A Python by the Tail

October 17, 2007

In June of this year, reptile expert Brady Barr, his partner for the job, and a film crew were in an Indonesian cave, where they found a Giant Python. They were in waist-deep muddy liquid when Barr’s partner, Dr. Mark Auliya, caught the python by the tail. Barr turned to the camera to comment on the other man “having a tiger by the tail.” The story is instructive, and available on the National Geographic Channel. (Also available at the Baltimore Sun and USA Today)

This past summer another event of interest occurred–this one in Chicago. Danielle Egan in “Death Special: The Plan for Eternal Life,” describes the opening session of the World Transhumanist Association’s ninth annual meeting. This is another area where people are, at least seemingly, in charge, and perhaps even have a metaphorical python by the tail. In the words of Egan,

transhumanists plan to bypass death by using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), genetic engineering and nanotechnology to radically accelerate human evolution, eventually merging people with machines to make us immortal.

The “less egalitarian side” of this movement is personified by octogenarian Marvin Minsky, who founded the AI lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to Egan’s article,

“Ordinary citizens wouldn’t know what to do with eternal life,” says Minsky. “The masses don’t have any clear-cut goals or purpose.” Only scientists, who work on problems that might take decades to solve appreciate the need for extended lifespans, he argues.
He is also staunchly against regulating the development of new technologies. “Scientists shouldn’t have ethical responsibility for their inventions, they should be able to do what they want,” he says. “You shouldn’t ask them to have the same values as other people.”

This warrants exploration. If scientists can do anything they want, and do not need to have values similar to other people, what would it be that they cannot do? Should they, with impunity, be allowed to create whatever kind of life in the lab they are capable of creating? Should they be allowed, in the name of science and without regard to viruses or other infectious agents which may cross species lines, to create animal-human hybrids in efforts to understand or treat disease? Should they be allowed to make a new bacterium, the effects of which are unknown? Should society provide unlimited funding in the hope of unlimited (and sometimes unfounded) cures promised?

The outcome of the first “python by the tail” story was dramatic. Although his partner in science had the python by the tail, it was Barr who was bitten by the snake, and in waist-deep guano, at that. Thankfully, he recovered from that incident without significant complication, but of course, not without scars. The second story, where scientists may desire to have the python–science–by the tail, is less clear in its outcome. First, it is a work in process; outcomes are difficult to judge. Secondly, not all scientists are represented by Marvin Minsky. But they do not have to be. It takes only one to hold a tail, typically. And it is not necessarily the one holding the python by the tail who feels the greatest effect. The tail is not the business end of the snake. It is the one at the mouth end of the python or science that is most affected, be that Brady Barr or society at large. We all have a stake in the pursuit of science. It is on our own heads if we do not recognize this and act accordingly.