POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Genetic Engineering and Jesus – Will “They” Be Human?

A few years ago, I sent Stan Schmidt, editor at ANALOG, a short story that took place in the clouds of a gas giant called (at the time) Jordan. It was all about a sort of “underground railroad” that freed profoundly genetically engineered humans from a slavery that saw them as manufactured goods and thereby not human.

One of the characters commented that HE was human, even though he’d clearly been genetically engineered at least a little. The other character asked what made him think he was human. The first replied, “I have over 65% unaltered human DNA!”

Stan didn’t buy the story, but he did comment that he found the idea of a society in which an arbitrary amount of unaltered DNA determined whether or not one was considered human – to be chilling.

Since then, I’ve done a bit of world building and written two stories in the skies of the gas giant now named River, in which I address this concept. But it got me to thinking – what is that defines “human” and specifically, is there a point at which a genetically engineered person is no longer human? Finally, this led me to speculate on my main question: did Jesus die for the sins of humans who have been profoundly genetically engineered?

Let me try an analogy, first. Let’s look at those who have been medically engineered: every person reading this has been medically engineered to some degree, whether we have taken aspirin or had a quadruple coronary bypass. We have been changed from our “original” or “natural” form, however slightly. No one has ever suggested that I am no longer human – though I have had shoulder repair, an umbilical hernia repair and my tonsils removed.

Second case: my mom. She has a pacemaker implant, two artificial hips and two artificial knees. Is she still human? I’ve never heard anyone suggest that she is not – though we do call her our Bionic Mom sometimes. ;-)

Third: a friend of mine works for a company that manufactures insulin pumps – both external and internal. People that use these are called diabetics – but are still human.

Let us now create a hypothetical composite: this person takes medication to control cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a thyroid deficiency; they have had both shoulders, both knees and both hips replaced, wear a pacemaker, have artificially implanted eye lenses, wear hearing aids and an insulin pump – and use Rogaine (with monoxidil) and Viagra. In addition, they also have dialysis treatments once a month and use an inhaler for asthma as well as a motorized wheelchair occasionally. Is this person human? Some might argue QUALITY of life, but none I know of would argue their humanity.

The next step is obvious: the correction of typically debilitating genetic defects, the demise of which few would decry – cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, Down syndrome and breast cancer. Are the corrected individuals human? A question, but my guess is that no one would deny their humanity and would rather celebrate their life.

After that is the slippery slope of greater correction that will, ALMOST inevitably, lead to the question of whether or not we should improve the species. Here is where medical ethicists will “earn their pay” so-to-speak, and it will be a new frontier for endless debate.

But the next step is what concerns me – but not for the reason some of you will assume.

What concerns me is that those who are improved will be ostracized despite the fact that Jesus Himself was the object of profound genetic manipulation by the Father God. He is, in His own words, immortal. He was never, as far as Scripture goes, sick in any way – though he consistently and regularly touched and lived with the ill. Clearly, His immune system was resilient far beyond human because He touched lepers and never came down with leprosy. Jesus, the Son of God was biologically only HALF-human, if you want to be particular about it.

So – when the future arrives and we meet profoundly genetically engineered humans, we need only look to our Lord to see how they should be treated: with loving care, deep reverence and just like anyone else. That’s how Jesus lived for 33 years of His life. Will He love them, did He die for their sins and should we embrace them in the Church? Without hesitation – because He was first in a wave that has yet to crest, but will most likely hit the Church’s beach by the next turn of the century.

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My counter froze at 867. So the number displayed is + 867. (If anyone knows how to fix it -- let me know!)

Slice of PIE: Rich Man, Poor Man, eBook Man, Sheaf…

When I bring this up, some people seem to misunderstand what I’m asking, they deliberately misunderstand or ignore the question – so I thought I might take a moment to see if I could clarify myself.

How will the eBook “revolution” affect the poor? Tangent to that, if eBooks hold sway, will reading become something only a person who can afford an eBook reader can do?

There is already a gap between those who read and can afford to either buy books or take them out from the library – which is “free” (Free libraries posit an economy of surplus). It’s just that the discussions among writers, agents, and publishers seem to EXclude everyone but those who read in the developed world.

Hmmm…I don’t know if I’m making myself clear even to me, so let me try again: many people seem to be saying that eBooks will eventually be the most common way to get new books. The Kindle appears to be a hit (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/14/amazon-may-sell-750-million-in-kindles-by-2010-thats-a-lot-of-kindles/ ) and a lot of chatter on blogs and websites I read seems to agree that eBooks will eventually be IT. My question: what about readers in developing countries?

Right now, paper books are scarce enough in developing countries. When I was in Nigeria, Cameroun and Liberia, books weren’t available there the way they are here. There were no B. Daltons, Waldenbooks, or Borders Books, and certainly, in 1983, Barnes and Noble didn’t have a Lagos store. I did read ROOTS, THE FAR PAVILIONS, THE THORN BIRDS, ON THE BEACH and CENTENNIAL, but I picked them up off the bed stands of mission stations where they were warm, dusty, dog-eared and slightly yellowing at the edges -- but still readable. Schoolbooks in most places were shipped in from the UK or the US or Australia or Canada and were typically second hand at best, but lovingly cared for, pored over and passed on.

What will it be like if the wave of eBooks washes over the developed world and books old and new require an expensive reader using even more expensive batteries that require an even MORE expensive power plant to generate power to recharge from? Even with solar cells…well, my observation has always been that the more complex a bit of technology becomes, the more likely it is going to be difficult to fix if it breaks. Once our Kindles are dead, we’ll toss them away along with whatever novels or textbooks were stored in them. I doubt there’ll be a collection point for used Kindles that will be recharged, reloaded with books, boxed up and shipped to developing countries.

More likely, the developed world will continue to develop as it always has…and the developing world will stop dead in its tracks…at least as far as reading goes.

Anyone out there offering a brighter scenario will be gladly believed!

WRITING ADVICE: A First Report on the Flash Fiction Experiment

For the better part of a year, I've used my blog to field-test characters, situations and plots of novels I'm in different stages of writing. Each one has a different place in my "future publications" queue.

I'd never tried my hand a flash fiction before, so I did a bit of research -- if you're interested in a recap, I wrote about flashfic in July http://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2008/07/writing-advice-absolutely-basic-flash.html
Google "flash fiction" and you'll get some 800,000 entries. Genie in ALADDIN has the perfect word picture for flashfic: "Phenomenal cosmic powers; itty bitty living space!"

I've asked people on my regular "blog-alert" list to read and comment on whichever flashfic series interested them. I've created three worlds where I explore the relationship of the people who live there and the events that take place there:

HEIRS OF THE SHATTERED SPHERES: Humans have finished an asteroid spacecraft whose mission is to deeply explore the Solar System with a crew of over 2000 and Ruby Marcillon as one of its captains. But there's also a secret mission: something happened sixty-five million years ago and evidence from debris on Earth, the Moon, Mercury and in the rings of Saturn clearly points to alien invasion. Emerald Marcillon's parents discovered much, much more than evidence in the Chicxulub crater -- and are murdered for it by a knife-footed spider robot that may be the last survivor of those invaders and whose ultimate goal is the genocide of Humanity.

THREAT OF MAGIC: Filled with strange life forms, Heartland had Technology that once made a life of peace and plenty for most. But self-proclaimed Wizard Qii wants nothing to do with Tech -- it doesn't make for good serfs -- and is using Magic to overthrow it. Kids from our world are leaking into Heartland and the Light Maker will join them to defeat the threat of Magic.

THIRTEEN SQUARE MILES: The pastor and sometimes odd members of an evangelical Christian church serve one another and their decidedly and wildly varied community rather than send full tithe and offerings to their Regional ruling body. When their official membership drops while attendance grows, that body threatens to close the church unless they toe the line.

The results? The Bransford Plots you see above (To see the genesis of a Bransford Plot -- see http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/06/do-you-have-plot.html) came out of the necessity of seeing to it that there was an overarching theme that each piece in each story line could hang from.

Twenty-two pieces of flash fiction are another result. Also -- though few people post comments on the flashfic, LOTS of people email me directly or talk to me face-to-face. The feedback has been excellent and has given me grist ("a term for milled grain") from the writer's mill!

Following a (to me) grueling schedule of flashfic on Thursdays and essays on Sunday has been good for my plotting mind. It's also made me produce when I'd rather putter.

Finally, I feel that I am much, much better at producing usable fiction. I actually LIKE several of the pieces and feel a sense of pride at producing them.

So -- for a first report, I'd say that writing flashfic in three different worlds has been a success!

What do you think?

A Slice of PIE: “2010”, “CONTACT”, “MISSION TO MARS”: Finding Ourselves “Out There”

Let me say first that I love these movies. I use each one in some format for a summer school class I teach to young people called ALIEN WORLDS. They’re powerful, well done, visually exciting and well-acted. In each one, it’s clear that Humanity is pushing into space, bent on going as far is it can go and finding whatever is out there. Despite the words of Buzz Aldrin, former Apollo astronaut that TV (and movie, I imagine) science fiction has killed the interest of young people in the space program (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=57491), I can attest that when I use these DVDs in my classroom, I get INTEREST rather than boredom.

But in addition to having the obvious Alien Worlds message, for me these three movies also have another meaning: we can’t find anything worth “worshipping” here, so it must be Out There.

In “2010”, we find that Humanity has been guided to intelligence from apehood, by the unknown builders of the black monolith and that our next step in evolution is just around the metaphysical corner. In “Contact”, mysterious aliens send plans to construct a machine that has unknown potential whose sole purpose is to bring one human out to speak with a super-powerful alien who encourages her and all Humanity in our evolution to become part of a vast, intergalactic union. “Mission To Mars” proves that the “fringe element” is right – the Face on Mars was left by aliens – or are they aliens? The key to opening the Face is human DNA and one person is invited to come visit the super-powerful ancestors of Humanity to find out what’s in store for us.

For me, all three movies assume that God is no longer a viable source of motivation, comfort, and guidance for Humanity. In short, God is dead. HOWEVER, there is also a belief that secular Humanity needs something more than its local “self”. We need to know that we have been purposefully evolved by advanced aliens; we are almost evolved enough to join everyone else; our ancestors lie “out there”. If only we can contact someone else, we’ll find our true selves.

We can find ourselves Out There. While you won’t find this purpose stated in the American, Russian, European or Chinese space mission books, it seems to me that it is a small element in our fascination with space.

As a Christian science fiction reader and watcher, I’d just like to say that I have already found my “self” in God. Deuteronomy 4:29 – “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Scripture is pretty clear – He’s here. All we need to do is look and we’ll find Him. Right here.

PIE: FEDERATION ASSIMILATES BORG!

The Borg have creeped me out from day one. But it’s become more than just the creepiness of a TV show. There is a startling bit of the Borg right around some corner you’re likely to turn next week.

When someone with a Bluetooth in their ear turns toward me and sweeps me with that little blue light, I get the chills. They make me think of a proto-Borg:

http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/random-info/locutus-of-borg.jpg

http://eyeglasses365.com/uploaded_images/bluetooth-headsets-and-eyeglasses-785764.jpg

Though I don’t remember seeing Bluetooths when STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and the Borg premiered in 1987, they seem to be an echo of the idea of the Borg. A Bluetooth phone may not be permanently implanted like an insulin pump, artificial hip or a pacemaker – but how far away can that day be?

The Borg slogan, “Resistance is futile” – unemotional and mechanical – was chilling. The Borg seemed to tap into a deeply held fear of technophillic America – that our technology, in particular our electronics, might overwhelm us and change us into monsters. It seems that the physical integration of devices into our bodies is the next step and that resistance is futile.

Most people reading this know the ST story line: the Borg appeared, unstoppable. But through interaction with Humans who set them free to be self-determining individuals, the Borg were defeated and enabled to retake their “humanity”. Despite the technological, mental, military and organizational advantages of the Borg collective, the flesh-and-blood Federation (in the form of Admiral and Captain Janeway) defeated the Borg. Even though vastly more advanced civilizations like the one Guinan belonged to, fell before them and were assimilated, the Human-led Federation prevailed. How could that happen? What quality did Humans possess that allowed them to succeed where others had failed miserably? What was it that allowed the Federation to emerge victorious over the Borg when so many others failed? ST never tells us.

Life’s triumph over Mechanism in ST is a hopeful message. We hope that we can control our technology, to prevent it from overwhelming the “Human virtues” of love, self-determination, individuality, faith in a higher being, reproduction and the appreciation of art and beauty. Certainly, the Federation’s triumph over the Borg points to the hope that we can overcome the temptation to efficiency and remain Human still.

But is it reasonable that we will be able to prevent ourselves from becoming proto-Borg? My son is working to become a paramedic. The range of technological devices he has at his fingertips is amazing and the real – technological tools in the average 21st Century emergency room are unmatched even by the special effects glitz of a high definition doctor show. Americans have become dependent on external technology. Are we in danger of internalizing our electronics as the ultimate in efficiency? Are we on the way to becoming real-life proto-Borg? Only time will tell. It might be good to keep this clip of the Borg firmly in mind as we wend our way into the future so that we might avoid becoming Borg ourselves and make sure we find that undefined “thing” that allowed the Federation to assimilate the Borg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8&feature=related

PIE: The Myth Busted...

After long consideration, reading and researching, I am retracting my previous article on the myth of global warming.

As well, I suggest all concerned Christians should visit this site and act on the advice of the Evangelical Climate Initiative:

http://christiansandclimate.org/

WRITING ADVICE: Write Like A Shark

Two years ago, stuck less than half way through a SF novel I’d started writing three years earlier than THAT, I ran across an article in the January 2006 issue of THE WRITER. Kelly James-Enger exhorted me to “Get your novel written in 3 drafts”.

Glancing at my stalled book, I read the short, sweet article.

Stunned by its three simple steps, I plunged back into INVADER’S GUILT and finished the 500 page, 150,000-word behemoth in less than six months. I wrote a couple of short stories as well and then started a YA novel sparked by an agent’s comment rejecting a MG novel: “While I really liked your informative (and flattering) query letter, I did think this project was lacking the edge and tone of YA.”

My response – not to him, but to myself – and James-Enger’s exhortation, spurred me to dive into VICTORY OF FISTS and write it through to the end without a break in twelve months. (I write mostly on weekends and during my four weeks of summer vacation. I am a teacher…and “No, I’ve never ‘taken the summer off’ – I’ve worked one or more other jobs for twenty-seven years.”) I am now working to pare INVADER’S GUILT down to a saleable 100,000 words. I will begin editing my first draft of VICTORY OF FISTS in a few weeks with the target date of submitting it to the agent whose comment sparked the book in January of 2009.

Kelly James-Enger’s advice was profound:

1) Draft 1: Write like a shark
2) Draft 2: The big cleanup
3) Draft 3: Where every word counts

I found myself a picture of a great white shark.

Why a shark? A somewhat obscure fact is that most shark species must keep moving so that oxygenated water flows over their gills. They can’t “pump water” like a goldfish does. If they don’t move forward – they die.

The analogy is clear to me: if I don’t keep writing the story…it will die. INVADER’S GUILT was dead and Kelly James-Enger saved its life. Now let’s see if I can clean it up and sell that…puppy. (Another little-known shark fact is that baby sharks are called “pups”.)

A SLICE OF PIE: SF Based On Real S

We all love them: stories celebrated as SF that aren’t based on “real science”. I realize that “real science” is a slippery concept – but I think that there are some sciences that are more…likely than others.

For example, John W. Campbell was a well-known proponent of psi powers. I avidly read the “Telzey” stories of James H. Schmitz in ANALOG in the early 70’s, when I first started reading the magazine (“The Telzey Toy” was the one I remember best). The early 21st Century has revealed true wonders of the human mind, for example, the discovery that adolescents are IN FACT crazy some of the time. (http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html) But we haven’t yet been able to verify that true telekinesis or telepathy exist.

Likewise, H. Beam Piper’s marvelous works enthralled me when I was young (and old) but while an interpretation of quantum mechanics might allow for his fictional “Paratime” stories to exist in alternate timelines, they are, at the heart of them, scientifically unlikely. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_many-worlds_interpretation)

Humaniform robots with transhuman intelligence have been a staple of SF since Karl Čapek introduced the word “robot” in his 1921 play, R.U.R. Isaac Asimov carried the idea to its logical conclusion creating a robot detective indistinguishable from a human in the person of R. Daneel Olivaw. Even so, practical Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a human-sized cranium and human-style mobility seems to have a number of very difficult hurdles to leap, leaving me to think that if it is not unlikely, then it is a very, very long way into the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence

While I won’t stop reading SF and I’ve given the “mundane SF” sub-genre a try, I’d still like to see even more SF based on “real science” and the collision of real people and their real beliefs (you know which ones) with that science in a realistic, thoughtful way with biases suppressed and imagination alive.

Sorry...Sorry...Sorry

The first week of school hit...somewhat like a hurricane.

It threw me off balance, so I missed my Thursday post. I'll do it later today as well as getting Sunday's post ready!

Guy