Fabricated Humans? Human Genetics,Ethics and the Christian Wisdom Tradition1

Abstract: This article highlights the key social issues associated with genetic screening and testing. It identifies an uneasy combination of a cultural drive towards perfection alongside heightened perception of a risk society. Awareness of risk is particularly in evidence in clinical genetics, but is surprisingly silent in public discourse about stem cell research, which has tended to flounder through its unilateral focus on the status of the early embryo. This article concentrates on current practice, such as the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and offers a critical analysis of current debates about ethical issues. It argues that Christian ethics can contribute positively to the debate by drawing on the tradition of prudence or practical wisdom, which goes beyond the secular alternatives of both the consequential analysis of risk and benefit and the precautionary principle.     

人类干细胞之伦理原则与监管政策（上）

本文分两大部分。第一部分从干细胞的功能、来源与社会争议性3种角度划分了人类干细胞的种类,并讨论与人类干细胞研究及临床应用相关的9条伦理原则,特别强调了西方国家对胚胎捐赠在知情同意方面的伦理耍求。第二部分讨论了制定监管人类干细胞研究的3个原则,并简单地介绍了在英美各国监管的情况,其中较详细地评论了英国的种种立法过程、设立的法定机构和执行的种种政策与机制,作为在我国讨论类似政策参考之用。     

生殖性复制与医疗性复制之伦理区分

目前,各国政府和学术界对生殖性复制持否定态度是一致的,但对医疗性复制却存在激烈的争论。争论主要涉及人类胚胎的来源、胚胎的地位,以及胚胎干细胞成果应用的可接受性。     

骨髓造血干细胞移植治疗自身免疫性疾病的进展

自身免疫疾病发病机制复杂,目前尚缺少有效的治疗方法。近年来发现造血干细胞移植可以通过免疫重建显著缓解甚至治愈自身免疫病。笔者对近年来造血干细胞移植治疗自身免疫病进行了介绍和综述,就其在1型糖尿病这一领域的研究进展进行了述评,探讨造血干细胞移植用于治疗自身免疫病的前景和待解决的问题。     

辩证看待干细胞移植的热化问题

现代科学技术的发展已经并正在给人类展现一个相互矛盾的事实：一方面是科学技术推动人类社会的巨大进步,促进社会生活的极大提高。如核能的利用、转基因作物、转基因治疗、动物克隆、干细胞的开发与应用等等,无不让人类充分地享受到现代科技带来的种种利益和好处。另外一方面人类的生存危机前所未有的加深,环境的恶化、水资源的污染、新的疾病和变异的菌种诞生等等。怎样运用哲学的理性的思维和方法来评判现代科技对人类的影响,摆脱其发展对社会所造成的两难困境,是一个必须解决的难题。以干细胞移植研究为例,如何辩证看待干细胞移植热化问题,如何运用哲学思维来看待干细胞移植的有利性和危害性,探究科学技术的可持续发展道路。     

Human Allocentric Heading Orientation and Ability

ABSTRACT— Since the discovery of head-direction cells in nonhuman mammals, we have learned a great deal about how an internal compass-like system functions in the mammalian brain. In contrast, we know very little about how this system operates in humans—or, for that matter, whether humans even have an internal compass for computing body heading. This article reviews a recent line of inquiry that uses animal models of head-direction-system functioning to motivate behavioral research on human sense of direction.     

Bioterrorism, Embryonic Stem Cells, and Frankenstein

The stem cell controversy raises a fundamental question for humankind. Does science have a right to pursue knowledge whatever the cost? Our Enlightenment culture says yes. However, human history and literature are sending warning signals. Ethical issues impact the “knowledge for its own sake” imperative, and must be addressed.     

Scientific Self-Regulation—So Good, How Can it Fail?

To be a functional alternative to government regulation, self-regulation of science must be credible to both scientists and the public, accountable, ethical, and effective. According to some, serious problems continue in research ethics in the United States despite a rich history of proposed self-regulatory standards and oversight devices. Successful efforts at self-regulation in stem cell research contrast with unsuccessful efforts in research ethics, particularly conflicts of interest. Part of the cause for a lack of success in self-regulation is fragmented, disconnected oversight, and failure to embody genuine scientific and public consensus. To be accountable, credible and effective, self-regulation must be inclusive and multidisciplinary, publicly engaged, sufficiently disinterested, operationally integrated with institutional goals, and must implement a genuine consensus among scientists and the public. The mechanisms of self-regulation must be sufficiently broad in their oversight, and interconnected with other institutional forces and actors, that they do not create fragmented solutions.

Approaching Religious Guidelines for Chimera Policymaking

Recent developments in the use of cow egg cells to clone human somatic cells, and the grafting by researchers at several universities of human neurons into mice, bring the notion of the chimera, a mixture of several living organisms, from myth into reality. In his article “Cross‐Species Chimeras: Exploring a Possible Christian Perspective,” Neville Cobbe considers the religious arguments overlying the creation of human‐nonhuman chimeras. In my commentary I focus on the distinction between germline‐ and tissue transplant‐related chimeric techniques implicit in Cobbe's essay and argue that the former poses more serious moral difficulties than the latter if the chimeric product is brought to term. The substantive view of the imago Dei, or image of God, serves as a scaffold by which to judge the permissibility of chimera creation using stem cell and other tissue implants. While useful for judging the rights of such artificially generated beings, I argue that specific criteria such as proportion of tissue uptake, mental capacity, and adherence with the organism's telos are more appropriately considered within a composite image of the living being reflecting its unique integrality. Human co‐creativity with the Divine will inevitably prompt attempts to generate medically useful chimeras. Religious dialogue, combined with the categories of religious moral argument appearing in Cobbe's essay, will help to establish the outline of feasible policy guidelines addressing the complexities inherent in the creation of chimeras.     

GOLEMS IN THE BIOTECH CENTURY

The legend of the golem, the creation of life through mystical and magical means, is the most famous postbiblical Jewish legend. After noting recent references to the golem legend in fiction, film, art, and scientific literature, I outline three stages of the development of the legend, including its relationship to the story of Frankenstein. I apply teachings about the golem in classical Jewish religious literature to implications of the legend for ethical issues relating to bioengineering, reproductive biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and corporate ethics. The golem legend emerges as a source of prudent guidance through the minefield of ethical and spiritual problems emerging from current and expected developments in biotechnology.