David Beresford Another Country Increasingly I find myself turning first to the scientific news when I stagger out of bed in the morning, shuffle and shake through to my study and switch on my ageing computer (it feels as reluctant to boot up as my mind) to flick through the international and local newspapers on the Net. This tendency, to turn to science first, has puzzled me, particularly when I found my new-found interest competing with the most gripping storyline since Winnie arrived late to spring Nelson from prison: will the most powerful position on Earth be handed over to the Texas Poisoner? I have never had much interest in science. The closest I came was my old obsession with electronic gadgets, but the incomprehensible language and increasing complexity of instruction manuals have doused that passion in the rising waters of techno-babble. Self-interest has, however, encouraged me to keep an eye on such advances in the bio-sciences as cloning and the isolation of stem cells ubiquitous cells theoretically capable of being manipulated into growing to be any desired part of the body, including brain cells. As researchers in the field endlessly announce, these advances hold out the best hope yet of repairing the damaged brain cells believed to be responsible for the Parkinson’s that is responsible for my case of the shuffle and shakes. So it was very much as an innocent that I began to worry that there was more at stake in the promised scientific breakthroughs than a cure to Parkinson’s. If we are going to have the ability to grow spare parts, I reasoned, is that not the beginning of the road to immortality? And if we can cultivate brain cells to replace damaged cells, could we not add a few to undamaged brains in other words, redesign ourselves in the hope of enhancing ourselves? “Where will it all end,” I would excitedly demand of guests at my table who tended to change the subject with a haste that suggested their view of my case was that a brain transplant could not come too soon. The apparent lack of interest in my private alarms had to some extent quelled them. I am, if I may say so, a humble soul (why else would I cling to my naive faith in the competence of doctors, dentists and garage mechanics?). If the great scientific minds of our era (not to mention our president) are not getting excited by such possibilities, why should I trouble myself with them? So, apart from a few late-night palpitations on the occasion that I inadvertently tuned in to a television adaptation of HG Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau, I had managed to put the matter out of my mind.
Until, that is, I came across the story this week about an Australian company, Amrad, which had successfully secured a European patent for the creation of a “chimera” an animal made up of different species which would include human parts. The patent, which reportedly provides for intermarriage of cells from humans and from “mice, sheep, pigs, cattle, goats or fish” has not only been registered (last year), but has already been sold to an American company that obviously thinks the Aussies are on to a good thing where the future is concerned.
The churches and environmentalists (Greenwatch in Germany uncovered the patent) have already expressed shock and horror at the idea, leaving me with a smug feeling and looking forward to the next dinner party at which I can deliver a few choice “told-you-sos”. But then another thought began to trouble me. The Aussie move was seemingly innocent of any malevolent intent they were proceeding on the assumption, or at least the possibility, that animal embryos would in time be used as hosts for the growth of human spare parts to “cure” such as myself of the myriad ailments to which, (with apologies to the bard) the flesh is innocently, if genetically, heir. So should I, could I, join in this shock and indignation at an initiative designed not to dehumanise, but assist humanity?
It was then that another, even more disturbing news of a breakthrough in science struck me; the recent announcement that researchers have located man’s sense of humour, in a small section of the lower frontal lobe of the brain.
When I stumbled across this item in a recent Reuters dispatch from Chicago, I turned on the radio, expecting to hear martial music. Such is the magnitude of this discovery that I still cannot understand why all other human activities around the world were not suspended on the instant to allow mankind some time to absorb the news. If ever there was a characteristic that put mankind above the rest of the animal kingdom it was his and her ability to see the funny side of things. Even God’s existence, to my thinking at least, could only be assumed from the existence of a cosmic (if slightly sick) sense of humour! The implications of this Chicago breakthrough are staggering. Humanity as the stuff of the divine is surely a nonsense. If a sense of humour is physically identifiable, it is assuredly transplantable. Then there is nothing to distinguish us from the beasts of the forest that cannot be grafted on to a fish. Our duty is not to our fellow human beings but to our eco-system wherever that may lie among the cosmic onion skins. By my feet as I write snores the family dog, Blondie, a half Chow who I think of as the duchess for the air of dignity with which she carries herself. I suspect she has suffered some depression since the death by euthanasia of her mate and companion, Piet, earlier this year. I lean over and pat her. She wakes with a half yelp and glowers at me, probably in resentment at having been once again cheated at her moment of triumph, the moment her jaws were about to clamp shut on the prize of her dreams.
How nice it will be, introducing her to the Goon Show and Hancock’s Half Hour. I cannot wait for tomorrow’s news!