Volume 107, Issue 3, Pages 566–567
Authors:
Richard J. Paulson, M.D.
Abstract:
We live in a time of unprecedented scientific progress. This is not a remarkable statement, as it could easily have been made anytime during the preceding millennia of cultural evolution. Information grows exponentially, and each era not only has access to more information than the preceding era, but also adds more new discoveries and data. Additionally, the present time has given us unprecedented access to information and rapid communication. Unfortunately, one unintended consequence of our near instantaneous communication is the rapid proliferation and dissemination of misinformation and outright disinformation.
Comments
Regarding dr. Richard J. Paulson's note entitled „The unscientific nature of the concept that ‚human life begins at fertilization,’ and why it matters”:
Its intention to clarify, amend, and educate is most commendable. Nevertheless, its self-confident tone starkly contrasts with the inaccuracies and confusions that occur in the text.
Against the widespread assumption that human life begins at fertilization, Paulson offers two central arguments:
First, that „the scientific observation” shows “that life is a continuum”: the gametes (the sperm and the egg cell) are already alive, before merging together into a zygote;
Second, that „’human life’ implies individuality”, but that „the preimplantation embryo is not actually an individual”, because one single embryo can develop into multiple individuals (the case of identical twins). “It is only after implantation – states Paulson -- that the early embryo can further differentiate into the organized cell groups that enable the developing conceptus to progress further in embryonic and eventually fetal development.”
However, both these arguments are objectionable:
The first one speaks of “the beginning of human life”, without further qualifications. This is strange, given the finding that, below in his letter, dr. Paulson proves he is totally aware that at stake is not human life in general, but individual human life. And the case can be made that a new individual human life (more precisely: a new human individual) appears, biologically, no earlier than the moment of fertilization. Even dr. Paulson does not say otherwise. So, the fact that, in the pre-fertilization phase, the gametes are alive, although correct, is simply irrelevant for the discussed topic.
The second argument that Paulson mounts against the idea that a new individual human life begins at fertilization has its own problems, beside the equivocation already pointed out. To see why, it should be mentioned that, in his comment, Paulson also refers to the abortion controversy. However, for the abortion debate, it is not enough to establish when a new human individual is created, but rather in what developmental stage does the new human individual become a person – or at least a morally relevant entity.
Therefore, neither the assertion that the pre-fertilization gametes are alive, nor the contention that individual human life begins, biologically, only with implantation do, as such, help one answer this latter question.
Nonetheless, dr. Paulson tries to contribute to the abortion debate, by writing the following:
”We fertility doctors take extreme care to protect and nurture
the preimplantation embryos in our incubators and cryotanks.
We realize that in almost all cases these aggregates
of cells represent the best chance for our infertile couples to
realize their dream of building their families. However,
handling an embryo with the potential to produce a pregnancy
is not the same as handling a human life [my underlining – A.M.].
If harm to a preimplantation embryo were to be considered the same
as harm to a human being, then the demise of a preimplantation
embryo—a not infrequent event in vivo, as well as in
the IVF laboratory—might well be treated as a human death,
perhaps with manslaughter charges brought against the embryologists.”
It is, indeed, cogent to admit a big difference between an embryo and a fully developed human adult. However, dr. Paulson also suggests that it’s less morally grave to harm a pre-implantation embryo than to harm a post-implantation one. Probably, that’s because, according to his position, the individual human life only begins at implantation. This notwithstanding, quite the opposite argument can be made: precisely insomuch as, before implantation, the human embryo can develop into multiple human individuals, it is all the more graver to harm a pre-implantation embryo, because a greater human potential lies in it.
Hence, despite the difference between a human embryo and a human adult, it’s still not at all evident that induced abortion is (with some exceptions) morally acceptable; and dr. Paulson’s confused letter is powerless as ammunition for the pro-abortionist camp.
I appreciate the Doctor’s choice to open his article with a statement of gratitude. He reminds the reader of the technological innovations of the past few hundred years that improve the quality and length of human life. The doctor credits breakthroughs in medical technology with allowing many infertile couples to realize their goal of raising biologically-related children. In his discussion his compassion is evident. Moreover, trying to discover a material-biological foundation for individuality is fascinating if anything is. Finally, the Doctor articulates the mainstream of his field’s finding on the fertilization process that is comprehensible (or so we think!) to the lay reader and allows for an appreciation and wonderment at the process.
But this is not the strongest element of the Doctor’s article. The strongest part of the article decries the abuse of academic science—often involving a misreading of the evidence—for lay political arguments. The result is not only widespread lay misinformation about the results of a particular study or body of studies, but a mistrust of scientific endeavors generally. That leveraging putatively scientific arguments is the only way our society allows itself to have moral, legal, political, and philosophical arguments illuminates a cultural poverty and stupidity that is as regrettable as it is ubiquitous. Often enough, as in the example he cites, this is a cover for other kinds of arguments. One suspects that it results from intellectual laziness, an inferiority complex, or both. One needs hardly look around to see examples-- “science says eat ____ to live longer,” “bio hack your way to happiness,” “Global Warming will DESTROY everything!,” or my favorite--“studies show Christians have better sex!!” Grifters and ignoramuses abound—and always have a pet scientific study to “back them up.”
And yet, this piece needs some more serious work.
First, the Doctor ignores how scientists themselves created the state of public discourse wherein only putatively scientific arguments count as evidence. Radical polemicists like Richard Dawkins abuse the parameters—and limitations—of their own discipline to make arguments well beyond their purview. This of course has deep roots—19th century race science/ phrenology, the entire conceit of Marxism, positivism, and eugenics all purported to obviate the need for public discourse rooted in anything other than their own findings and horizons—limited as they were by a reductionism. Politicians (at least in the United States) accepted these propositions by default unless consciously choosing the opposite. Given the radical activist-scientists' success in bullying other methods of reasoning out of large segments of the public square, can we blame people for wanting to couch their supposedly unscientific claims in scientific evidence?
His second and more serious flaw involves his terse characterization of religion and/or faith as fundamentally unaccountable and/or unresponsive to evidence, logic, and reason. He passes briefly enough over the topic to depict a monolithic and unthinking religion that operates mainly as a foil for science. It’s a straw man argument that would be laughable among serious observers of religion if it was not precisely the kind of mischaracterization that bothers him about popular and/or political uses of science. The idea that religion and faith either cannot or will not engage in conversation with logic/reason /science is an old polemical trick from the eighteenth century—and should stay buried with its proponents. Intellectually and historically, it is as simplistic and unfounded of an idea as one is likely to come across. Religion, at least in the three great monotheistic traditions of Western Culture, always operated under the directive that, in the words of Augustine, “faith seeks understanding.” Practically, this meant that faith and religion, as arguments about the nature of reality and humans’ place within it, participated in the production of scientific knowledge. Luminaries such as Avicenna, Aquinas, Augustine, Newton, Mendel, and others stand as obvious examples that these traditions stand in constant conversation with logic, reason, and science.
Hopefully the Doctor is merely ignorant of both the larger history within which contemporary science is embedded as well as the multifaceted and complicated history of religion, religious belief, and practice. I look forward to better informed work in the future.
Sam Jennings
Oklahoma State University