This was quite the interesting read.  Eugenides tells the story of Cal[liope] Stephanides who was born with a 5-alpha reductase deficiency syndrome, or in other words, a hermaphrodite.  This was particularly interesting because it explore the idea of gender identity from both a social and biological/genetic perspective. Calliope was born with the genetics for a male but was raised female until the age of 14.  This novel tracks the gene that caused this syndrome down through 3 generations, ending with the second birth of Calliope as Cal.  What’s interesting is that Eugenides does end up using a lot of his own family history for the background, to make it that much easier for him to write about a topic that he has not personally experienced.  Two fun articles:
My Big Fat Greek Gender Identity Crisis
A Novelist Goes Far Afield but Winds Up Back Home Again

It’s a long one (500+ pages), so I’m only going to talk about a few passages that stuck out to me as I was reading.  When I say “he,” I will be referring to the protagonist, but with references to the character being ‘Calliope’ or ‘Cal’, depending on which point in his life I’m describing.  References to the author will be by his last name.  The first of these moments of pause I experienced comes at the bottom of page 37:
Now we know we carry this map of ourselves around.  Even as we stand on the street corner, it dictates our destiny.
As a popular author, Eugenides did of course get through some research to evaluate how he was going to treat genetics.  However, this gross simplification completely discounts environment.  Eugenides (directly after this statement) describes how everything down to our nervous twitches can be attributed to genetics.  I can imagine that at the time he was reading this, mainstream views of genetics pretty much agreed with this statement.  The humane genome was fresh, and in the process of discovering this information, people were convinced that everything could be found in your genes.  Now we know a bit better and so this statement really stuck out to me.  It’s such a simplification of the environment to play a role in our development.  I’ve definitely noticed myself pick up certain quirks based on the people around me, and this changes over the years of my life.  Also, it cheapens the idea that we get to chose anything about the way that we are.

Next point fell on page 297:
There is no evidence against genetic determinism more persuasive than the children of the rich.
Genetic determinism, or the idea that the way we turn out is based completely on our genes, is a topic that you may remember us commenting on before.  While this is a comical reference to the concept, I think it speaks volumes about what is actually true.  And while ultimately for Cal, genetics win out, that is not the case in every situation.

The final two quotes come from the description of Dr. Luce (the leading authority on human hermaphroditism) and the work that he had done.
..Luce argued that gender is determined by a variety of influences: chromosomal sex; gonadal sex; hormones; internal genital structures; external genitals; and, most important, the sex of rearing. Drawing on studies of patients at the pediatric clinic at New York Hospital, Luce was able to compile charts demonstrating how there various factors came into play, and showing that a patient’s gonadal sex often didn’t determine his or her gender identity.  (Eugenides 410-411)
All of the preliminary study described from pages 435-437 where Eugenides writes up a report by Dr. Luce stating that Calliope, despite having an XY genotype clearly identifies in all ways as a girl, and therefore supports his own theory.
These descriptions of Cal[liope]‘s situation, while detailed, still make for an incomplete picture.  There is a vague medical description and an intense discovery process, but little afterward.  Cal undergoes a process by which he discovers his gender identity, but what I feel is somewhat lacking, is what happens afterward.  We know that Cal chose to stay as he was, and identified as male, but what were the decisions for staying as he was physically?  My understanding is that surgery was not done to anatomically adjust external genitals and it would have been cool to have a description of what decision process would have been like.  In the same way that we were able to see how the discovery of carrying the BRAC1 or BRAC2 gene led to making a decision in Joanna Rudnick’s documentary In the Family (2008) that we watched a while back.  I acknowledge the difference between a documentary and a fiction novel, but even as a piece of fiction, it would have been interesting to see how the decision-making process would have been interpreted.  In one of the articles linked above, Eugenides mentioned that he had never met a hermaphrodite before, and I think that that would have been invaluable to the process of writing his book.

I feel like, in general, the process is more important to people than what happens afterward.  Eugenides did a good job describing the process of discovery, but then it dropped off at the consequences of that discovery.  I believe this functions the same way for the thylacine as well.  There is great documentation of the entire process, the significance of getting one protein to work, or the successful recovery of a full mitochondrial DNA, but then what happens after?  We have this full genome and then what?  The scientific discovery itself is so exciting that consequences are overlooked.  True, the stated purpose is to learn about evolution, but what about the effects of the newly developed technology?  That will be applied to new areas, and even the thylacine itself will become of more use than just evolutionary knowledge because once it exists, it’s out there.  Even from an economic sense, this object/technology will exist, a market will be created for it, and a profit will stand to be made.  By virtue of that alone, there will be a lack of control over it.

There are lots of complicated procedures that claim to have found a genetic basis for race.  Nelson’s article (my primary focus) speaks a lot about particular cases where individuals were looking for information on their ancestry, but genetics fell short of expectations.  I’m actually going to go bit by bit with reactions from reading this article.

Nelson begins by examining the idea of finding your ancestry to the extent that she describes various resources available to all peoples (though she focuses on African Americans) to help determine where in Africa their origins lie.  We start with the process of how exactly it is that these things are determined.  There is a patrilineal approach that involves tracing a virtually unchanged DNA from Y-chromosomes across generations and a matrilineal approach that traces through mitochondrial DNA that gets passed down only from the mother.  Using a combination of these two methods, it is possible to match with existing groups in different regions of Africa and try to locate a place of origin.
This form of analysis was made possible by the ambitious Y-DNA and mtDNA mapping research that resulted in theories about the times and places at which various human populations arose…Based on a match with the mrDNA-derived L1 haplogroup, a customer employing this test can receive a result indicating that her ancestors lived in Africa approximately 100,000 years ago.  (Nelson 2008)
While I do understand the idea of locating in the present-day groups based on genetic similarity, the idea of tracing back in time is a foreign concept.  Nelson unfortunately does not go into much more detail than just this quote.  And how it is that geneticists are able to say with any certainty that specific genetic similarities occurred at certain points in time?  Nelson does make a good point that many cultural groups had passed through West Africa at some point in time on their way off the continent and so many people received information that linked them with West African origins.  But that doesn’t necessarily indicate origin so much as trace an ethnic or cultural group across its history.  For more information on some of these groups, check out these links: National Geographic’s Genographic Project, Family Tree DNA.  With projects like Family Tree DNA, once analysis has been completed, you even get a fancy looking certificate:

There is also skepticism not only based on the methods of inference, but the technology itself.  A woman named Pat had gone through with genetic testing and was actually very trusting of the methods.  With the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in the very recent past, that is a frequent road block for people who do not have the exposure to genetic analysis that Pat did.  Pat worked in a crime lab where genetic analysis was used to free innocent suspects, and so was confident in the ability of DNA to tell the truth.  But even so, upon further delving into other companies and seeing the similarities that were coming from her colleagues who had also received the tests:
Nevertheless, the preponderance of similar ethnic lineage findings among her genealogist colleagues, and the inconsistency of her genetic result with the family genealogy she had laboriously assembled by conventional means, led Pat to conclude that ‘we still technically don’t know who we are’.  (Nelson 2008)
Her response actually made me stop and I had to sit for a few moments before continuing.  Pat had spent time tracing out her family genealogy through more conventional means, and had set up genetic analysis as the end-all statement of truth.  When genetic analysis was inconsistent with what she had found, everything she had done outside of DNA testing suddenly was thrown up in the air again.  The ability for a technology, which is still largely imperfect in this case, to cause you to doubt all other types of evidence is strange to me.  It’s been interesting reading about genetic technology and identity because it’s something that I can’t necessarily agree with as being a definitive statement of who I am.  I think it’s unfair to say that your history, your meaning, who you are can all be found in genetics.  Knowing who you are (historically even) is based upon experiences.  Nelson had also described how one woman, upon discovering her Ghanaian roots, had gone out and bought a flag, and suddenly was able to find this “family” to identify with.  Sure, genetics opened up this whole other world she never would have thought of, but its strange to think how one test will completely change how you see yourself.  But that then speaks to our constant desire to find a meaning, find an identity.  In a diverse culture like in the US, where individualism is so prized, and it’s all about figuring out who you are in relation to other people.  In searching for who we are, we look for groups to identify with and now it seems that this kind of identification is more and more starting to come from genetics.

When examining DNA in this way, what we’re trying to do is piece together across history, a tracing of the human species.  There is absolutely an evolutionary element to it.  Beyond finding specific loci of similarity among DNA, pretty soon (once technology catches up), we’ll be looking to trace the evolution across not just specific cultural or ethnic groups, but also across the human species in general.  So much of the motivation for the Tasmanian Tiger project comes from wanting to evolutionarily understand the world.  Once we go beyond tracing ethnic groups, the next step is to take it to a macro-level understanding of the human race in general and see what we can learn about evolution through that.  An easy way to examine evolution genetically it is through looking at animals who had been around for a particularly long period of time and only disappeared in the recent past (like the tiger).  In this way, we have evidence for a species that was fairly stable genetically across its existence and with something like the tiger it is easier to find genetically similar animals that we could possibly make connections to.  Not that the findings would necessarily support current theories of evolution, but nonetheless, sequencing genomes opens up the possibility for making connections across history and creating a time-spanning map of life on earth.

Background on the Srebrenica Massacre

Wagner describes the process of databanking the DNA from individual remains from the massacre and the process of forensic and DNA analysis to determine the identities of those who were killed.  The event itself led to many technological innovations, which started with forensic investigation:
The chaos of the commingled, disassociated, and partial skeletons that lay within the secondary mass graves eventually gave rise to another innovation: a forensic application of genetic science unique in scale and in method that finally offered a means of resolving the missing persons issue by matching blood samples of surviving family members with bones samples from recovered mortal remains.  (Wagner 86)
The process was started in 1996 with a strictly forensic team.  Despite the best efforts, Wagner mentions that only 70 individuals were identified based on this process by 2000.  The pace was slow and so it paved the way for the application of DNA technology, with a lot of it being dependent on the formation of databanks that would be able to quickly and much more precisely identify individuals from the mutilated remains:

Synthesizing data for each missing person, these Excel spreadsheet records compelled action, their very form creating an “instrument, a tool, a means to an end—Action.” The act of documenting their names formally recognized them as missing, and that state of absence demanded a public response.  Furthermore, the lists marked the first attempts to establish a central database for the victims—individual profiles a computer software program would one day sift through in its search for matches between the mortal remains of the missing and the blood of the surviving family members.  (Wagner 92)
Overall, DNA trumped forensic analysis, not just in speed of recovery but also in accuracy:
Over and over, I saw how the recognition of an identifying item had led them down the wrong path, only to be corrected by the use of the outsourced DNA testing.  (Wagner 100)
There is no doubt that, in contrast with last week’s post, DNA databanking is a very useful tool.  And I do believe that used in contexts outside criminal handlings, databanking for the purpose of finding identity should be encouraged.  The organization heading much of the project, ICMP, has been greatly beneficial.  In a constantly modernizing world, the idea of a databank, especially for such a humanitarian cause, it hard to ignore.

Identifying missing persons through the sophisticated instrumentation and presumable unassailable evidence of DNA testing provided yet another plane on which the invested Western governments could attempt social repair in postwar Bosnia.  First, cast as science in the service of “truth,” it promised to transcend the politics of the region…Second, it was manifestly humanitarian. (Wagner 80)

Thus the project of identifying Srebrenica’s missing, as it expanded into a region-wide effort to identify all of former Yugoslavia’s missing, drew together opposing constituencies around the common goal of accounting for and commemorating the missing. (Wagner 90)

My worry is that while people are being rallied around this good causes, the ideas of databanks will spread beyond this situations.  We’ve already seen databanks with enCode in Iceland go awry, and so who’s to say that the same won’t happen as a result of this event?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely sensitive to the cause and I’m all for it, but let’s hope that these companies will choose to use this vast power only for good.

But you’ve got to wonder, that once we get to a point where things are sequenced, and everyone is figured out, where will our individuality lie?  The distinguishing characteristics people (or at least government) will identify you with is the appearance of certain proteins on your genome.  If the idea of DNA databanking caught on and was mandated beyond missing persons cases, it will do exactly what we didn’t want Social Security numbers to do, to change people to a string of code.

So let’s say hypothetically that this won’t happen for people, because we value ourselves beyond the building blocks we’re made up of.  But what about animals?  All this work on the DNA of the thylacine, as well as the many other animals who have been cloned or had their DNA sequenced could very well lead to a databank of animals.  When this happens, I just wonder if we’ll ever get to a point where we manufacture animals.  Getting low on animal A?  Well, we’ve got the code on file, let’s just make a few more. Having this kind of power at our disposal I think would lead to less of a concern of actually preserving and respecting the creatures we share this earth with.  It doesn’t matter how we use or deplete resources, we need to leave only enough so that they have a small environment to live in, and if we kill too many of them we’ll just make a few more.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is probably an exaggeration, but with the track record we’ve got as a human race, will we know when to stop?

This was a particularly interesting study of the exploitation of the somewhat isolated population of Iceland.  Rose examined the progression of a particular genetics research company called deCode from it’s initial presence to the state that it’s in in 2001, when the article was published.  Even today, their website touts it’s leading in research and statistical analysis:
deCODE is a global leader in making sense of the genome – in linking variations in the sequence to phenotype. Our work is driven by our world-leading statistics team, who put their know-how in to work for you: maximizing the data you get from your samples and then taking you from data to discovery. (deCODE)

Rose raises a lot of concerns in the article about the privacy of the information being provided to deCode.  It seemed like a happy enough idea:
The possibility of tailoring drugs to patients with particular genotypic profiles offers better value for money for the drug budget coupled with less discomfort and danger to patients.  (Rose 10)
It seems like a company that would be able to take information and cut down on drug costs because of the specificity with which they could cater their research.  But something not so great has been the collection of data, and the limited opportunities to opt out.

Internationally accepted standards of good practice would require not only informed consent for the first DNA analysis but that the researchers should seek separate consents for each subsequent analysis or secure informed consent to a series of subsequent tests.  Thus, deCode’s technocratic and commercially driven language of ‘has value’ appears to set aside consideration of the ethical requirements demanded by human genetics.  (Rose 17)
Only current adults were able to opt out, and data once submitted could never be removed.  In addition to issues of opting out, issues of consent for each testing phased were circumvented and not much else has changed.  From a Science Insider article written January of 2010:
To further its search for disease genes, the company plans to begin whole genome sequencing of 2500 DNA samples from its database. It will not need to recontact these individuals for consent because their original consent agreements cover whole genome sequencing, Stefansson [CEO] says.   (Kaiser 2010)

The company’s cheerful website highlights it as a do-good service to the community but it is difficult to ignore all the criticisms it had received in the past.  DeCode actually filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and was brought under the leadership of another company, much to the shock of those who’s information was held within the HSD database.  A TimesOnline article discusses some of the conflict that was sparked when news of bankruptcy was released, with concerns over the new potential uses of genetic information, especially because of the blanket consent forms issued at the start.

Even news clips put a positive spin on volunteering to be in the database.

But even with this spin, Rose points out in her article that these genetic consistencies among the population in Iceland aren’t necessarily as homogeneous as researchers want to believe.  Claims are made as to the Viking heritage of the whole country, but immigrants are simply ignored, and the bottleneck instances used to justify the homogeneity of the population are not valid enough to draw the conclusions that members of deCode are drawing.

The compilation not only of genetics but of health records in general is on the rise with companies pushing for the consolidation of medical records for ease of access, etc.

The desire to create compilations of information is not a foreign idea, nor is it necessarily a bad one.  But my hesitation comes in when there is uncertainty as to whether or not this information would be used for purposes beyond what is specified because deCode has already proven that it is easy for companies to create blanket consent forms so that once you’ve participated for whatever reason, your genetic information is lost to you and can be used for whatever else the company needs, and can in some cases be sold to other parties.  There does need to be transparency when it comes to dealing with genetic information and its advancement.  The Tasmanian tiger sequence of DNA is still in the introductory stages of having been sequenced, but what happens to the technologies when they are given over to the general public?  The sequencing techniques will become available to whatever genetic company wants to use them, or by the same people funding the current research, and then that sort of technology will be expanded and used for other purposes.  Luckily for us, the thylacine is extinct, no objections can be raised (it’s an animal anyway) in using its DNA to advance sequencing technologies.  But again, once these technologies are available to the general public, then what?

Biologists today, for example, accept without question the double helical structure of DNA and the chemical composition of the base pairs that make up its two intertwined strands.  There are taken as undeniable facts, not contingent in any way on the circumstances of their discovery…Science may be a social activity, but when executed correctly, the results are viewed as no longer bearing traces of human subjectivity.  (Jasanoff 330)
To [collect DNA samples from arrestees] is to equate arrest with guilt and to empower police officers, rather than judges and juries, with the power to force persons to provide the state with evidence that harbors many of their most intimate secrets and those of their blood relatives.  (Steinhardt 14)

These two statements seem to be a bit unrelated, but I think provide an interesting summary of the viewpoints of the two authors.  Jasanoff spends his pages talking about the way in which DNA is used, or is an influence, in the court system.  Steinhardt talks about the legality of what is permissible by various states with respect to holding onto DNA samples after legal proceedings and the points at which DNA testing can be introduced in a case.  Overall, the impression I seem to get is that Jasanoff puts little merit into the impact DNA testing can have on a case while Steinhardt seems to believe that the general public does, in fact, take genetic evidence as final.  These different viewpoints, I believe, might stem from differing perspectives on what the relationship is between an individual and their genetic sequence (which is where the title of today’s post comes in).

In practice, the degree of doubt in a juror’s mind depends on an advocate’s success or failure in arousing or allaying misgivings, whether about the heinousness of the crime or about the nature of the evidence, or both.  Forensic science, in other words, cannot rule out doubt on its own, but only as it is represented, and contested, in court, as a component of a larger story.  (Jasanoff 334)
This is where I’m more inclined to lean toward Jasanoff’s view on genetics in general, but at the same time, I do have the same skepticism over DNA databases as Steinhardt.
First, I am skeptical because there is a long history of function creep in databases.  Despite the initial promises of their creators, databases created for a discrete purpose eventually take on new functions and purposes…Finally, I am skeptical because as long as we continue to hold on the millions of biological samples, the temptation to use them for purposes that go beyond law enforcement identification will simply be too great.  (Steinhardt 2)
Steinhardt goes on to examples of the progression of DNA collection in the US.  His fears are completely valid because some of the loose wording in state statutes on these issues open up these data banks to any number of government organizations.  I wouldn’t doubt that before long, we’ll see health insurance companies taking genetic backgrounds on potential clients, and having access to this information because of the state.  It does, then, open up for all sorts of new discrimination in that sense.

Steinhardt does, however, also take the privacy angle where he asserts that your genetic code is one of the most secret and personal thing about you.  While a statement of secrecy about it is true, seeing as most people don’t even know it themselves, approaching DNA in this way limits the individual to just that.  My challenge to all of you out there is to think about what identifies you.  Is it something in your DNA, can the essence of an individual be found in their DNA?

Although all forms of scientific activity strive as far as possible to find correct answers to problems, the context in which an investigation is carried out necessarily affects the kinds of conclusions it reaches.  (Jasanoff 333)
True for all areas of science.  So often, the strived after goal has a way of changing the interpretations of experimental results.  I think this is true not just in the legal system but in genetic analysis as well.  So this thylacine: manipulation of genes has allowed for scientists to run with the idea that all genes from this animal can be functional if brought back.  The got one protein to work in mice, but who’s to say that they could, in fact, get every protein to be functional should they decide to bring back the animal?  How do they know that different environmental factors/conditions wouldn’t affect the expression of the gene in different ways, trigger something different, and not actually lead to a successful creation?  There is such a focus on being able to genetically get something to work, that I think environmental factors aren’t really getting fair consideration.  In the same way that DNA evidence will not for sure convict or not convict a suspect, getting a few proteins to work won’t necessarily lead to a healthy living thylacine.

I had mentioned not too long ago that a side affect of the thylacine project could definitely be the opportunity to understand evolution from a genetic standpoint.  That’s giving genes way too much credit.  In areas of little understanding, people are quick to assign cause to a specific factor.  For most of us who cannot comprehend committing a felony, it can be relieving then to find there might be a genetic predisposition.  We don’t want to believe that people really choose to do wrong, that people choose to harm others and so the more we can blame away to other factors, the better.  In that same way that we still don’t really understand evolution and extinction of species, or want to assign blame to ourselves, it would be nice to be able to blame extinction on genes and take ourselves out of the picture.  In the same way that we don’t want to believe that humans want to cause harm to other humans, we don’t want to accept that we (inadvertently or not) led to the destruction of any living being.  Voila: thylacine project.

We’re going to start off with a series of quotes from the Conrad article followed by a direct example of exactly what is being described.
While physicians are still the gatekeepers for many drugs, the pharmaceutical companies have become a major player in medicalization.  In the post-Prozac world, the pharmaceutical industry has been more aggressively promoting their wares to physicians and especially to the public.  (Conrad 5)
Adult ADHD is one example of what Barsky and Boros have identified as the public’s decreased tolerance for mild symptoms and benign problems.  Individual’s self-medicalization is becoming increasingly common, with patients taking their troubles to physicians and often asking directly for a specific medical solution.  (Conrad 9)

This is a society in which we people are treated as consumers.  Conrad is absolutely right.  The Zoloft commercial itself presents depression as a problem that “20 million Americans” suffer from.  Giving us a number like that, with a cartoon representation of depression, makes it seem like the simple blues are something that need to be medicated.  While real depression is a serious issue, that doesn’t really come across in simple commercials.  Quotes like “you aren’t enjoying things like you used to” greatly expands to market for the drug as that can be applied to any number of slumps in life.  Adding “ask your doctor about [fill in the blank]” into any commercial also promotes hypochondria among the masses.  To be honest, it’s almost a scare tactic, and makes it seem like doctors themselves would be holding out on us.  With the increase of self-diagnosis tools, including WebMD which can allow people to jump to the most extreme conclusions first, we are a lot more willing to decide we have a problem when only a few years ago not a second thought would have been given to minor problems.

Conrad is absolutely right in that there is an increasing rise in medicalization, with pharmaceutical companies being driven by profit rather than genuine concern for people with real illnesses.  In this article, as well as the other two listed, there is misinformation of “consumers” of these new technologies.  In terms of the breast cancer gene, as addressed in the Couzin and Lock articles, both mention that the gene describes only a presdisposition to hereditary forms of cancer, or ones that affect multiple members of a family.  Even so, this does not tell you whether or not you will get it, only if you are predisposed.  It’s not actually an 80% chance of getting cancer; it’s an 80% chance once that right environmental triggers happen first, which overall translates to a much lower percentage.  This next series of quotes outlines exactly what I’ve been saying (all from the Lock article):

• The physician and writer Lewis Thomas pointed out more than a decade ago that we live today with an ‘epidemic of anxiety’, caused in large part by the ceaseless assault from the media of messages informing us that we are at risk for everything imaginable. (9)
• ‘Predispose’ is, of course, the significant word here; it cannot be repeated too often that genes do not ‘cause’ cancer in any predetermined way, and further that in the case of breast cancer, more than 90% of its incidence, it seems, is not associated with genetics, but with a complex array of other environmental and social factors.  (9)
• The ‘philosophy of risk’ as Ewald notes, incorporates a secularized approach to life, where God is removed from the scene, leaving the control of events entirely in human hands.  (10)
• Risk becomes, in Douglas’s words, ‘a forensic resource’ whereby individuals can be held accountable.’ (10)

And so we’re back to playing God.  Our desire to control, coupled with lack of complete information, is a powerful force in all genetics projects.  With the thylacine, one of the important goals of the project is to be able to better understand evolution and evolutionary pressures by genetics.  In a society fascinated with the idea of prolonging life, it would make sense that we would focus not only on prolonging lives of individuals but that of the whole human race in general.  We can take into our own hands the genetic anomalies that arise and circumvent genetic pressures.  We want to live forever and the way we see to do that is by conquering this world of genetics.

There was an interesting point brought up by the Franklin selection.  She describes a particular farmer’s efforts to perfect the breeding of cows, keeping a detailed pedigree of the market.  She describes:
The maintenance of such records enabled a differentiation to be drawn between male animals that were “good sire” and those that were not.  In turn this differentiation enabled a reduction of the male animal to a template of its kind. (Franklin 98)
The entire time I was reading this particular section of the chapter, I kept relating it to a sperm bank.  The pedigree of people is somewhat already in existence.  Now, granted, it is a somewhat unconventional method of reproduction but it does exist.  A history of the donor is kept so that people can better choose attributes that are similar to that which they desire for their child.  And the evolution of genetically controlling animal breeding can to some degree be paralleled with genetic developments being made in gene identification in human DNA, with the exception being that animals are being genetic modified for human purposes where we’re looking to modify humans for health (or aesthetic) purposes.

What is interesting however, is that the excerpt laments what is happening to Darwinian evolution, but only a few paragraphs earlier says this:
This innovation [genetically modified animals] is valuable because it enables a new form of pure reproduction in higher mammals, removed from the genetic “noise” of the rut.  The problem with conventional breeding, or course, is that it is unreliable, inefficient, and thus costly. (Franklin 99)
By controlling the reproduction of certain animals, humans are pruning the branches of the tree of evolution.  Sure, other animals are free to change and evolve, but these specific families (cows, etc.) are being stunted in their “right” to evolution.  We’re taking nature out of the picture.  And the same thing is seen with the thylacine (which I might have mentioned in a previous post).  By artificially continuing a branch on the evolutionary chain, humans are overlooking what nature (at least in part on its own or through the growth of the human race) decided to eradicate.

But that wouldn’t matter if we believed that nature did all it could do, that humankind has attained all that it can under the forces of nature, which seems to be a definite implication under the ideas of the Rose excerpt.
[The concept of vital policy is] neither delimited by the poles of illness and health, nor focused on eliminating pathology to protect the destiny of the nation.  Rather, it is concerned with our growing capacities to control, mange, engineer, reshape, and modulate the very vital capacities of human beings as living creatures. (Rose 3)
There seems to be a pervading idea among humankind that we’ve reached a peak.  Now, based on evolution, that wouldn’t seem to be the case as evolving creatures are always better suited to an undeniably evolving environment.  However, because of the dynamic nature of the human species, of our ability to mold our environments (to some degree), we seem to place ourselves above the ideas of evolution we cling to, and have taken it into our own hands to create an ideal:
…these technologies embody disputed visions of what, in individual and or collective human life, may indeed be an optimal state. (6)
And this is all incredibly fascinating because if we look at this from a slightly different point of view, from a purely natural perspective, letting go of the idea that humans are anything but another animal species: our rise could just be part of the evolutionary path for the earth.  Think about it.

On another note, there are interesting ideas presented in the Franklin text about what it means for Dolly to be a clone, how she relationally fits into her family, and what that might mean for societal structure if a matriarchal society were to arise.  But just on the ideas of cloning alone (and being able to have an identity), there is an interesting exploration of this in the film The Island (2005).  All of this, of course, operates under the idea that a human clone would have the same sort of consciousness as a normal human being.  But that also runs into trouble when you’re trying to describe individuals because, genetically you are protein for protein exactly the same as the organism from which you’ve come, so does that detract from individuality?  Or is a different personality or consciousness develops, where does that come from?  And if humankind is slowly moving in the direction of human cloning, no real immortality would ever be reached (presumably that’s the goal), at least not by cloning, because you can’t recreate the essence, the immaterial about a person, only the body in which they resided.

This was a particularly fun week as the structure of the two readings were very drastically different.  Both examine the implications of genetic advancements on the ability of a particular social group to have their own genetic family.  The Taussig chapter examined the Little Person (LP) point of view, with considerable evidence for both sides from normal sized people and LPs.  The Waldschmidt article addressed the issues that disabled persons dealt with, and currently [1992 currently] deal with in Germany.

One thing that was nice to see in the Taussig chapter was the reflective nature with which genetic advancements were treated:
“Like Dr. Francomano and the members of the LPA, our team is concerned about the ways in which molecular discoveries may reinforce eugenic thinking and practices.  And like many members of the constituencies among whom we conducted fieldwork, we also recognize the complex interplay that makes it difficult to distinguish the gifts from the iatrogenic poisons of contemporary medical genetics.” (Taussig 61)
Only a few paragraphs later, the chapter admits that most is a result of biomedical attempts to “play God.”  The discovery of the gene for Huntington’s disease was a major springboard in the support of the Human Genome Project.  However, in the discovery of that gene, it opens up doors to both positive and negative repercussions for the whole project.  Like the quote states above, the ability to see a genetic disorder before it happens can be incredibly valuable.  However, the use of that information can hit some problems.  We don’t know whether it will come down to the abortion of “genetically unfit” fetuses, at least until genetic manipulation in the womb is perfected.

In the issue with LPs in general, there is a great deal of individual choice involved.  No compulsory actions taken.
“This discourse about dwarfism, adoption, and abortion after prenatal diagnosis reveals participants’ awareness and imagination of the future in light of recent and expected scientific discoveries and their application in medical practice.  Here, heightened consciousness of individual choice and biotechnological futurism converge.” (Taussig 69)
Not only are people given the right to choose, but they’re also given the greatest amount of information possible in making that choice.  Sure, societal pressures kick in.  There are absolutely normal sized people who take offense at LPs having families, but there are also a number of stories of LPs taking advantage of prenatal testing to make sure that normal sized children are not born (Taussig 71).  What exists here is a situation in which a group of people are not just isolated by society, but in a sense perpetuate that differentiation and prize it.

Now, the Waldschmidt article was almost uncomfortable to read.  This is a discourse provided by a woman with an undisclosed disability.  The summary itself starts out:
“The eugenics of ancient times and today’s human genetics have enough in common to justify speaking of them as one and the same concept.” (155)
That’s quite the leap.  She goes on to make claims [most of the time merited], that the disabled are unjustly discriminated against.  And while I can’t say how valid her claims are, given that I was not in Germany at or before 1992, but the point seems to be contradicted later on.  Like any activist leader, she demands equality, but what she is actually asking for is an advantage.
First she creates a blanket statement for the argument:
Because the disabled are solely and immutably defined on the basis of “deficiencies,” and not on the basis of their abilities and talents, they are effectively barred from participating in and partaking of society and from mapping out their own lives.  In other words, anyone whose educational ability is rated low, whose work potential cannot be marketed, anyone who cannot move quickly, anyone who is considered ugly, or anyone who cannot communicate verbally or cope with the demands of everyday life on their own is regarded as disabled. (Waldschmidt 157)
Then she offers a perspective from the most negative view:
If we do manage to find a satisfying job, if we do fall in love and have children, we do so not in fulfillment of, but in defiance of the expectations and values that have been handed down by society. (Waldschmidt 160)
And then she creates a bleak future:
They would all face the dilemma of being alive but irrelevant factors according to the technocratic logic of the year 2000.  The disabled would become the human “garbage” of a future society. (Waldschmidt 166)
I don’t doubt her pain and frustration in the kind of society she grew up in, and I absolutely respect her situation and point of view.  However, what she asks for earlier in the article is special accommodations provided as a public service for the disabled community.  And that is something that confuses me.  Because while the community being singled out in a negative way is absolutely despicable,  I wouldn’t call special exceptions as exactly fair by her standards.  Me personally?  I would love to see services be provided for the disabled, I would love to see more equality in society in general.  But in terms of her argument, what she asks doesn’t make sense, especially because she looks down on those non-disabled who fight for the rights and accommodations of those who are.  That is what she’s asking for, so why get upset about it? Some food for thought:

If video does not show, click here.

However, on the part of both authors, I would have to agree with the skepticism over genetic testing, and especially the exploration of the human genome.  There is mention in the Waldschmidt article (if I’m not mistaken) over the generalization of results of animal testing that get applied to humans.  I wouldn’t say that it’s limited just to direct testing of “disease genes” but even just the sequencing of genes in general.  In order to test a gene, we need to know where to put it.  The more that animal DNA is unfolded, the closer we get to doing the same for humans.  When it comes to bringing back the thylacine, an understanding of its DNA and functioning of all the different proteins is almost necessary to insure that they all function properly if the animal is brought back (especially if we’re working from broken DNA fragments).  That’s just preparing the way for more advanced human sequencing.

Ultimately I would have to agree with the closing statement of the Taussig selection:
…we note that a working knowledge of the political history of eugenics gives us reason for pessimism of the intellect, but an ethnographic perspective on the openness of these encounters and practices may give some cause for optimism of the will. (72-73)

Bauman starts of with very lofty language to explain a somewhat understandable concept:  the importance of philosophers and their desire to “tame chaos and replace it with order.” (24)  To be honest it was a bit difficult trying to get through those first few pages but once he got off his academic horse, it was much easier to understand.  But no worries, if you’re looking for elitism, he provided that later with his scarily cynical description of scientists!
But in all fairness, Bauman’s descriptions of society are merited.  He has a lot of good observations to share and the philosophical introduction once compared with the content of the rest of that first chapter starts to make things click.

The point that I want to focus on is that he starts off saying:
For pure speculative reason is an organic structure in which there is nothing isolated or independent, but every single part is essential to all the rest; and hence, the slightest imperfection, whether defect or positive error, could not fail to betray itself in use. (24)

I think it’s safe to say that this observation is absolutely true.  Anytime you are sitting in a heated debate, you spend your time looking for one little whole in the conversation and then once you find it, you insert a stick of dynamite and the whole structure upon which argument rests has blown apart.  (Yes, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but you understand what I mean.)  So taking this philosophical standpoint, let’s run over to a later part in chapter one:
Scientists hail objectivity.  They disdain and avoid value judgments.  Once they have done this, the rest is the matter of instrumental rationality.  If the killing of mental patients is economically sound, and technically feasible, why on earth should it not be done? (49)
If a sound argument can be presented for why something should be done, the only hole in the argument is morality.  It is true that scientists spend a good amount of time making airtight cases for what they want to do, how they want to do it, and how it will benefit society, but all from a very intellectual perspective.  When you take the humanity out of it, it becomes lot easier to move forward with genetic progress.  And from here, he says, is where the Holocaust took its root, as well as any other eugenic movement.   So what happens when morality is a necessity in determining technological progress?
There is no reason to doubt the noble intentions of the scientists.  There is less cause still to charge them with malice aforethought.  What the lesson of the Holocaust has taught us, however, is to doubt the wisdom of the scientists’ claim of their right to tell good from bad; the capacity of science as moral authority; indeed, the ability of scientists to locate moral issues and to pass moral judgement of the effects of their actions.  (45-46)
Scientists see the incredible knowledge of what they want to achieve, and see a responsibility (because of the possible benefits) to run forward with experimentation.  But often, for the proponents of any movement, there is extreme bias in what they deem to be appropriate sacrifices to the cause.  There is definitely a taste of a Machiavellian view: “The end justifies the means.” And I would say that is the case with any new projects, but becomes especially complicated with humans, or any living creature, is thrown into the mix.

Take for example the thylacine I’ve attached to.  It is a bold endeavor, would open crazy amounts of doors for future genetic progress, but you also see that
Modern science was born out of the overwhelming ambition to conquer Nature and subordinate it to human needs (39).
Taking it from this standpoint, it can still be seen as a human need to bring back an extinct species.  We feel that we have a moral obligation to this animal, because were it not for humans, it might still be around.  So the need is to satisfy our own “guilt” over having contributed to the extinction of this species.  A lot of the time, however, I think that we see ourselves as an outside force to be controlling all of Nature.  Species have gone extinct in the past because of the encroachment of new animals or interplay of various environmental factors.  No other animals sits and thinks: “Oh, I might have led to the decline of ‘x’ species, I have to try and do something to help bring it back.” Humanity alone has that viewpoint.  Does it not occur to us that we could also just be part of the course of nature?

Different animals species are fluctuating and being replaced at every step of history, but we single ourselves out as something different than that.  But there is no way, in the same contained space, for one species of animal to flourish without adversely affecting another.  Whether it be our depletion of resources for other animals or literally shrinking the amount of space they have on this earth, we are affecting the world around us.  Sure there’s something to be said for the prevention of senseless destruction, and in our higher thinking that is absolutely a responsibility of ours, but no matter what we do, it can’t be “earth’s existing species + growth of humans.”  It will always be “earth’s species + growth of humans – decline of some animals.”  If we are overly concerned with preserving the world as it is, we’ll find ourselves trapped in our current state, unable to move.  There needs to a exist a balance.

So, I agree that it is absolutely important for humans in general to be conscious of endangered species, and working to help protect those animals/plants/etc.  But if something goes extinction, we need to let it go.  Extinction is never caused by just one factor, it is always multiple forces acting together that produce a widespread change in life.  Even the extinction of the dinosaurs has now come to be understood as a combination of efforts on the part of natural forces.  So as long as we’re conscious of our behavior, we can accept that it’s part of nature’s cycle that certain animals give up their time here on Earth.

And I do believe that some scientists would agree with me, but here is where I offer another angle to the argument.  Say, for example, that scientists knew exactly what was going on when they were making progress in animal cloning and bringing back extinct animals.  I don’t think that it would be far-fetched for me to say that the whole point is to get to a place where the same can be done for humans.  There is a lot to be said for Bauman’s quote of scientific endeavors in the human genome:
‘We do not intend to define “bad” traits, only graft the good ones…’ (45)
I do think that it is the ultimate goal to be mapping out everything inheritable in human genetics.  But it doesn’t matter the intention to only graft good traits because in mapping something out, you will undoubtedly find the bad ones as well.  And once that information is out there, you can’t take it back and there’s no telling where it will go.

So I have very recently determined the topic that I will follow through with for the rest of this quarter.  A large section of my blog postings will be relating to the thylacine, more commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger.  This animal was given an extinction date in 1936, with more recent years being devoted to mapping out the genome of this extinct animal.  Keep this in mind over the next few paragraphs, it will tie into eugenics!

In the Gould article, he examines a particular instance where sterilization was imposed upon a person under the guise of ending a line of “feeble-minded” genes that would have otherwise been passed on to further generations (this is also the subject of the Supreme Court case seen above).  However, upon digging up the past it was discovered that she was, in fact, of normal intelligence and the main motivation for the sterilization was likely the fact the she was an illegitimate child, and had had an illegitimate child of her own.  Basically, the “elite” of society responded to what they thought was a problem.  Even in the adoption of eugenics altogether, it was mankind identifying a problem, and playing God about it.  Holt described Galton with the following phrase:
“[Galton] was the father of eugenics, the science, or pseudoscience, of “improving” the human race by selective breeding.”
Selective breeding.  That, in theory, should happen on its own in nature, but Galton (as well as all other proponents of eugenics) believed that mankind could speed up this eventual process.  And that’s the key, they really did believe it would happen anyway, largely due to Gregor Mendel’s work with peas.  However, all of these scientific minds understood the vast complexity of the human race, but still subjected it to the same forces as pea plants…
Funnily enough, Galton and his wife never managed to have children themselves, yet he never thought about how this could have been nature’s way of telling him that his genes were not fit to move on.

But as time goes on, and we learn more about the human genome, we have more of a sense of God-like control.  Before, we only had the consciousness to assume that we could play God, and now we have the scientific knowledge to justify it.  Given our incredible genetic abilities, why wouldn’t it be our responsibility to take care of this problem ourselves?  That would be precisely because we aren’t God..or anything close.  We don’t have the foreknowledge to know if our manipulation is a good idea, and in something as complicated as genetics, I wouldn’t want to be the one to risk it.  And not just within the human genome, but in society: humankind doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record for our genetic work.  The shining example of that is the 400,000 people that were sterilized under Hitler’s watch because they were not deemed worthy of the passing on of their genes.  While the number is not as staggering, thousands of people in the U.S. were also sterilized.  People took an idea that was innocent enough (in its ignorance) and sprinted with it.  This is where the thylacine comes in.

The Tasmanian tiger has been extinct since 1936, with at least partial blame being attributed to humans.  And now, they’ve done enough work with genetics to be able to map out genomes.  Certain protein-coding genes from the thylacine have been activated in mice, and with extensive work the entire mitochondrial genome is almost mapped.  So we’ve got the motivation and the knowledge, and here comes the sense of obligation.  But again, consequences are not being considered.  If we bring back this species, what’s next?  How many species will we revive?  When will it stop?  What kind of an impact would this have on the environment?  Think Jurassic Park.

Sometimes, it’s best to let life go on as it is, and stop trying to take the nature out of it.