanical spare parts, performance-enhancing drugs, computer implants into brains.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/">“Virtually unnoticed,” he warned, “the train to Huxley’s dehumanized Brave New World has already left the station.” The great danger to humanity, he said, was “soulless scientism,” but I’m afraid I couldn’t quite understand this menace.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/whos-afraid-of-soulless-scientism/">Dr. Kass defined this scientism as “a quasi-religious faith” that “our new biology, eliminating all mystery, can give a complete account of human life, giving purely scientific explanations of human thought, love, creativity, moral judgment, and even why we believe in God.”</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/B3C0A103-1567-4891-9DE9-733B62D35B4F/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>