Image by gennie catastrophe via Flickr

I recently heard a talk by Lone Frank (author of the book “My Beautiful Genome” where during the discussion after the talk, she made the point that we should not hide the fact that eugenics is coming. She continued to specify that we are talking about personal eugenics – not the kind of eugenics practiced in authoritarianism.

I think this is a very good point and one that is missed by almost all opponents of the new genomic era, an era which, let’s be Frank about this, is sure to bring the sorting society to reality.

Why is personal eugenics different ? Well simply because there is a choice involved – that really is the whole difference. It involves replacing the sentence “Only healthy seeds must be sown” in the illustration above with something like “You can choose healthy seeds to be sown”. In a near-future transhumanist society a poster like this would most likely be an add for some ART/IVF-company and not propaganda from some dictatorship government.

While these may seem like subtle changes, they make a huge ethical difference. The discussion we need to have is not about eugenics forced upon us, but about eugenics as a personal choice.

Criticism of transhumanism is certainly in its place many times, and constructive criticism is surely needed to restrain our sometimes naive enthusiasm for technology. But, using comparisons to authoritarian eugenics (like the one practized in nazi-germany) is however, not very constructive (or even valid), since the principle of free choice is so central in transhumanist thinking.

Any true transhumanist will acknowledge the universal and absolute right for anyone to say no to technology, if they wish.

Any true transhumanist believes strongly in equality for all – whether “natural” or “enhanced”. Some so much so that they seek to avoid harming any life-form whatsoever.

I resent any comparison of transhumanism to racist/nazi – thinking. I believe transhumanism is about the opposite – equality for all. In fact I believe that embracing most, if not all technological developments is the only way to achieve this.

On our way there, we need to sort out our response to personal eugenics.

Professor Moran at Sandwalk who is relentlessly responding to (the same) intelligent design claims. It’s a battle that may never be won. Beliefs based on faith is impossible to argue rationally against. Converting them to science is doing it the right way – but, no doubt – the hard way.

Mary Meets Dolly for fighting against transhumanism and human enhancement – even though at the root of transhumanism you will find improved artificial limbs and medical technology made to heal disease and improve health. Who is opposed to that ? Strange how religion justifies suffering.

The Biotechnology board in my home-country who keeps having conferences on how knowledge of our own genes is dangerous is so many ways – even though most of us live unharmed lives with most of our traits (inherited or not) exposed.

To the environmentalist movement who keeps warning us about global warming . If nobody cares, then converting people to science may not be such a good idea after all. Could some divine force intelligently design us out of this mess or are we intelligently designed into it with no escape ?

To me for writing another blog-post even though blogging is dead.

Our lab is now ISO-13485 certified. Let me assure you that a lot of hours went into this.

If you for any reason, need a lab to make you a molecular biology diagnostic test, we’re the ones to call.

There’s a lot of talk about free will these days.

Following these discussions the following questions occur to me:

1. Is will incarcerated ?
2. If so, why ?

You shouldn’t free anything or anyone just on a hunch….

More accurately:

3. Is freedom a term that can adequately describe the state of our will ?

democracy is great, not because it helps you choose great leaders, but because it helps you get rid of shitty ones.

For no particular reason, it’s been a while since I have been to a McDonalds. We did go today though and I noticed that McDonalds like many other fast- or processed-food suppliers have started putting %GDA (Guideline Daily Amount) tables on their products. This is the Quarter Pounder one for women (!?):

So….according to the nutrinionists making these tables, eating two Quarter pounders with cheese a day will give you all the protein you need, all the fat you need and a bit more salt than you actually need. Throw in fries, a coke and a multi-vitamin pill. Result: a bit to much salt, but in general – healthy eating.

Anyone but me spotting a problem with these %GDA tables ?

My three favourite junkies (junk-DNA supporters) out there are Professors Dr. Moran, Dr. Gregory and post doc. fellow Dr. White. This week they received a strong argument for their junk-DNA cause, which was this paper on how there appears to have been a lot of noise in some of the larger RNA-studies over recent years. This was covered elegantly in this Sandwalk post by professor Moran.

Now if only the Adaptive Complexity blog written by White would have just jumped on the same solid bandwagon all would have been fine, but no. Instead he attacks a lead author behind some of the above mentioned RNA-papers. Again, this would have been fine had it not been for the argument he uses, an argument which has the quality of third grade primary school science:

Second, John Mattick is clueless, and he should not be quoted. So junk DNA holds the secret to human complexity? Then I supposed it also holds the secret to the incredible complexity of an onion, which has five times more non-coding DNA than humans.

He goes on to give us professor Ryans definition of “The onion test”

The onion test is a simple reality check for anyone who thinks they have come up with a universal function for non-coding DNA1. Whatever your proposed function, ask yourself this question: Can I explain why an onion needs about five times more non-coding DNA for this function than a human?

This “test” I hope everyone sees is utter crap. If you don’t I’ll explain: the assumption is “more DNA = more biological complexity/functions” – which of course is wrong since organisms who apparently have very few functions can have more coding genetic material than more complex organisms (try google the number og genes corals have vs. humans). The assumption is wrong also because the onion may need to meet it’s changing environment with an entirely different genetic arsenal than primates, – the comparison is just way off unless you specify more.

I think the first comment to this Adaptive complexity post is brilliant:

Just out of curiosity tho, what’s the standard explanation for junk DNA? Is it just structural or something? – kerr jac

That question emphasizes what has been my main point all along: Dismissing something as junk is contrary to my idea of science being driven out of curiosity and the need to explore. If you label this DNA as “junk”, how do you answer this question with any confidence ?

I have accepted a dieting challenge and will give intermittent fasting a try.

The challenge is a twitter-challenge and it’s initiated by @NerdyScienceMom. The challenge is to loose 10 lbs (4,5 kg) by 31. May.

Since I have concluded that the amount of exercise that I have time for is not sufficient as a dieting tool, my exercise regime will stay as it is (medium to high intensity 1 hour exercises two to three times a week). The only tool left in the toolbox is controlling my diet. I have been reading up on calorie restriction, but that seems way too complicated, and besides – calorie count based dieting has recently been put into serious question. I have long been skeptical to any claim that says that you can diet by eating the “right” sugars and fats, – I honestly doubt that you change things more than marginally by changing sugar and fat types. Just eating less of a balanced diet containing the proteins, carbohydrates, fats, salts and vitamins that you need on the other hand…..

Thus, I’ll be trying out intermittent fasting. The principle seems easy enough – do not eat every other day. I am going for two to three fasting days pr. week. The science on this method says promising, but mostly the data is somewhat preliminary. What seems clear though is that this method does not seem to pose any risk of malnutrition.

My starting weight is 79 kg, which is up one kg since the challenge actually started just before Easter. I blame too much spare time combined with moderately elevated physical activity (snowboarding), which as I have blogged before – makes me gain weight.

The target weight I have pledged to reach is still be 73,5 kg, which means I now need to loose 5,5 kg instead of the 4,5 I started out with. I’ll be posting updates (if I come across any testosterone on the way I’ll be updating vigorously). Please also follow the other participants in the challenge through the Nerdy Science Mommy blog.

We need to improve the trust in science and scientists. Steven Hill has a recipe for how.

A series of posts on Testing hypotheses…. lists 7 things that would improve trust in science and scientists. This list strikes me as containing all the essentials, and if I may, I’d like to propose that this list becomes the Scientific Communications Manifesto. Below you’ll find the list and links to all 7 posts. Please, go read, it’s probably some of the best few minutes ever spent (if you are a scientist, that is).

1. Communicate about the process of science as well as the content
2. Make research outputs available to all for free
3. Publish negative results and unsuccessful experiments too
4. Publish peer review comments with research outputs
5. Attach a summary for non-experts to research outputs
6. Make raw data available as early as possible
7. Use new technology to open research conferences to all

We need to get this message out and work for acceptance for taking these measures in the scientific community. If successful, public perception of the importance of science and what science is about may get a long needed overhaul.

In a democracy, are there any reasons to fear the horror-scenarios of our biotech-future ?

I am listening three audiobooks by Dean Koontz. The books are called Frankenstein (apparently there’s no copyright on that name), and I bought them based on a recommendation from Mary Meets Dolly. In her blogpost she makes the point that the books are about transhumanism. Of this I am not so sure. The story is about how Frankenstein, still alive and going strong, is making enhanced humans to replace the existing, and in his eyes flawed, human race. Consequently, the story distinguishes itself from transhumanist thinking. Transhumanism is not about replacing anything and it is certainly not about diminishing the value of life. On the contrary, transhumanism is about valuing all life equally, even to the extent that entities harboring artificial intelligence is considered to have equal value to any biological life form. My self-declared transhumanist values gives anyone (and hopefully everyone) the right to enhance their own life as they wish. It is essential that a choice to do such enhancement is a free one. If these choices are forced, we are not talking about transhumanism anymore, we are talking about tyranny.

It struck me that all these scenarios of a future dominated by improved humans are all based on some crazy person dictating their view of “the correct human nature”. I wish someone would write a book on how genetic sorting and human improvements would play out in a modern democratic society with respect for individual rights and freedom of choice. Now that would be interesting to read. It would also give us a literary reference a lot more useful than the horror-scenarios everyone is using today, when discussing genetic engineering and human enhancement.