MANIPULATING EVOLUTION FROM NOW ON

MANIPULATING EVOLUTION FROM NOW ON

HOW DEEP DOES IT GO?

By Jon Rappoport

"A study on rats published in Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology showed that sound waves could be used to [reversibly] reduce sperm counts to levels that cause infertility in humans...The concept...is now being pursued by researchers at the University of North Carolina who won a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation."

(BBC News/Health, Jan.29, 2012, reported at naturalnews.com)

April 3, 2012. After Darwin cast his view of evolution upon the waters, a notion that humans were naturally selected bio-machines gained increasing consensus.

If Science could understand how a human was built, it could not only cure illness, it could change the inherent pattern of the body and brain. Evolution was merely a history of changes in the bio-machine.

Eventually, this position was taken to the full extreme. The Eugenics movement sprang up in America, and it was exported to Nazi Germany, where it was used for a program of pure destruction the American advocates could only dream of.

Now, the population is being softened up for another version of The Human as Bio-Machine. Through movies, through the press, through heavily promoted speculation--- "we are on the verge of enormous breakthroughs in genetics"---the population is being primed for a pseudo-philosophy of selection: some people should live, and some people should die, or at the very least, not reproduce.

On the one hand we are fed "highly positive" assurances that designer genetics will enable the creation of smarter, more talented, stronger, healthier people of the future. On the other hand, we are told that the exigencies of "public health care" make it necessary to differentiate between "viable and non-viable" patients.

These two threads are woven together, and in the confusion people are giving in, more and more, to the idea of a New Eugenics.

At bottom is the un-debated question: IS A HUMAN A BIO-MACHINE AND NOTHING MORE?

Most academic philosophers will tell you the question itself is meaningless. That's their way of skirting the issue of free will.

And it's one reason many academics believe the Constitution is a badly outmoded document: it asserts that every individual can be free. Claiming that the existence of free will is preposterous, academia determines that any political document based on liberty and freedom can be trampled on with impunity.

"There are only brains and those brains operate purely by electrical/chemical inputs and outputs."

And THAT opens the door to various versions of Eugenics. Because who can object to experiments on machines?

Lee Silver, an enthusiastic molecular biologist at Princeton, has written a book, Remaking Eden, about the future of gene science in society. This is how he sees things playing out:

"The GenRich---who account for ten percent of the American population---all carry synthetic genes. All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the GenRich class... .

"Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as laborers. [Eventually] the GenRich class and the Natural class will become entirely separate species with no ability to crossbreed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee.

"Many think that it is inherently unfair for some people to have access to technologies that can provide advantages while others, less well-off, are forced to depend on chance alone, [but] American society adheres to the principle that personal liberty and personal fortune are the primary determinants of what individuals are allowed and able to do.

"Indeed, in a society that values individual freedom above all else, it is hard to find any legitimate basis for restricting the use of repro-genetics. I will argue [that] the use of reprogenetic technologies is inevitable. [W]hether we like it or not, the global marketplace will reign supreme."

It's interesting that Silver mentions the value of individual freedom. Would he be willing to discuss his view of the human being honestly? Does he claim the human is a bio-machine and nothing more? And if so, where does this freedom come from? Sub-atomic particles changing their minds every so often? Or does he have a different view of the human?

If we could bring these bio-ethicists and geneticists and academic philosophers out into the light of day, where the issue of free will would be discussed in depth, some very interesting things might happen.

For example: "Well, why shouldn't we experiment on human beings to see what we can produce genetically? The human is merely sub-atomic particles in motion that have somehow acquired the delusion they have Identity and Free Choice."

Yes, let's get it all out into the open, where we can see the underlying assumptions and look at them straight on.

Ideas do move the world, even if the bulk of humanity is disinterested or unwilling to grasp them. To infer that such underlying ideas are a waste of time and should be discarded altogether is exactly the kind of default that leaves the playing field open; open to those who DO have ideas and are willing to act on them---to the detriment of all of us.

Thirty years ago, biotech companies looking for seed money began to hire scientists to shill for them. These pros began promising the moon, in terms of what the research in genetics could deliver in short order. Of course, the promises were completely overblown, but the stage was set for a major PR campaign that would add grants and research funding to the coffers of geneticists---and convince the public that the Brave New World had arrived.

That PR has grown to this day. The man on the street is now blithely ready to attribute all sorts of human behavior to genes and DNA. He's an expert. He knows. He can repeat the latest promises about genetic cures for disease.

This, despite the fact there is not a single gene-treatment for a disease that works across the board.

Go into a university department of genetics/molecular biology, or a department of philosophy, and try to find a real discussion and debate about whether humans have free will, whether the human being is only a bio-machine. Good luck.

The very basis of the American Republic, individual freedom, has been cut out of the equation.

But no one at the university level deems this a significant or disturbing fact. Teachers are far more interested in "group values" and "consensus" and the deconstruction of all ideas into an analysis of who benefits from having the ideas.

The rearranging of genes in humans has, for some time, been discussed openly in academic journals. The cat is out of the bag. Geneticists, biologists, social scientists, bio-ethicists are all weighing in. One typical argument: once upon a time, people were horrified at the prospect of doing in vitro fertilization; people said it wouldn't work, it would produce monsters; now it's accepted as normal and natural.

And THEREFORE, we should look at genetic manipulation as the next stage of our self-directed evolution. We should try it. We should be ready to deal with failures, because the pursuit of the goal is good and valuable.

All this presupposes honorable motives and humane objectives. Who cares about a realistic assessment of what scientists will countenance and promote?

We are told there are laws against dangerous gene experiments, and there are medical ethics panels ready to rule out potentially harmful practices. But among the experts, a tide is rising in favor of the overall goal of engineering our genetic future.

And this is quite understandable, because not only do scientists tend to have a sense of their own superior entitlement and intelligence, they believe they're tinkering with machines. They might not phrase it that way, but that's what it comes down to.

David King, writing at Human Genetics Alert, states: "The main debate around human genetics currently centres on the ethics of genetic testing, and possibilities for genetic discrimination and selective eugenics. But while ethicists and the media constantly re-hash these issues, a small group of scientists and publicists are working towards an even more frightening prospect: the intentional genetic engineering of human beings. Just as Ian Wilmut presented us with the first clone of an adult mammal, Dolly, as a fait accompli, so these scientists aim to set in place the tools of a new techno-eugenics, before the public has ever had a chance to decide whether this is the direction we want to go in. The publicists, meanwhile are trying to convince us that these developments are inevitable." Inevitable. That's the key idea. "There's nothing we can do now. The march of progress is underway." King continues: "One major step towards reproductive genetic engineering is the proposal by US gene therapy pioneer, French Anderson, to begin doing gene therapy on foetuses, to treat certain genetic diseases. Although not directly targeted at reproductive cells, Anderson's proposed technique poses a relatively high risk that genes will be 'inadvertently' altered in the reproductive cells of the foetus, as well as in the blood cells which he wants to fix. Thus, if he is allowed to go ahead, the descendants of the foetus will be genetically engineered in every cell of their body." But the gene enthusiasts don't care about what happens up the line to the descendants. It's all part of the grand experiment. Spin the wheel, take a chance. If "we" don't like the outcome, spin the wheel again and see what happens. Eventually, we'll get it right. One of the most enthusiastic proponents of human genetic engineering, Gregory Stock, former director of the program in Medicine, Technology, and Society at the UCLA School of Medicine, has written: "Even if half the world's species were lost, enormous diversity would still remain. When those in the distant future look back on this period of history, they will likely see it not as the era when the natural environment was impoverished, but as the age when a plethora of new forms-some biological, some technological, some a combination of the two-burst onto the scene. We best serve ourselves, as well as future generations, by focusing on the short-term consequences of our actions rather than our vague notions about the needs of the distant future." The Nazi elite, obsessed with the idea of creating a Master Race, serving that goal, were willing to try any horrendous experiment on any prisoner; they were willing to breed their "ideal" men and women to produce offspring that would fit their definition of "superior." Now we are being sold a soft version of Eugenics as the next step in evolution. It's kinder, gentler roulette. And why should individual free will be an obstacle; that's just a superstitious fantasy; freedom was never real; there was always and only The Experiment; natural selection, intentional selection---what's the difference? Some who look at the future see Orwell's 1984. Others see Huxley's Brave New World. I'm here to tell you the scientific/medical/technological elitists are sitting at the table with many chips to play. They're betting that, in the long run, they will win, because they are touting hypnotically entrancing "imperatives" of the Religion called Science. And if by chance, they discover a reliable way to utilize gene insertion to produce sterility and infertility, they will see a path to quiet depopulation. And then who will control the technology? Wide-eyed futurists who teach at universities, or calculating operatives who work for the hardest-line Globalists? Despite Gregory Stock's advice to think only in the short term and disregard the broader future, I suggest you consider the implications of government-controlled and funded healthcare. Up the road, the prescribed list of treatments for all diseases will become mandatory. The doctor offers, you accept. You obey. He advocates gene therapy, you fall into line. You're in the system. Meanwhile, the current generation of scientists and academics who want to move full speed ahead on engineering evolution aren't the old crusty scowling researchers from days gone by. They're enthused, they're daring, they look and dress like ex-hippies who've moved to the suburbs. They're happy sociopaths spreading cheer. And they talk like software designers operating on the bright cutting edge. What could go wrong? And to cement in the argument for engineering humans, there is the ever-powerful fairness argument. Professor Julian Savalescu, of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics: "Nature allots all sorts of abilities and talents in a random way. It's not fair, and I don't see why we should let people's lives be determined by the throw of a dice." Unless throwing a pair of scientific dice results in multiplying catastrophes, or the use of workable genetic technology (if it really is workable) raises an unending roar and riot from millions, even billions of people who claim they're being denied their right to be Equal. A man on his way out of a restaurant trips on a stair and sues the owner; and he's going to stay quiet when his rich cousin can suddenly play a Beethoven piano concerto? I asked a retired professor of biology about the social effects of human engineering. His comment was: "These younger geneticists who see paradise over the hill? If they're living over the hill in big houses, they're going to need the Army to protect them." And will the Army protect them? I asked. "Look," he said, "this whole business of inserting genes to create talents is a fantasy. But assuming at some distant time it could come true, the soldiers would have their own synthetic genes, which would presumably make them follow orders to the extreme. The soldiers would do whatever the people who run things want them to do. It would be a tight world." When individual freedom is no longer discussed in great depth by people who should know better, when it is left to wither on the vine, many programs and structures are built to take its place. When freedom is not understood beyond a superficial level, the question, WHAT IS FREEDOM FOR, goes begging. For the past 15 years, I've been exploring the question, and I believe, in the answer, we find the imagination and creative power that can allow us to enhance ourselves, without the need to desperately hope for genetic reprogramming. Jon Rappoport The author of an explosive new collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, and creativity to audiences around the world. www.nomorefakenews.com qjrconsulting@gmail.com