Published in Bioethics

What foods produce aphrodisiac effects?  Presumably tongue-in-cheek, so to speak, the NY Times surveys the scientific literature.  Science (of a sort) casts doubt on traditional favorites but confirms other things we always knew.  One study claims it would take 25 pounds of chocolate to produce a euphoric mood in a woman.  Homer Simpson to the contrary, donuts won't arouse a man--unless combined with licorice.  "For women, first place for most arousing [odor] was a tie between baby powder and the combination of Good & Plenty candy with cucumber."  Grilled meat was a turn-off for women, but expect a lot of football season births from all that guacamole consumed during the Superbowl.  Anyone have a recipe for a raw oyster and fig appetizer?

For a serious meditation on the meaning of food, see The Hungry Soul, by scientist, MD, and professor of philosophy Leon Kass.

Sometimes the NY Times is beyond parody.  This months "Life-form of the Month" in the Liberal "paper of record" are ciliates.  The article tells a fascinating story about these one-celled organisms.  That's not what caught my eye, however.

What stood out was how the Times chose to frame the story for its readers.  The paper focuses on sex.  Here's the lede paragraph:

When it comes to sex and reproduction, mammals are ultra-orthodox and, frankly, rather dull. Individuals are either male or female, no one changes sex and there are never more than two sexes in a species. No mammal reproduces asexually -- by budding off a small piece of itself, say, or by splitting down the middle and growing a new individual from each half. Nope: among mammals, offspring are always produced by sex. That is, an egg fuses with a sperm to produce a child that is genetically distinct from both parents.

By contrast with mammals, ciliates are more interesting.

Ciliate sex is peculiar in several ways. For one thing, reproduction and sex do not happen together. When a ciliate reproduces, it does so asexually, typically by splitting in half and growing a complete new individual from each piece. So: where there was one individual, there are now two.

In and of itself, asexual reproduction is not especially strange -- many organisms, from aphids to sea anemones, do it at least from time to time. The weird stuff happens when ciliates get sexual.

In ciliate sex, two individuals arrive, and two individuals leave: no eggs are fertilized, no offspring are produced. But by the time the two individuals go their separate ways, a massive change will have come over both of them: they will both have acquired a new genetic identity.

Fascinating stuff in and of itself.  Let's leave aside whether it is proper to call it "sex" when we're talking about one-celled organisms.  The way the story is framed, both on the home page and in the story seems to suggest that we humans are missing out on something because, like all other mammals, we have only two sexes, and we reproduce in a routine way.  In other words, it's better to be a lower species than a higher one.  Writers and editors for the Times, it seems, are not comfortable being human. 

Today's lesson in societal decay.

Tim Tebow and his mom are causing a circus of flurry among liberals with an anticipated 30 second pro-life ad during the Superbowl. Pam Tebow contracted dysentery while a missionary and was advised to abort her son rather than risk fetal defects. She refused, and Tim turned out to be not only one of the greatest athletes in sporting history, but likely one of its most worthy role-models.

Abortion groups immediately condemned the ad, which hasn't been released and apparently never actually mentions abortion, favoring the theme: "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." NOW described such a message as "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." Even some pro-choice advocates have been stunned by the hypocrisy and venom of their movement, leading a pro-choice WaPo column to scold that these fraudulent feminist groups "aren't actually 'pro-choice' so much as they are pro-abortion." Even the presidents of Planned Parenthood and the serpentine Catholics for Choice are alarmed by the vitriol (the pro-choice article contains useful statistics).

In case you were doubtful as to the need for moral advertisement, the WaPo also reports on the newest twist in broadcasting innovation: a "faux-reality Web-based docudrama featuring actors trying to decide whether to have an abortion." Viewers will be asked to cast votes - American Idol style - to decide whether the mothers abort. Tim Tebow, how we need thee now!

The courts have asked this question in a recent case in New Jersey.  Here's what happened:

A New Jersey judge has ruled that a gestational surrogate who gave birth to twin girls is their legal mother, even though she is not genetically related to them.

The ruling gives the woman, who carried the babies in an arrangement with her brother and his male spouse, the right to seek primary custody of the children at a trial in the spring.

This reminds me of another case from 2007:

A New York man who said he donated sperm to a female co-worker as a friendly gesture and sent presents and cards to the child over the years likely will owe child support for the college-bound teenager, according to a judge's ruling.

This is a trend. (here is another case, and here is the first one I recall seeing, a case from Sweeden in 2005).  Our friends on the Left like to say that marriage is a social construct. Yet our Courts keep putting biology (sometimes as raw genetics, and sometimes as the fact of carrying a baby to term) back in.

A further, and related point.  I have wondered before whether, given the rise of out-of-wedlock births, our courts will re-create something like common law marriage.  If they may impose obligations on, and discover rights for, people who agreed not to be considered parents, so much more would it follow logically for the law to impose obligations on parents who were a couple when the baby was conceived.

Aside from the transparent preening about "restoring scientific integrity to government decision making," there's this very interesting and revealing bit:

Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research. I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.

But after much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear. The majority of Americans - from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs - have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research. That the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight, the perils can be avoided.

That is a conclusion with which I agree. That is why I am signing this Executive Order, and why I hope Congress will act on a bi-partisan basis to provide further support for this research.

With respect to science and the ethical dilemmas we might confront, what matters most of all is what the majority thinks. And how do we discern what the majority thinks? Surely the election wasn't fought on this issue, so there's no "mandate" for this. (Is there a mandate for anything other than not being George W. Bush?) And while opinion polls might--in a way that is both too casual and too easily manipulated--take the public's temperature on an issue, I would be loathe to affirm that any matter of genuine high principle should be concluded by referring to the wishes of the majority. On this matter Barack Obama seems closer to Stephen F. Douglas than to Abraham Lincoln.

The President is right about one thing. He recognizes that he is "advancing the cause of science," which he professes to recognize might reveal to us some "inconvenient truths" (to borrow a phrase from some obscure former politico). Is "the cause of science" always consistent with our moral and religious principles? This language at least leaves open the possibility that it is not:

[P]romoting science isn't just about providing resources - it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient - especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda - and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.

The agenda of science is supposed to trump any merely political agenda, even one presumably endorsed by a "majority." But what if the "political agenda" is based upon high principles, and the "truths" we discover are inconsistent with those principles? At the moment, President Obama seems to have one sticking point--reproductive cloning. But what if a majority of people decided that that would be just fine with them? (I'm sure some clever pollster could construct a question in a way that yields a majority in favor of reproductive cloning.) And what if some scientist--those Olympians beyond all merely democratic or republican questioning--promised a cure of some awful disease, if only we let him wander beyond the currently acceptable ethical limits? How much would we give to prolong our lives or the lives of loved ones?

Will President Obama have us choose the scientific way or the majoritarian way, if the two should happen to conflict? If you take him seriously here--a great risk, I know, but it's also, as we're learning, a great risk not to take him seriously--then I'd have to say that he'd go with science. After all, what we're talking about, he says, is "the progress of all humanity," which is no small consideration. This, he implies, is even endorsed by religion. We can avoid a "false choice" between "sound science and moral values" if only we interpret the principal goals of religion in terms of "car[ing] for each other and work[ing] to ease human suffering." If the goal of religion is, as that great political scientist Francis Bacon would have it, the "relief of man's estate," then President Obama is a Baconian "Christian." But I was persuaded a long time ago by a very fine Bacon scholar (no member of the religious right, he) that Bacon was well aware of the moral ambiguity and extraordinary heterodoxy of the project he was pursuing.

One wishes that our faux thoughtful and respectful President actually did take seriously the issues he so cavalierly and magisterially addresses.

Rick Garnett has some of the same reservations I have, and Yuval Levin demonstrates how political Obama's approach is.

Dr. Leon Kass, former chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, said, "I do not think that this is the sought-for, morally unproblematic and practically useful approach we need."

Dr. Kass said the long-term risk of preimplantation genetic diagnosis was unknown and that the present technique was inefficient, requiring blastomeres from many embryos to generate each new cell line. It would be better to derive human stem cell lines from the body's mature cells, he said, a method researchers are still working on.

Wesley J. Smith is also unimpressed. What about Peter L.?

Update: Wesley J. Smith reads the article in Nature, not just the press release, and discovers, first of all, that the embryos from which the cells (yes, plural) were extracted were all in fact destroyed. So m-a-y-b-e at some time in the future (but not yet) we might be able to do what the articles suggested. A case of press boosterism, in other words. Smith also reminds us that the company (ACT) has profited from press boosterism in the past. Public opinion is trending in the direction of increasing support or stem cell research because of credulity among reporters, who rarely probe beyond the surface when claims of scientific advances of this sort are made.