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 Trinity Magazine, Fall 2003
by Ron Friedman
Have recent possibilities in science opened a kind of Pandora’s box? Some say, “Since science has enabled us to do something, we should just do it.” But those with an “anything goes” perspective clearly do not share the moral compass of biblically informed Christians. Take, for example, the views of University of Alabama bioethicist Gregory E. Pence, who, promotes mixing human and animal genes. The idea that we can biogenetically cross our species with animals is not new, however, considering that human-mouse hybrids have scurried about in labs since the 1980s. Who needs a mythologized Prometheus thieving from Olympus, when we have real-life modern mortals in academia scaling heights of such hubris?
by Ron Friedman
“The astonishing pace of biotechnology is serving up critical issues in which the church needs to be engaged,” says Trinity Graduate School alumnus William P. Cheshire, Jr. (MA/Bioethics ’01). Bill is assistant professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville, Fla.) and serves as adjunct faculty at Trinity Graduate School. He claims that, “even more than terrorism, bioethics presents us with the crucial decisions of our day that the church dare not ignore.” Certainly in today’s post-9/11 environment, there are many possible evil scenarios that can no longer be dismissed as unimportant or morally neutral. And yet, says Bill, there is “among many Christians the dangerous temptation to sit this one out.”
by Joyce A. Shelton, PhD
Early in human development, a single cell may have many possible fates. A cell’s final fate (whether it becomes a kidney cell or a lung cell, for example) is partially due to genetics and partially due to environment. Experiments, however, have shown that if only a few isolated cells of one type are transplanted into new surroundings, the transplanted cells will respond by changing identities and becoming the type of tissue that surrounds them. By contrast, if a large group of cells is transplanted, they will, as a community, resist the influences of the foreign environment, maintain their original identity, and even recruit the foreign cells around them to change. Thus, isolated cells are assimilated, but a community of cells is a source of identity and influence. The “community effect” has both formative and transformative power.
Opinions expressed are those of the contributors or the editors and do not necessarily represent the official position of Trinity International University.
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