On Embryology, Ensoulment and Stem Cell Research

By his own admission, D. H. Lawrence wasn't an objective scientist or a scholar of any kind; neither an archaeologist, nor an anthropologist. Nor was he an embryologist, but that didn't deter him from sharing his thoughts on human fertilization and the development of the embryo and fetus. 

In Fantasia of the Unconscious, for example, whilst not knowing anything about sex cells, he's happy to assert that the parental gametes continue to exist - sparkling and potent - within the zygote, forever sending forth vibrations and dark currents of vital energy. In other words, although Lawrence accepts that the sperm and ovum fuse at the moment of conception, he believes that the original parent nuclei somehow survive within the new diploid cell and function as well-heads of vivid life.

I'm not sure that's the case and, indeed, even for Lawrence this is only a preliminary rather than an intrinsic truth: this, the intrinsic truth - the truth that really matters to him, as to many religiously-minded people - is that emanating from the fusion of the father-quick and mother-germ is a new unit of unique individuality. Lawrence thus shares the papal belief that conception is the crucial  moment at which the Holy Spirit enters and a new human soul is born, nine months prior to the birth of the actual baby.

Such a mystical line of thinking wouldn't really matter or particularly concern me, if it didn't have an effect on public policy and often inhibit scientific and medical research - such as embryonic stem cell research, for example. The problem with this research, from a religious perspective, is clearly a moral one: it entails the destruction of human embryos and the souls they embody and is therefore a form of murder.

In order to demonstrate how unreasonable such a view is, we need to remind ourselves just what stem cell research actually involves and what potential benefits it offers ...

First of all, it's important to remember that the embryos used will have been cultured in vitro and are not harvested directly from a woman's body. Secondly, we should recall that they are at an incredibly early stage of development, just a few days old, and consisting of no more than around 150 cells; we're talking blastocysts not babies here.

A small group of the cells inside the microscopic blastocyst are embryonic stem cells and these have two properties that make them of such great interest to scientists: (i) they can remain in an unspecialized state for long periods of time and (ii) they are pluripotent - which means they have the potential to become any specialized cell in the human body.

Clearly such cells have much to teach us about cell division and cell differentiation, which, as Sam Harris points out, would "almost certainly shed new light on those medical conditions, like cancer and birth defects, that seem to be merely a matter of these processes gone awry". Harris also powerfully addresses the issue of embryonic termination. There is not the slightest reason to think that embryos at the 150-cell stage "have the capacity to sense pain, to suffer, or to experience the loss of life in any way at all".

On the other hand:

"What is indisputable is that there are millions of human beings who do have these capacities and who currently suffer from traumatic injuries to the brain and spinal cord. Millions more suffer from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Millions more suffer from stroke and heart disease, from burns, from diabetes, from rheumatoid arthritis, from Purkinje cell degeneration, from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and from vision and hearing loss. We know that embryonic stem cells promise to be a renewable source of tissues and organs that might alleviate such suffering in the not too distant future."

But, thanks to the faithful - and to writers like Lawrence who share their superstitions and seemingly endorse their pro-life views - biologists and doctors are dragged before ethics committees and forced to justify their work and explain why a fertilized egg shouldn't in fact be accorded all the rights and protections of a fully developed child.

Again, to quote from Sam Harris if I may and to conclude in full agreement with him:

"Of course, the point at which we fully acquire our humanity, and our capacity to suffer, remains an open question. But anyone who would dogmatically insist that these traits must arise coincident with the moment of conception, has nothing to contribute, apart from his ignorance, to this debate. Those opposed to therapeutic stem cell research on religious grounds constitute the biological and ethical equivalent of a flat-earth society." 

 

See: 

Sam Harris, The End of Faith, (The Free Press, 2006), pp. 166-67. 

D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Nobody's Perfect: The Case of Sam Harris

It's hard not to love Sam Harris. He may lack the louche charm of the late Christopher Hitchens, but he's an attractive man nevertheless; super-smart and good-looking in a Ben Stilleresque manner. And, like Hitchens, he's courageous enough to openly challenge religious stupidity in all its forms (including the most violent).

But nobody's perfect: not even Sam Harris. And some of his views - particularly those in relation to parapsychology, mysticism and the so-called wisdom of the East - leave me troubled and disappointed.

It's a shame that despite all the excellent work in The End of Faith mapping out the future of reason and insulting believers, Harris continues to write of spiritual needs and to argue that our highest purpose as human beings is to come to terms with the sacred dimension of existence on an intuitive (but rational) basis.  

This seems to mean not only admitting that there are transformative experiences that transcend "the ordinary limits of our subjectivity", but accepting that such experiences are empirically significant "in that they uncover genuine facts about the world" [40]. And, wouldn't you know, these also happen to be moral facts that (in part at least) help to make happy.

In effect, Harris wants to combine scientific skepticism with an openness of mind that accepts the reality of psychic phenomena and the claims of mystics concerning ideas of reincarnation, for example, as spiritual truths worthy of serious investigation: "It is time we realized that we need not ... renounce all forms of spirituality or mysticism to be on good terms with reason." [43]

Which is, of course, just another way of saying: I want to have my cake and eat it.

A philosophy graduate from Stanford with a Ph.D.  in neuroscience, Harris just can't help being a bit spooky when it comes to the question of consciousness and taking a pop at those scientists who believe that the latter is wholly dependent on the workings of the brain. Such materialism, says Harris, is merely another kind of faith position; a conviction for which there is no conclusive evidence.

Mind, suggests Harris, may be a rudimentary phenomenon that exists beyond "living creatures and their brains" [209]; one which can only be explored directly through sustained introspection - i.e., via meditation and other spiritual practices, including prayer and fasting.

Aware that such ascetic idealism may strike many of his readers as a "confusing eruption of speculative philosophy" [214], Harris claims such a response to be an unfortunate consequence of Western ignorance. We might understand theoretical physics, but we are conceptually unequipped to understand the spiritually advanced and more sophisticated claims of "the great philosopher mystics of the East" [215].

Further, we're too tied to our thoughts to ever experience true consciousness which transcends its contents, or grasp the roiling mystery of the world, that is non-conceptual but not inconceivable to those initiates who have woken up to the fact that "mysticism is a rational enterprise" and that the human mind has a natural propensity for spirituality [221].           

Oh, Sam!


See: Sam Harris, The End of Faith, (The Free Press, 2006). Page references in the text are to this edition.