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logical makeup-which is kind of artificial, because the power of med–
icine is now amplified by genomic and proteomic information, which is
just starting, but allows us to manipulate the nature of our biological
information as well. There's tremendous energy pushing these things
forward. We're not going to tell the community of people suffering from
cancer that we're on the verge of great breakthroughs that will save mil–
llions of lives, but we're canceling all that because of the dangers and
because it might encroach on the sacred boundaries between humans
and machines. The forces pushing these things forward-economic,
moral, and so forth-are overwhelming.
Gerald Weissmann:
I'd just like to comment on the fears that have been
raised about what the new biology and technology can do to our sense
of what it is to be human. Putting myself in the position of a fourth–
century B.C. Greek, I'd be more afraid of what horrible consequences
could result if the virus of monotheism were to spread to the world from
the Middle East. More have been killed in the name of Christ, Allah, or
Jehovah than by any given infectious disease I know.
Edward Rothstein:
You're speaking as a reductionist.
Gerald Weissmann:
I'm a believer in the popular, reductionist doctrine
of Ludwig Buchner, who wrote
Kraft und Stoff.
His brother, Georg
Buchner, wrote
Danton's Todt,
an early romantic version of why
Enlightenment was doomed to fail. Ludwig Buchner was one of the first
reductionist physicians of the nineteenth century, arguing that force and
matter were one. He pointed out that there was no real difference
between the animate and the inanimate-except for values. Those val–
ues, I would suggest, are best defined by our society, whether they be
hierarchical, humanist, liberal, or conservative. But with respect to biol–
ogy: Is bone alive or is it dead? Is a tooth alive or is it dead? The anti–
science crowd believes that our new biology is about to create cyborgs
(a term invented by the father of psychopharmacology, Nathan Kline).
But we are all cyborgs already: bone is part inanimate machine; brain
secretes thought. I'll gladly discuss the difference between a Monet and
a Chuck Close; I'm not willing to grant that there's a material difference
between me and a stone. We both oxidize and age . Stones can rust and
decay, paper turns brown, lawn furniture crumbles. The same chemistry
causes us to age. We can change the rates of change: we can coat the
stone, we can treat the paper, we can paint the furniture, we have pro–
longed human life. The difference between animate and inanimate is
