21 replies to this topic

[Bruce Klein]

http://www.amazon.co...690233?v=glance

Book Description
A raucous tour of the fast-fading borderland between fringe and mainstream science.

In California, a woman desperately hoping to usher in a new spiritual age conspires with her scientist boyfriend to clone herself. In Massachusetts, the founder of a famous biotech company strives to deliver on the apocalyptic vision of human immortality. In Arizona, an iconoclastic billionaire establishes a handful of fledgling companies promising an enhanced human future and super-long life. Meanwhile, some of the world's most renowned scientists begin speaking openly about genetically engineering people and rebuilding human bodies. The two sides are merging, and Brian Alexander takes readers to the on ramp.

Alexander traces the story of William Haseltine, one of the most famous, and richest, of a new breed of biotechnology entrepreneurs. A former Harvard professor and now CEO of Human Genome Sciences, Haseltine is considered the father of "regenerative medicine." With his reputation as a biotech bad-boy and lover of controversy, he has become a high priest of the new biotech religion, looked upon by life extensionists as "a hero." Alexander examines his career and shows how little separates the science elite from the dreamers who believe a new human age is about to begin. Funny, bizarre, yet always fascinating, Rapture takes readers into the surprising stories behind cloning, stem cells, miracle drugs, and genetic engineering to explore how we got here and why we'll go where nobody thought we could.

About the Author
Brian Alexander has been Wired's exclusive writer on advances in biotechnology and the evolution of the human future. His most famous story on biotechnology-a cover article which made the bold statement that human cloning was less than a year away-created a worldwide stir, launching congressional investigations, spurring media outlets such as "60 Minutes," Time, and CNN to do spin-offs, and prompting a strange race among would-be cloners. He lives in San Diego.

[Bruce Klein]

I've purchased Brian's book.. quite informative from a historical point of view.. somewhat skeptical concerning immortality, but a generally neutral account of the early days of Extropianism and Transhumanism.. with a focus on the life of Haseltine and anti-aging science.

I recommend Rapture as a good read for immortalist.

[Bruce Klein]

Also.. look for Alexander's interview with James:

(OCT 11, 2003)
Rapture: Biotech as Religion

Dr. J. talks with Wired writer Brian Alexander, the author of Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion: A Raucous Tour of Cloning, Transhumanism and the New Era of Immortality. Alexander's book chronicles the origins of the transhumanists movement and its gradual convergence with biotech pioneers like William Haseltine who gradually realized biotech would make possible human enhancement and radical life extension.

http://www.changesur...m/eventhorizon/

[Bruce Klein]

Brian Alexander talks at the end about "bioutopians" (us) vs. "bioLuddites". - J.

http://www.lcmedia.com/mind287.htm

NEUROETHICS
Week of September 10, 2003

Listen to this program now http://lcmedia.com/rafiles/tim287.ram

In this hour, we explore Neuroethics. As we gain greater and greater understanding of the brain and how to manipulate it, where do we set boundaries? Guests include Dr. Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the school's department of medical ethics; Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics; Hank Greely, professor of law at Stanford University; Dr. Turhan Canli, a psychologist at Stony Brook University; and Brian Alexander, author of Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion.

Host Dr. Fred Goodwin begins with an essay in which he says modern neuroscience brings new surprises almost daily. A new antidepressant drug given to healthy volunteers makes them more cooperative with others. A small almond-shaped structure in the brain - the amygdala - is found to modulate whether we perceive other people as trustworthy. In this show, we'll discuss the enormous ethical questions that arise as we learn more and more about the brain and develop techniques that could manipulate our thoughts, behaviors, and even personalities. But underlying all of these questions is the fundamental quandary -- does the growing understanding of how the brain works leave any room for free will? He think it can. When you think about it, the ability to make choices is even more important when there are biological forces driving you. For example, it's not difficult for him to say no to a second martini, but for an alcoholic to pass up a drink takes enormous will. He thinks the more we know about the genetic and biological forces behind human tendencies, the more respect we should have for our will to overcome them.

What's at stake when we talk about the future of brain research? The Infinite Mind's Devorah Klahr reports on current advances that may lead to future ethical questions. She profiles the work of Dr. Turhan Canli, a psychologist at Stony Brook University in New York, who is using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to try to figure out patterns of brain activity associated with various personality traits, including shyness, extroversion, and neuroticism. At this point, Dr. Canli's speculation about a research subject's personality is just an educated guess. But in a few years, simple, non-invasive brain scans may able to reveal quickly all kinds of things about your personality and probable behavior. What these technologies might mean for your personal privacy is increasingly the subject of a great deal of concern among civil libertarians and medical ethicists. Once scientists are able to accurately read our brains, what if this information gets into the wrong hands? Into the hands of your insurance company? Or your boss? As Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University comments, "We've all got secrets that we'd rather not have broadcast around the world."

To contact Dr. Turhan Canli or learn more about his work, please visit: http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/.

To contact Hank Greely or learn more about his work, please visit: http://www.law.stanford.edu/.

As we learn more and more about the brain, we'll face some thorny ethical questions. Dr. Goodwin is joined by two of the foremost thinkers in the emerging field of neuroethics. Dr. Arthur Caplan is the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and chairman of the school's department of medical ethics. He's written or edited 23 books, including Due Consideration: Controversy in the Age of Medical Miracles. Dr. Michael Gazzaniga is professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College. He's also a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, and his books include The New Cognitive Neurosciences and The Mind's Past.

Dr. Goodwin begins by asking Dr. Caplan whether he thinks things like enhancing our brains and uncovering details about personality and behavior through brain scans are merely science fiction. Dr. Caplan says he thinks these things are real, and they will happen not too far down the road. He says that we should look at where we are already -- imaging techniques allow us to see inside the brain in real time; we're already implanting devices in the brain to treat Parkinson's disease; drugs like Prozac alter mood and drugs like Ritalin focus attention. It's not hard to imagine that the next generation of these technologies and drugs will allow us to improve or enhance the mind.

Dr. Caplan adds that he is, as he sits discussing these issues, sipping a cup of coffee to boost his mental function. So, in a sense, we are enhancing ourselves all the time. He says people object to the idea of doing this at the molecular or genetic level for two reasons -- they think: one, it's cheating, or two, it's unnatural. He thinks neither of these are true, but he does believe we need to worry about people's having equal access to whatever tools are developed. He is against unfair advantage. He also says we must ensure people are not coerced -- by their employers, for example -- into taking drugs or undergoing procedures to enhance performance or brain function.

Dr. Goodwin asks whether there might be a disadvantage to a kind of "happy pill" that did away with our negative emotions. Dr. Gazzaniga observes that negative emotions are adaptations we've developed over the years, providing vital psychological cues, and that people often underestimate how important they are.

They then talk about advances in brain imaging and ethical questions that may arise if the technology improves enough that we could inexpensively scan peoples' heads and learn something about their brains or personalities, such as their predisposition for certain diseases or their tendency toward violence. Dr. Caplan says that, given all the resources being poured into fighting terrorism, he imagines we wouldn't even have to develop a particularly accurate test for the government to want to implement that kind of screening at airports. People who do not object to their bags being X-rayed might feel differently when it's their brains being scanned. In particular, they might worry about who else would see the information -- employers? insurance companies? He offers another example -- parents already "go bonkers" trying to get their children ahead in the world. He says even someone who did not know what he was doing could make a fortune preying on parents' desires to learn more about their kids' aptitudes. He thinks the scientific and bioethics community has an obligation to set standards so that new technologies cannot be abused.

They then discuss what happens when parents start wanting to "enhance" their children. Dr. Caplan comments that there are two main issues. One is that parents often want to project their own values onto their kids, but kids want to become their own people. He says that if one uses the technology to give a child fewer choices -- that is to narrow what they might become (by, for example, manipulating your child's brain so she becomes a violin player, rather than a skateboarder) -- that's immoral. The other issue is, when making decisions for their children, parents do not face the risks themselves. He says that even when it comes to healthcare interventions, he is often surprised by the things parents ask for their children which they would not want for themselves.

To contact Dr. Caplan, please write to: Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director, Center for Bioethics, 3401 Market St., Suite 320, Philadelphia, PA 19104. Or visit: http://www.med.upenn.edu/bioethic/.

To contact Dr. Gazzaniga, please write to: Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, 6162 Moore Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755-3569. Or visit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cogneuro/ or http://www.bioethics.gov/.

The landmark science fiction work Brave New World remains a key reference in shaping ethical debate in biology and neuroscience. The book, written by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932, conjures up a world where human embryos are raised in hatcheries, people are bred to belong to specific social and intellectual classes, and all earthly cares can be erased with a simple pill. In a moment, we hear more about how this book has been appropriated - and misappropriated - over the generations. But first, New York Actor Bray Poor reads from the original text. The passage begins with Henry Foster, who is employed by the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, explaining his work to a group of students.

As we look to the future of neuroscience… and neuroethics, there's a lot we can learn from the genetic revolution and the fears it inspired. Next, The Infinite Mind's Marit Haahr speaks with a writer who's looking deep inside the world of biotech -- where science fiction and science intersect. In his new book, Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, journalist and writer Brian Alexander offers an engaging look at the birth of the biotech industry and the rise of people's faith in its abilities to change their lives.

Alexander begins by saying that, while bioethicists and philosophers and some politicians are worried about the ethical implications of enhancing ourselves through pills and the like, he thinks the average person is not so concerned. In his estimation, most people want to know just a couple of things, "One, is it safe. Two, does it do what it says it will. And, if so, I want some."

He then explains the idea of biotechnology as the new religion. What began as a metaphor for him proved to be more literal than he ever imagined. He says people have always looked for forms of salvation, whether in religion or technology. The people he calls "bioutopians" believe technology will progress to the point that it begins to advance on its own, a time which they refer to as the rapture or "the Singularity." They speak about this time much in the way evangelicals speak of the second coming of Christ. Opposing this view are the people he calls "bio-Luddites." They see a great danger in biotech, and fear that we will one day become "post-human" -- a state not to be desired.

Alexander describes the merging of two groups that used to want nothing to do with each other -- "the fringe," people who are largely informed by science-fiction and are looking to enhance human life, even to the point of immortality, and hardcore scientists, those actually doing work in labs. He says the line between these groups has begun to blur because science has progressed to the point that researchers are thinking seriously about the possibilities of anti-aging and regenerative medicine.

He then discusses how Brave New World has cast a huge shadow over the biotech debate. The book has become a catchphrase for anything and everything that could go wrong with scientific progress. He says he's trying to dig beneath the clichés and show that they really don't make a lot of sense. For example, people worry a lot about cloning, fearing we'll create multiple Hitlers or Saddam Husseins. But, as he says, when you clone, you end up with a baby. You still have to raise the baby and train the baby, and you can't make a baby be a dustman or a senator. There's this idea that we'll create armies of semi-addled factory workers to do our bidding. But, in our society, we have laws and elections, slavery is illegal, and we tend to care a lot about human rights. If we do away with all those things, he says, cloning is the least of our worries.


Finally, commentator John Hockenberry offers one possible view of the future of brain science. He begins, "So I'm glad we've got that world peace thing all figured out. It was a norepinephrine deficiency. Which suggests we can just rename the UN: United Neurotransmitters; the Security Council, the Serotonin Council, of course..."

- Marit Haahr

[Bruce Klein]

[From Extropy.org's "Exponent" Newsletter]

RAPTURE: How Biotech Became the New Religion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
___Brian, how did you become so interested in biotech?

___BA: Hmmm... Well, I've always been interested in biology -- it was the only science subject I ever did well in high school or college. I was an English literature major and political science major in college and it may seem as though writing about biotech is an odd area for me to work in. But my overarching interest has always been the culture, and to me biotech is most certainly a real cultural phenomenon. It is literally changing the way we regard our futures, our religions, the natural world, and ourselves. So for me, this is a perfectly natural realm to work in. Professionally, I first became interested in biotech in 1994, just as the book opens with the second A4M conference in Las Vegas. It really started with a question, which was, what is the real science behind any of this? And if there was any real science, wow.

___: . In your opinion, does transhumanity have a particular political line of thinking that is evident in the underlying values of transhumanists?

___BA: I do recognize that within transhumanism, and even within extropy, there may be a wide variety of views on political philosophy. Just have a look at the past year on the extrope discussion group! This is a very important question for transhumanists. (More on this in answer to later questions.)

___? If you could separate out one element that keeps people from rushing to support transhumanity and donating money to Extropy Institute to further its goals, what would that be?

___BA: Just one? That's tough. Everything from people just not having the money to thinking that the money is better used for other causes, but if I had to pick just one, I would say that it is a lack of the overarching vision of what transhumanity means in the near term, as opposed to the far future vision. Getting people to support a cause aiming to do something they can take part in the next five years is much easier than getting them to support a cause that looks ahead 100 years. Aubrey's Methuselah mouse is a good example. other institutions are trying to do the same thing, but they place the work in a framework of understanding the diseases of aging. That's something more concrete that everybody can relate to as opposed to saying you want to engineer a super-long-lived mouse for the sake of making a super long-lived mouse.

___? How did writing _Rapture_ change your mind about transhumanists?

___BA: well, it didn't really. I've always liked transhumanists, and enjoy spending time with them, though I am not a "transhumanist" per se and I disagree with a fair number of the predictions and with some -- not all by any means -- of the attitudes expressed by some transhumanists. A TV interviewer asked me the other day if I didn't "feel sorry" for life extensionists. I said no, that life extensionists -- and I would say the same about transhumanism in general - - are actually being more honest than many of us about that they want.

I admire people who can be unabashed about their desires. Nobody, at least not anybody in good physical and psychological health, wants to die. But saying so, or saying you'd like to be smarter, or improve your body in some fundamental way, is considered strange by many people because it seems so impossible, and so wanting the impossible can be seen as something odd or even pathetic. Well, I don't think it is impossible in the very long term, and I think these are some of the most basic of human desires, expressed for thousands of years.

Improvement is the driving force behind much of human culture. It's who were are. now, one person's "improvement" is another person's danger, but the point is, we all want "better." Now, I will say that I always thought the transhumanist vision works better as a concept or an idea (hence the subtitle of the book) than as a practical path.

That did not change with the book. My research only confirmed my view. Transhumanism seems to me to be about propagating the idea that it's okay to favor change. The idea of transhumanism being "about" cryonics, or the singularity or merger with computers, or space colonization or germline engineering is, in my view, a mistake. I've always thought that man himself is "transhumanist" and has been throughout history, as I try to show in "rapture." we all want to rise above our current station, whether that is in a spiritual, cultural, physical, mental sense doesn't matter. We've always evolved. We've always been "trans."

___? What do you think is the most urgent issue to contend with regarding Leon Kass and the anti- biotechnology swarm?

___ BA: Leon Kass is only one incarnation of anti- biotech, which is really about anti human improvement. My reading of the "bio-Luddite'" (as I call it in "Rapture") philosophy is that they believe that "human" cannot be improved upon. I say that humans have always tried to improve upon themselves and that this is, in fact, human nature.

Dr. Kass is expressing a view that has always been expressed about science and man's place in the natural world. Most famously, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is just such a warning, but there have been such warnings about defying the natural order forever. I think the most important thing to contend with is the idea that enhancement technology will, by its very nature, be de-humanizing. Sometimes it might be, sometimes not.

Personally, I think it is important to keep an open mind. I might add that this is why Dr. Kass and others use transhumanism, and the longing for some to have a "post-human" future, against biotech as a whole. Rhetoric about "post-humanity" doesn't really do anybody any good. First, I think it's incorrect. We will always be human. Second, it makes people think that, say tomorrow, alien-like augmented species who used to be people will walk the earth. That won't happen but it makes for a great sound bite, a good headline, a scary scenario.

___? Do you think that transhumanism is more scientific than it is cultural? In other words, do you think that we should emphasize science or culture in order to prosper and elicit positive memes about transhumanism?

___ BA: I think you ought to give MORE emphasis on the cultural than the science. I know transhumanists will disagree with me here, but much of the science upon which the movements seem based is not only not yet ready for prime time, it may never be ready. Let the science takes care of itself. The minds of people are what really count. I think transhumanists have done a generally poor job of addressing fears, concerns, apprehensions of the general public about how biotech will affect people.

There's a tendency to look down on such fears with disdain. But when Leon Kass and Francis Fukuyama and others appeal to fears, they talk about culture, society, religion, art, and human relations. People understand these things. This is what "Rapture" is about, really, the culture. The science places it in context but it is not, at heart, a science book. It's about hope. So if I were a transhumanist who wanted to make a difference,

I'd research issues like population, resources, environment, social justice, human rights, art and the ways these will or will not be affected. When I give talks, these are the questions people are most interested in.

___ ? Do you think Extropy Institute has succeeded in memetic engineering of "transhumanism? "

___ BA: Yes, but I do think transhumanism is now becoming bigger than Extropy or any one organization. I think this is a measure of Extropy's success, but also may mean that in the future extropy comes to be less and less important as the spawn swim on their own. As science catches up to Extropy's ideas, the ideas will spread outward into the general public, as "rapture" shows they already have, and the need for an organization like extropy will pass completely.

And by the way, let me say that I have always admired the very grown up way Natasha and Max and a few others have dealt with some of the snarkier writing about extropy and transhumanism, including some by me about certain elements of transhumanism. (In a wired story I referred to extropians as "enthusiastic amateurs" and that pissed some people off so much that they couldn't see that the story was about how some of the ideas were being accepted by mainstream science and that extropes were not as kooky as some might think.)

That can be tough to do. but by putting yourselves out there, by taking the good with the bad, you do get some of the message through.

___? Looking back, is there anything you feel you left out of your book that you would now expand upon?

___BA: If I thought anybody would read it, I would have liked to make the book about another 100 pages! essentially I would have gone into more detail about some of the things that are already in the book. I would have liked to have done more with how biotech actually works.

I mean how drugs are made by engineering cells to produce human proteins. I would have liked to have spent more time with Wally Steinberg, a truly fascinating character, or Deeda Blair. I would have liked to gone into much more detail about regeneration science (but look for that appearing somewhere soon).

[advancedatheist]

Alexander in his book credits the British scientist J.B.S. Haldane as one of the grandfathers of Transhumanism, through his lecture (later published as a pamphlet) "Daedalus, or, Science and the Future" (1923). Strangely, Alexander doesn't credit Haldane's scientist-Marxist contemporary, J.D. Bernal, who published similar speculations about hacking into and improving upon the biological nature of man around the same time in his book, The World, the Flesh & the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul (1929). And even the Boshevik revolutionist, Leo Trotsky, speculated about this sort of thing in his book Literature and Revolution, towards the end of which he writes,

Man at last will begin to harmonize himself in earnest. He will make it his business to achieve beauty by giving the movement of his own limbs the utmost precision, purposefulness and economy in his work, his walk and his play. He will try to master first the semiconscious and then the subconscious processes in his own organism, such as breathing, the circulation of the blood, digestion, reproduction, and, within necessary limits, he will try to subordinate them to the control of reason and will. Even purely physiologic life will become subject to collective experiments. The human species, the coagulated Homo sapiens, will once more enter into a state of radical transformation, and, in his own hands, will become an object of the most complicated methods of artificial selection and psycho-physical training. This is entirely in accord with evolution. Man first drove the dark elements out of industry and ideology, by displacing barbarian routine by scientific technique, and religion by science. Afterwards he drove the unconscious out of politics, by overthrowing monarchy and class with democracy and rationalist parliamentarianism and then with the clear and open Soviet dictatorship. The blind elements have settled most heavily in economic relations, but man is driving them out from there also, by means of the Socialist organization of economic life. This makes it possible to reconstruct fundamentally the traditional family life. Finally, the nature of man himself is hidden in the deepest and darkest corner of the unconscious, of the elemental, of the sub-soil. Is it not self-evident that the greatest efforts of investigative thought and of creative initiative will be in that direction? The human race will not have ceased to crawl on all fours before God, kings and capital, in order later to submit humbly before the dark laws of heredity and a blind sexual selection! Emancipated man will want to attain a greater equilibrium in the work of his organs and a more proportional developing and wearing out of his tissues, in order to reduce the fear of death to a rational reaction of the organism towards danger. There can be no doubt that man's extreme anatomical and physiological disharmony, that is, the extreme disproportion in the growth and wearing out of organs and tissues, give the life instinct the form of a pinched, morbid and hysterical fear of death, which darkens reason and which feeds the stupid and humiliating fantasies about life after death.

Man will make it his purpose to master his own feelings, to raise his instincts to the heights of consciousness, to make them transparent, to extend the wires of his will into hidden recesses, and thereby to raise himself to a new plane, to create a higher social biologic type, or, if you please, a superman.

It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of one and the same process. All the arts—literature, drama, painting, music and architecture will lend this process beautiful form. More correctly, the shell in which the cultural construction and self-education of Communist man will be enclosed, will develop all the vital elements of contemporary art to the highest point. Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser and subtler; his body 'will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.

It looks as if there's material here for a serious book-length study on the premature birth of Marxist Transhumanism in the 1920's. Apparently the seeming success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 gave Marxism sufficient credibility as a secular worldview that it helped to disinhibit some radical thinking about alternatives to the biological human condition.

[John Doe]

As a relatively late joiner of the transhumanist movement, the origin of transhumanism fascinates me.

[randolfe]

Before reading "Rapture" I think I was reluctant to associate with many groups not directly associated with human cloning.

I think this book's main accomplishment was in connecting the dots between all these advanced ideas like cryonics, life extension, and cloning that were considered beyond the pail.

Since it covers such broad areas of science, philosophy and culture, it is a very good introduction to anyone interested in any of these areas.

[Bruce Klein]

An Interview with Brian Alexander, author of Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion
By James M. Pethokoukis

http://www.usnews.co...1.htm?track=rss

In Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, science journalist Brian Alexander provides a fascinating and funny travel guide through the cutting-edge world of genetic engineering. Alexander focuses on the scientists who are trying to radically extend the human life span and the people who hope and think such advances—even immortality—are coming soon. Here is the first half of a recent E-mail chat I had with him.

Next News: Is the science progressing much faster than most people realize? Francis Fukuyama, the author of Our Posthuman Future, seemed to think so in a recent chat I had with him. And there’s the recent news that controversial geneticist Pavos Zanos has cloned a human embryo and implanted it in some unnamed woman

Alexander: [As for Zavos,] it's no accident that he held his little press conference announcing his clone embryo implantation in London. In the United States he would have gotten almost no coverage. No serious press here believes him. (I certainly don't.) You know, I have a lot of respect for somebody like Frank Fukuyama. He is a very smart guy. But he told me once that the United States could lead a worldwide effort to ban technology he and other bio-Luddites find scary. Yet already Singapore has a major embryonic stem cells initiative. It's built a city within the city called Biopolis and attracted leading researchers there. Japan, too. Where have some of the best cloners gone? Japan. Even the United Kingdom is setting up a human embryonic stem cells bank. It has authorized the creation of embryo clones for research. The reason they are doing all this is that they see that the next revolution in technology will be a biological revolution and that economies will be changed by it. If a company did come up with a pill you could take to improve your memory, how valuable would that company be. Imagine a company that makes a life extension drug! The market would be every living human being. And if it were banned in the United States, people would happily fly to Singapore. The thinking of some in Congress that it can ban Americans from going overseas to use embryonic stem cell therapies is a joke. Just ask any American smoking Cuban cigars.

Next News: What common threads, if any, run through the various "bio-utopians" you met in writing and researching your book?

Alexander: The most common thread, the uniting thread, was a deep-seated belief in the power of science and technology to change lives for the better. All bio-utopians, and many who I would not necessarily classify as bio-utopians, like some of the scientists in Rapture, truly believe that answers to some, if not most, human problems can be found through science. They are optimists, mostly.

They also have serious doubts, if not outright antipathy, toward standard, god-based religions of all kinds. They see old-style religion as superstition. They don't believe in heaven or life after death and so, looking into the void which currently awaits us all, they say "Hey! Let's do something about that!"

I have to say one of the joys of reporting the book was meeting so many interesting people. Like Miller Quarles. Miller is an octogenarian oil geologist from Houston who founded the Cure Old Age Disease Society. Through his connections in the life extension subculture, he ran across Mike West, a young scientist and medical student who had made it his life's mission to cure death. One thing led to another, and Miller wound up providing West with some seed money to help create what became Geron, the California biotech that financed the culture of the first sustainable human embryonic stem cells.

Or John Sperling, the billionaire founder of the University of Phoenix who created an antiaging (now he uses the phrase "optimal health") clinic called Kronos. Sperling is a fascinating guy who has become a biotech entrepreneur.

Deeper into the bio-utopian subculture, you get transhumanists, those who believe in a transformative era in which human beings will cease to be completely human and will become a new species, some mix of biotech and machine enhancements that will deliver super brain power, immortality, and perfect health.

On the other side are the top scientists I feature. Cynthia Kenyon, for example, is a serious, critical, skeptical scientist and yet she carries an enthusiastic amazement for her own work in extending the lives of lab animals. That work has helped lead to a new company that will try to create drugs, and she's optimistic it will all pan out.

Of course, for me, the most fascinating of all the characters is William Haseltine, CEO of the biotech Human Genome Sciences. I would not classify him as a bio-utopian necessarily. He's a mainstream guy from an elite academic background. But he does foresee greatly extended life spans and has declared that "the goal is to keep people alive forever." He thinks the path will be "regenerative medicine." He can be a prickly character, but I grew to like him and to admire his fearless willingness to say what others only think.

Next News: There seems to have been a lot of important research in the stem cell/germ-line area in 2003. Is the science progressing much faster than most people realize?

Alexander: I have a contradictory answer for that. I think the science is progressing much slower than most people realize in some areas, and faster in others. The whole stem cell/germ-line arena is very confusing for most people. Embryonic stem cells? Adult stem cells? What kind of adult stem cells? Germ-line engineering (creating a heritable change that's passed on to the next generation)? They are all somewhat related yet very different and in very different states of progress. You have to sift them into their little piles.

Embryonic stem cell work in the United States is moving very slowly. This is partly because of Bush's restrictions, partly because science oversold the near-term potential during the debate leading up to those restrictions. People are still figuring out how to tell when you've actually got embryonic stem cells. A standard way to characterize them is being developed. Private money is financing some new colonies, and some work has been done to see if, for example, they can be made into islet cells for the pancreas as a cure for diabetes. So far there's been little success.

Adult stem cells suffer from some of the same issues. How do you tell when you've got an adult stem cell? Are adult stem cells actually created by the fusion of two different kinds of cells? How powerful is an adult stem cell? Science is coming to the conclusion that cells in the body can be much more powerful and much more flexible than anybody ever thought, that they can be literally transformed into an earlier, more flexible, state of being. This opens up the possibility of using the body as its own Play-Doh. This appears to have happened in the lab of Denise Faustmann at Harvard where diabetes was apparently cured in mice by switching cell fates. Islets simply regenerated. I think this sort of thing is the real future of therapy. I don't think it will take embryonic stem cells or cloning to get those cells.

[But] there has been some big work done in 2003 regarding germ-line engineering or science that could lead to germ-line engineering. Scientists were able to take the cells that make sperm and genetically alter them so that all sperm made after that would have the genetic change. The work was done mainly as a means to produce mice for experiments. But that and other work means that it is possible now to make germ-line changes in people. It would be possible to eliminate a disease, say Tay-Sachs, from a family line. But again, there's that valley. How safe is it? What are the surprises? The translation of science into technology useful for people is often a tortuous path. People should not be afraid that tomorrow mad scientists for the L.A. Lakers are going to start engineering a fleet of Shaqs.



Will genetic engineering someday allow mankind to transform itself into a race of super strong, super smart, near immortals? And if you think it will, can such a belief form the basis of an incipient 21st-century technoreligion? Science writer Brian Alexander tackles these questions and others in his new book, Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion. Here is the second half of my recent E-mail chat with Alexander.

Next News: Are the dreams of the life-extension/genetic engineering crowd just that, fantasies? What really appears doable? And what sort of timeline are we talking about?

Alexander: Life extension already exists. Scientists have made lab animals live far longer than their natural life span, up to six times longer. Translating that to people will take a long time, but it will eventually be done.

Second, we already see the first tentative steps in life extension. I think drugs like cholesterol-lowering statins, for example, could be considered life extension drugs, and I think that we will see some members of the generation now in their 70s or 80s who take these drugs regularly live beyond the current record of 122 years.

What I don't think will happen is the scary sci-fi scenario of fully designed people, at least in the commonly interpreted meaning of that. For example, it would be possible, right now, to enhance human beings by inserting genes into their genomes to make them more muscular, taller, maybe even smarter. Why isn't anybody offering that (at least publicly)? Because 20 years into gene therapy, there has never been an unequivocal success story. The recent case of children in France who suffered from a severe immune deficiency–the bubble-boy defect–illustrates how hard it is. Gene therapy appeared to cure them. In fact, it did cure them of their defect. But in some of the cases, the vehicle used to insert the curative gene lodged in a bad spot in the genome and apparently activated a cancer-causing gene that created leukemia.

Whole genome engineering of people would probably require lab-created embryos that would be engineered on a massive scale–more than one or two genes. Who's going to want that for their children or themselves? The scare mongers out there seem to discount the human nature they extol. Sex is free. Making babies the old-fashioned way will always be the first choice of almost everybody, even the rich. Brave New World makes an easy sound bite, but it's not terribly realistic.

People get caught up in the sci-fi and forget that science lurches in small, step-like movements. Always has, always will. That may be the biggest fantasy of the bio-utopians, that their dreams will come true soon. They won't. Everybody can relax and take a deep breath. Eventually, we will wake up and realize that we're living to be 250 years old, just like we realize now that average life expectancy in the 20th century went from something like 40 to nearly 80.

Next News: You call biotech a religion. Does the religious aspect have to do with faith that biotechnology will surely bring radical life extension or, rather, faith that biotech advances will result in some sort of Paradise on Earth?

Alexander: Well, both. It's all part of the big vision these folks have. Think about what we imagine paradise to be. Religion promises everlasting life, perfect well being, happiness, a bliss that's unencumbered by the usual woes of life on earth. Biotech as the new religion has begun to promise all these things in one way or another, and those who adhere to the new religion–they hate that I call it that, by the way–think that more will come and that eventually, the promised paradise will be created by science. One word for it is the Singularity, which I explain in the book. But even those who don't buy into the Singularity, even those who are not bio-utopians at all, just regular folks who read the newspaper, have come to think that miracles are around the corner. We have come to this conclusion because biotech's promoters, the genome sequencers, the corporate news releases, have all said so as a way to justify investment. In convincing us that the genome project was a good thing, we were told great stuff was coming. Cures. Answers. We believed it, even though such things are still, mostly, in the future.

Next News: You seem to say that even if people are living to be 500 with improved capacities, they will still complain, still be unhappy, etc.? Yet at the same time you think biotech will make religion less and less tenable. As long as the world is full of flawed creatures, won’t people be looking for the sort of answers that religion tries to provide?

Alexander: Yes. I don't think biotech as religion will replace traditional religion. I explore biotech as an emerging religion which is joining the list of other belief systems, a kind of secular religion. When I write about the threat that some feel from biotech and from science in general, I quote E. O. Wilson, the naturalist, who sees that as more and more questions are answered by science, people will look less and less to religion to explain the universe. I believe that is why the people I call "bio-Luddites" are so threatened by biotech. I think they see the ability to alter natural-given existence, or God-given existence, as heresy. All heresies become heresies because the old order is threatened by them. They don't want life-extension science to proceed, because it defies God or nature. Same with in vitro fertilization for Leon Kass, the chairman of George Bush's bioethics council. He has opposed it for 30 years, not because he hates babies, but because making a baby that way gets around the constraints that God or nature has seen fit to impose on human beings. It unclips us from an eternal source of truth and wisdom and allows us to float free guided by our own wisdom. That's scary. So he thinks we should just take our imperfections and gain strength from our limitations–object lessons from God.

My argument is that he needn't worry. Human beings are on a never-ending treadmill. As amazing as biotech is and as amazing as its future will be, we will have the same motivations, the same desires as we have always had. Living to 500 only delays the ultimate questions. Why are we here? What's the point of life? Is death really the end? If you die at 500 or you die at 47, you still die. The question does not go away. How can we make a better planet, a better community, a better family? How can we find happiness in love?

Next News: Would you like a much longer life span, say, 150 years or more? If so, do you think you will get it? And would you want to be frozen and then thawed at some point in the future when medical technology has greatly advanced?

Alexander: If I could have health with my 150 years, sure. Why not? I like life. I find great joy in it. There's thinking abroad in the land that it is the duty of people living now to die on time to make way for people who do not exist yet. I find that perverse. By that logic, we should deny medical care to people over 80. We ought to send them out to the forest. But we don't do that because we treasure life. I'll die soon enough. Don't rush me.

No, I don't think I'll live to be 150. I think I have an outside chance of making it to 100, now that I know that alcohol is actually good for you.

And no, I'd never be frozen. I don't think cryonics will ever work. I have nothing against those who want to give it a shot. I don't think they are loony. But I'd rather create some other legacy with whatever money I have left at the end rather than sinking into a tank of liquid nitrogen.

[DJS]

But he told me once that the United States could lead a worldwide effort to ban technology he and other bio-Luddites find scary. Yet already Singapore has a major embryonic stem cells initiative. It's built a city within the city called Biopolis and attracted leading researchers there. Japan, too. Where have some of the best cloners gone? Japan. Even the United Kingdom is setting up a human embryonic stem cells bank. It has authorized the creation of embryo clones for research. The reason they are doing all this is that they see that the next revolution in technology will be a biological revolution and that economies will be changed by it. If a company did come up with a pill you could take to improve your memory, how valuable would that company be. Imagine a company that makes a life extension drug! The market would be every living human being. And if it were banned in the United States, people would happily fly to Singapore. The thinking of some in Congress that it can ban Americans from going overseas to use embryonic stem cell therapies is a joke. Just ask any American smoking Cuban cigars

.

I completely agree.

Next News: What common threads, if any, run through the various "bio-utopians" you met in writing and researching your book?

Alexander: The most common thread, the uniting thread, was a deep-seated belief in the power of science and technology to change lives for the better. All bio-utopians, and many who I would not necessarily classify as bio-utopians, like some of the scientists in Rapture, truly believe that answers to some, if not most, human problems can be found through science. They are optimists, mostly.

They also have serious doubts, if not outright antipathy, toward standard, god-based religions of all kinds. They see old-style religion as superstition. They don't believe in heaven or life after death and so, looking into the void which currently awaits us all, they say "Hey! Let's do something about that!"

Mostly agree. However I don't view religion as superstition per say. I view it as contageous memeplexes that take advantage of the way our cognitive systems work; and which were molded by our evolutionary psychology.

Alexander: Yes. I don't think biotech as religion will replace traditional religion. I explore biotech as an emerging religion which is joining the list of other belief systems, a kind of secular religion. When I write about the threat that some feel from biotech and from science in general, I quote E. O. Wilson, the naturalist, who sees that as more and more questions are answered by science, people will look less and less to religion to explain the universe. I believe that is why the people I call "bio-Luddites" are so threatened by biotech. I think they see the ability to alter natural-given existence, or God-given existence, as heresy. All heresies become heresies because the old order is threatened by them. They don't want life-extension science to proceed, because it defies God or nature. Same with in vitro fertilization for Leon Kass, the chairman of George Bush's bioethics council. He has opposed it for 30 years, not because he hates babies, but because making a baby that way gets around the constraints that God or nature has seen fit to impose on human beings. It unclips us from an eternal source of truth and wisdom and allows us to float free guided by our own wisdom. That's scary. So he thinks we should just take our imperfections and gain strength from our limitations–object lessons from God.

I think that's a "fair and balanced" assessment. I think for some biotech can become a sort of quasi-religion if taken too far. It should be every Immortalist goal to avoid this extreme and always demand sound reasoning and indisputable evidence. And his assessment of Kass is dead on.

My argument is that he needn't worry. Human beings are on a never-ending treadmill. As amazing as biotech is and as amazing as its future will be, we will have the same motivations, the same desires as we have always had. Living to 500 only delays the ultimate questions. Why are we here? What's the point of life? Is death really the end? If you die at 500 or you die at 47, you still die. The question does not go away. How can we make a better planet, a better community, a better family? How can we find happiness in love?

Disagree. Kass should worry and for good reason. When you live to 47 death is a much more pressing concern than if you have the potential to live indefinitely. If death is not an every day occurence, then the rituals, traditions, and mystical belief systems will be used less and less. With less use they will lose their potency. The United States is still, admittedly, overwhelmingly religious, but from an historical perspective religion has been on the decline ever since the Enlightenment. Significantly augmented life spans will only speed up this trend. Attacking death is attacking religions last great monopoly.

Alexander: If I could have health with my 150 years, sure. Why not? I like life. I find great joy in it. There's thinking abroad in the land that it is the duty of people living now to die on time to make way for people who do not exist yet. I find that perverse. By that logic, we should deny medical care to people over 80. We ought to send them out to the forest. But we don't do that because we treasure life. I'll die soon enough. Don't rush me.

No, I don't think I'll live to be 150. I think I have an outside chance of making it to 100, now that I know that alcohol is actually good for you.

This is where his skepticism is coming through loud and clear. I have no problem with this. If everyone in society was as much of a straight shooter the Imminst mission would be able to progress at a much faster pace.

And no, I'd never be frozen. I don't think cryonics will ever work. I have nothing against those who want to give it a shot. I don't think they are loony. But I'd rather create some other legacy with whatever money I have left at the end rather than sinking into a tank of liquid nitrogen.

Can't you have your cake and eat it too? Leave some money for your favorite charities and put the rest towards a cryonics policy. And of course the other questions that should have been asked by the interviewer, "Would you rather be the control group or the experimental group?" And "Confronted with oblivion, wouldn't you at least make one last ditch effort to saving yourself, or is creating the Alexander Library more important than the continuity of your consciousness?"

You currently have the fence post stuck up your @ss Mr. Alexander, eventually you will have to pick a side. Nontheless, I respect your position and look forward to any subsequent books you will be publishing.

DonS

[Martin]

Dear Bruce,

could you or another imminst-leader try to interview Mr. John Sperling and ask him, if it is really true, that he wants to donate 3 billion dollars to anti-aging research after his death? This sum is so incredibly high, that it could have been a joke and the author misunderstood it. But if it was true, it would be incredibly good news. So I´d like to be sure.
Perhaps Mr. Sperling would even be interested in having imminst-leaders as advisors and permanent discussion partners, if an interview/personal contact was inspiring for him, too ...
What do you think?

Warm regards
Martin

[Bruce Klein]

Martin,

Thanks for the idea. I will attempt to contact Mr. Sperling.

BJK

[Bruce Klein]

John Sperling Wants You to Live Forever
Brian Alexander, author of Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion, reports that University of Phoenix founder, John Sperling, plans to invest $3 billion in anti-aging research upon his death.

Check here for more about Sperling:
http://imminst.org/f...t=0

[Martin]

Martin,

Thanks for the idea.  I will attempt to contact Mr. Sperling.

BJK

Dear Bruce,

thank you very much! That´s good news. Please keep us informed, if you are successful. If the 3 billion dolar story is really true, it will accelerate anti-aging research very significantly. And if Mr. Sperling accepted imminst-leaders as permanent discussion partners, it would be an eormous success!

Warm regards and good luck concerning the Alcor initiative!
Martin

[Martin]

Dear Bruce,

have you already tried to contact Mr. Sperling?
If you haven´t been successful yet: Maybe Mr. Brian Alexander (E-mail: bralexander@hotmail.com) will tell you how to get an interview with Mr. Sperling.

Warm regards
Martin

[Jay the Avenger]

Why are you so desperate to find out about the 3 billion?

Sperling is a billionaire. He has many billions of dollars. I'm quite sure the 3 billion dollar figure is correct.

Instead, I'd ask myself why he's not investing it in anti-aging research right now!

[Martin]

Of course this would also be a question of a future Imminst-interview with Mr. Sperling. I´d like to know, too ;-)
CU
Martin

[Bruce Klein]

Thanks Martin,

I've sent a request to Brian.. and shall let you know the result.

Bruce

[Martin]

Dear Bruce

great! Hopefully Brian will tell you how to get an interview with Mr. Sperling. If he doesn´t want/can´t help you, you could try to contact Kronos Company, of which Mr. Sperling is the CEO. The Kronos staff should be able to tell you how to contact its CEO.

The address is:

Kronos Corporate Headquarters
4455 East Camelback Road, Ste. B-100
Phoenix, Arizona 85018-2843
Toll-Free: 1-877-667-0007
Local: 602-667-0007
Fax: 602-667-7772
Homepage: http://www.kronoscompany.com

E-mail of Jonathan Thatcher (President, Exeter Life Sciences): Jonathan.Thatcher@KronosCompany.com

If you got an interview date with Mr. Sperling, it would be great, if you could open a discussion topic, where every interested imminst-member can post his/her questions for Mr. Sperling. If this would be O.K. for you, these questions could be an important basis for the interview.

CU
Martin

[Bruce Klein]

Brian,

I've recommended Rapture to ImmInst members here:
http://imminst.org/f...=ST&f=13&t=1901

Thanks for an entertaining and informative book.

Incidentally, ImmInst is nearing completion of its first book to be called,

"The Scientific Conquest of Death: Essays on Infinite Lifespans".

More: http://www.imminst.org/book

While final cut-off for essay submissions to the first book has passed, you're
warmly invited to participate in forthcoming future publications.

Also, a perceptive ImmInst member by the name of Martin has suggested that
we contact John Sperling to let him know of our mission to conquer
involuntary death.

Therefore, I shamelessly ask if you would happen to know of John's
email or contact information. Feel free to ignore this request, or let
let me know how many miles I must crawl on my hands and knees
before you'll relinquish it.

Charismatically yours,

Bruce Klein,
Chair, ImmInst.org

--

Hi Bruce...
I don't have any special inside way to get to John Sperling. Just try
Kronos Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ. They should be able to direct you to the
executives in charge.

And thanks very much for paying attention to Rapture. I appreciate it.

best,
Brian

[Bruce Klein]

Martin,

I've created the Contacting John Sperling Topic in the Action: Reaching Out & Projects forum in order to carry this forward.

Thanks,
BJK

[faith_machine]

I read this book a few days ago. I found it very enjoyable to read and a good introduction to the vast area of life extension.