Becoming Immortal: Combining Cloning and Stem-Cell Therapy

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 Quo Vadis? “Life is, after all, very much the same everywhere,” said Miss Marple in her placid voice. “Getting born, you know, and growing up—and coming into contact with other people—getting jostled—and then marriage and more babies—” —Agatha Christie, Murder at the Vicarage At issue here is nothing less than taking seriously the question whether a science can depend on something like a circumcision. —Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever Seen from the point of view of death, the product of the corpse is life. —Walter Benjamin, Origin of German Tragic Drama Why, in short, do we seek, in the mobility of the whole, tracks that are supposed to be followed by bodies supposed to be in motion? A moving continuity is given to us, in which everything changes and yet remains: why then do we dissociate the two terms, permanence and change, and then represent permanence by bodies and change by homogeneous movements in space? —Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory What are human beings, biologically, and where are they heading? Fossils indicate that human life has changed, or evolved, ever since vaguely human forms appeared several million years ago. Sequences of nitrogenous bases in the human genome also suggest that we have changed even more recently, since Homo sapiens became the only species in the genus Homo some tens 2 QUO VADIS? of thousands years ago. Nothing it would seem, short of extinction, will stop further change, but, by and large, scientists are not thinking about our present status as a species and are hardly contemplating how we might change in the future. Biologists do not get serious for several reasons about characterizing human life as such and projecting its future. The most compelling reason is that there would be hell to pay from both left and right of the political spectrum. Charges of “Fascist!” would roar from the left, and accusations of “playing God” would fly from the right. Even political moderates might feel that anything remotely resembling a scientific statement on our present condition, to say nothing of a prognosis for our species’ future, goes beyond the legitimate province of science. Biologists, therefore, limit their public pronouncements to the realm of nature, alluding to human nature and its evolution by natural selection as a remote consequence of being alive. Biologists wish us bon chance, to be sure, but they would sooner abandon us to chance than make serious assessments about our present position and potential. I am not saying that we should, or can, correct all of our design flaws. For example, the crossing of our nasal and oral passages, which causes more deaths by asphyxiation than is generally realized, seems to have originated in early chordates and is probably too deeply rooted in vertebrate development to be readily altered. We can, nevertheless, improve upon ourselves in several respects, and I do not mean changing unattractive features. For example, birth could be made a lot easier, and a few vestigial structures, such as the appendix (which ruptures with devastating consequences) and breast tissue in males (occasionally the source of a rampant form of breast cancer) might be dispensed with without causing harm.1 Above all, and what interests me here, is the great prize of achieving immortality. Eliminating old age and death is now within reach. Imagine what life would be like if we did not get gray, lose hair, suffer tight and fragile skin, cataracts, diabetes mellitus, hypogonadism, osteoporosis , vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis (both myocardial and cerebrovascular ), and age-related cancers? Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived well and vigorously forever—in permanent, healthy, youthful life! I certainly do not mean growing old forever or even having access to some quick fixes by recall and restart buttons in the event of a crash. I mean a youthful immortality, built in, determined, reliable, and automatic! I am not talking about believe-it-or-not poultices, miracle cures, and lifeenhancing procedures currently in the pipeline for extending life. I leave that hopeful terrain to the perambulation of others.2 Nor is Becoming Immortal an examination of the consequences of immortality for society and culture, of the bioethics of morality or immorality. I am confident that sociologists and Stanley Shostak 3 social workers, bioethicists, and moralists will pick up on immortality without my impromptu prodding. My objective here is merely to promote a course of research at the end...