Honey, I Really Do Wanna Shrink the Kids
It was C. S. Lewis who once famously warned about those in white coats or white collars offering up Brave New World scenarios. It would not be the obvious thugs or the typical lowlife who would be our greatest threat but well-meaning bureaucrats and “socially aware” elites. This is how he put it in the preface to the 1959 edition of his The Screwtape Letters:
“I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of ‘Admin.’ The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
Yes quite so. And even more worrying, some of the most scary and most unethical proposals being made are coming from those who call themselves “ethicists”. Worse still, it is those who teach and write on the ethics of life – the bioethicists – who can offer the most chilling suggestions of how mankind can “advance”.
Indeed, it is often in the name of “mankind” and “humanity” that we hear some of the most inhumane and frightening proposals. Consider one such set of recommendations by a certain bioethicist. It makes for really scary reading, all the more so since he presumably has written all this with a straight face.
I refer to the recent piece, “Hand-made humans may hold the key to saving the world” by Matthew Liao. He is said to be “director of the bioethics program and an associate professor in the Centre for Bioethics in the Department of Philosophy at New York University”.
So who says having a fancy title means one will have genuine wisdom? Consider the mind-boggling stuff he has written here. He simply assumes – without providing any evidence – that “climate change” is our most pressing problem, and if we don’t act yesterday, we are all doomed.
He says geoengineering might be one solution, but nah, it’s too “risky”. ‘I know,’ he says ‘let’s tamper with human beings’. That is obviously not too risky. So it is full steam ahead for “human engineering”. Yep, let’s tinker big time with human beings, and save the planet.
So what does his proposed human engineering consist of? Well, for starters, he is proud to tell the world: “Honey, I shrunk the kids”. Yep, that is exactly what he wants to do: let’s do a bit of tinkering and tampering and produce “shorter people”.
Yes he really said that. We need less basketball players and more dwarves. Lopping off people’s legs – or part of them, as in the eerie but prophetic film Gattaca – could be an option. But he prefers instead to mess with our DNA until we have a race of pygmies – all in the interests of saving Gaia.
Folks, I am really not making this up. Check out what he says: “One possibility is to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which is now employed in fertility clinics as a means of screening out embryos with inherited genetic diseases. One might be able to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis to select shorter children. This would not involve modifying or altering the genetic material of embryos in any way. It would simply involve rethinking the criteria for selecting which embryos to implant.
“Also, one might consider hormone treatment either to affect growth hormone levels or to trigger the closing of the growth plate earlier than normal. Hormone treatments are already used for growth reduction in excessively tall children.
“Finally, there is a strong correlation between birth size and adult height. Gene imprinting – where only one parent’s copy of the genes is turned on and the other parent’s copy is turned off – has been found to affect birth size. So drugs or nutrients that either reduce the expression of paternally imprinted genes or increase the expression of maternally imprinted genes could potentially regulate birth size.”
Wow, this guy has been watching too many Frankenstein films. But he is not finished yet. Here is another proposal straight out of Brave New World: “Pharmacological meat intolerance”. Hey, he said it, not me. So what is all this all about? Well we all know – or at least he knows – that cow farts are bad news for the environment, so we need to get rid of those nasty old cows.
Problem is, we like to eat meat. ‘I know, let’s bio-engineer humans so that they will not want to eat meat!’ Brilliant! Folks, you just can’t make this sort of stuff up. This is what he says: “Human engineering could help here. Just as some people have a natural intolerance to milk or crayfish, it is possible artificially to induce mild intolerance to red meat by stimulating the immune system against common bovine proteins. The immune system would then become primed to react to them, and henceforth eating ‘eco-unfriendly’ food would induce unpleasant experiences.”
Hey doc, can you devise one of those babies to help me cut my donut cravings? But wait, there’s more. Being the good eugenicist that he is, he thinks China can come to our aid here. Yep, those Chinese and their one-child policy are the way to go.
His euphemism for this is “Lowering birth rates through cognitive enhancement”. And we all know how good China is at such things: forced abortions, forced sterilisations, imprisonment and fines. That’s one way to save mother earth. And with Orwellian Doublespeak that would make even Orwell blush, get a load of this:
“Human engineering could also be liberty enhancing. In response to climate change, some people have proposed we adopt something akin to China’s one-child policy. For example, a group of doctors in Britain has advocated a two-child maximum. But suppose that the relevant issue is some kind of fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions for each family. If so, given fixed allocations of greenhouse gas emissions, human engineering could give families the choice between having one large child, two medium-sized children or three small children. Human engineering seems more liberty enhancing than a policy that says you can have only one or two children.”
Yep that is some kind of liberty all right. But he is not finished yet. His final proposal involves another lulu of a mouthful (that’s how euphemisms work of course): “Pharmacological induction of altruism and empathy”. This has got to be the spookiest thing he has said so far.
Let’s use drugs to make people more altruistic. Sadly, I think he is still being serious here: “Instead, there might be someone who wants to do the right thing, but owing to a weakness of will, cannot get himself to do the right thing. Having the option to use pharmacological means to increase altruism and empathy may allow this person voluntarily to overcome his weakness of will and enable him to do the right thing.”
And just when I am ready to go back and reread my Orwell and Huxley, he comes out with another zinger: “These examples are intended to illustrate some possible human engineering solutions. Others might include increasing our resistance to heat and tropical diseases, and reducing our need for food and water.”
Eureka, that’s it! Let’s create a new species that does not need to eat or drink. And they mustn’t be impacted by sunstroke or diseases of any kind. Hey wait a minute doc, we already invented that one: it’s called the bowling ball. So forget all this foolishness about “pharmacological meat intolerance” and the like.
Let’s just cull all remaining human beings, and replace them with millions of nifty bowling balls. No more methane-blasting cows, no more pollution, no more risks to the environment. Then we – er, all the bowling balls – can enjoy mother earth in its pristine best.
Now why didn’t we think of all this much sooner? Leave it to our bioethicists to come along and save the day with such mind-boggling wisdom and pro-humanity solutions. Now what was it that Lewis was saying again? Oh yeah, I wonder if Mr Liao has cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks?
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/handmade-humans-may-hold-the-key-to-saving-the-world-20120929-26s1n.html
[1410 words]
Paul warned us about such behaviour. They worship the creation more than the creator. This is what we get.
Ian Nairn
Yes quite right Ian
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, your reference to Gattaca is instructive.
Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca at the end under “Critical Reception”.
Some ethicists see the film as “outing” their agenda, and they were not happy.
I might try to find it on DVD.
John Angelico
Dear Bill, the book “The Screwtape Letters”by C.S. Lewis is available from the folio Society in London. I have copped quite enough politically correct nonsense in recent years.
Regards, Franklin Wood
I wonder if Mr Liao is short? I think a person’s carbon footprint is more to do with lifestyle than height. What is the point of having one short child if we still have two cars and a huge house etc, etc. I’m sure most westerners with no children produce a lot more waste than your average eight child third world family.
Kylie Anderson
I`d have thought Evoloution would be kicking in by now, and we`d be producing smaller people without drugs.
Johannes Archer
And what are they saving the planet for?
I heard something similar yesterday morning, where, on the ABC of course on their rear vision programme, where they discussed eugenics. One of the ladies said “They used to sterilise people, but now we are much more sophisticated, now we can select abort the babies we don’t want”.
In light of Alan Jones’ comments, I have been thinking that we are experiencing a polarisation between those who have “compassion”, but no common sense and those who have common sense, but no tact or compassion. Only God can put both together into us to let them work together harmoniously and produce something altogether different and more valuable than just the sum of the 2 components.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
We have known for a while now that the whole climate change issue is about population control, no matter what nice stories they are trying to make us swallow.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett