Greenflame
Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture, photography and faith from the Aotearoa New Zealand
Category: Bioethics/Biotech
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Something I was thinking about the other day. With all the heated discussion on embryonic stem cell use what about stem cells that can be gathered and cultured from adults? This article starts to answer my question. Science & Theology News – News: Focus on embryos neglects adult cell possibilities There’s line in there that…
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Opened the latest copy of the ATF (Australian Theological Forum) journal Interface yesterday and was met by a violent, hot pink cover (the photo does not do it justice). Once I got past that though I found that the issue (Vol.7 No.2 Oct 2004) was entitled “Stem Cell Research and Cloning : Contemporary Challenges to…
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Just working through Elaine Graham’s paper Bioethics after Posthumanism: Natural Law, Communicative Action and the Problem of Self-Design for a second time. Some good, thought provoking material there. For example, Socio-economic inequalities may thus represent as profound a threat to human dignity as biotechnologies. I think this gets forgotten in all the heated discussions. That…
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Following up the last posting these are a couple of responses to Ted Peter’s perspective. Clarifying Christian Concerns – Randy Maddox, Ph.D.: In Response to Ted Peters. Science and Beneficence – Cynthia Fitch, Ph.D.: In Response to Ted Peters.
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Came across this today while trawling some blogs I visit on an irregular basis. Paradoxology: Is Our DNA Sacred? has some commentary and some interesting third party comments on Lutheran theologian Ted Peter’s perspective on cloning and stem cell research. (See Response: The Seattle Pacific University Magazine – Summer 2004 | Volume 26, Number 7…
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Doing a bit of transhumanist web surfing today while pondering writing a paper on the transhuman agenda and Christian social justice and came across the article below over at Betterhumans.com. In Betterhumans > Ending Aging to Help the Poor author Simon Smith argues, Rather than hinder the fight against poverty, funding life extension research is…
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A year or so ago I blogged about Greenflame: Genetics with some links to a couple of genetics resources I’d found (including a Gattaca study guide). Now it looks like we’re a lot closer to the Gattaca scenario than we were then. Check out Wired News: Quick Read on Your Genetics. Thanks to Andii at…
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Last Monday in class we watched a variety of people talking about conquering death or prolonging life indefinitely – cryonics, longevity treatments, nanotechnology and “uploading” consciousness into silicon constructs. Provoked some discussion in class. Today I saw this Methuselah Man in which biogerentologist Aubrey de Grey predicts 5000 year life spans relatively “soon”. Answering a…
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Spent an hour and a half this afternoon watching the documentary Synthetic Pleasures (1996) by Iara Lee as part of my research and also to get some discussion questions for Monday’s lecture on being or becoming human in Western technoculture. Couldn’t get hold of a copy in NZ so ordered it in from overseas post-haste.…
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Ted Peters raises some good questions about stem cell research and Christian bioethics in his brief editorial on the CTNS (Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences) web site: CTNS–Embryos from Stem Cells?. Poses a few questions for those who follow the Augustinian view of linking the transmission of original sin with the sexual reproductive…