APPLIED SCIENCE:

Stem Cells and Philosophy (Paul J. Cella III, 12/03/04, Tech Central Station)

What Science has forgotten is that it is fundamentally an instrumental entity: it does not choose its own ends. It takes orders and carries them out; it does not formulate its own. Philosophy precedes Science, and its authority over it, adjudicated through a political process, is final; thus also, of course, politics precedes Science. In practice, this means that one need not be a trained scientist to speak to its uses, and speak against its abuses. It is absurd to exclude the non-specialist from judgments about how we ought to use this instrument, just as it is absurd to restrict the driving of automobiles only to mechanics. One need not be a railroad engineer to identify a train wreck; nor to conclude that conducting a train blindfolded is criminal negligence. Yet many of our practitioners of Science declare presumptuously that none can say anything against their wild rush, because they know not how a train works.

What this is, it seems to me, is not science but scientism; and when men argue that philosophical or theological objections to theory X or procedure Y ought to be discounted, and the decisions about its use made purely on the basis of "good science," it is very difficult for a detached observer to conclude that they really mean what they say. Some philosophical system must adjudicate the interaction between science and human endeavors. There is no way around this. Science, when it aspires to step outside itself and explain how its fruits should be put to use, is no longer science but philosophy. The scientific enterprise tells us how a discrete question is to be answered; it does not tell us how to apply that answer to life. We want to discover whether genetic cloning at the embryonic stage is possible: science can answer that question. But it can tell us almost precisely nothing about whether such technology ought to be used by men (the only assistance I can imagine science providing on this latter question is to inform us that cloning carries high risks of failure.) Bereft of first principles, Science is nothing but a mass of unconnected facts, an organ with no mind to command it. Practically speaking, the demand for decisions to be made on the basis of science alone has meant that while profounder schools of philosophy are excluded, a sort of utilitarianism reigns, a dull calculation of pleasure and pain which scorns all concerns about the wider social state, much less the wider moral order.

Therefore I submit to you, gentle reader, that the real debate signified by the stem cell controversy is only superficially about science. What is really at issue is philosophy, namely, What philosophy shall guide us?

As Mr. Cella notes, the philosophy of scientism tends to be Utilitarianism (or Pragmatism), which leads directly to eugenics, genocide and the like, all in the name of scientific progress.

MORE:
-The Bloody Alliance Between Darwin and Hitler (Harun Yahya, Media Monitors Network)
-THE SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND OF THE NAZI "RACE PURIFICATION" PROGRAM (T.D. Hall, 1995)
-Death as Deliverance: Euthanatic Thinking in Germany ca. 1890-1933 (J. Daryl Charles, The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity)
-Stem cells to cure incontinence (BBC, 11/30/04)

Scientists are successfully treating stress incontinence with a transplant of the patient's own stem cells.

Cells are removed from muscle tissue in the patient's arm, cultured in a lab, and injected into the wall of the urethra and the sphincter muscle.

This prevents urinary incontinence - sometimes within 24 hours - by building up muscle volume and tone.

The Medical University of Innsbruck presented their work to the Radiological Society of North America.

The transplant can be completed in just 15 to 20 minutes as an outpatient procedure.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 4, 2004 10:49 AM