Solving a Global Cultural Crisis Without Moral Authority

One cannot order scientists what not to do without appealing to a higher authority than man.

“Human germline editing needs one message,” said the editors of Nature last week. “Science academies and the World Health Organization must act in unison.” There’s that word must. Like should and ought, the word implies morality. Scientists must do something. Scientists must not do other things. Says who?

The speed of technological advance, coupled with some scientists’ determination to press ahead with editing human germline cells — eggs, sperm and embryonic cells — has been sounding alarm bells for nearly five years. Editing could produce unpredictable changes that an individual’s descendants will inherit — with potentially wide-reaching societal implications. Academies, governments and ethicists have been considering how to regulate this. But the manner in which it is being done is suboptimal.

The editors must be kidding themselves. These are the very people who have pushed Darwinian evolution on the world since Darwin was still alive, who appreciated the good publicity he got from Nature magazine. The same Darwinian worldview is promoted by most science academies and the World Health Organization on whom they rely to “do something” about this crisis.

On what basis are they going to tell other scientists what they must do? Is it because human brains “appeared” by the Stuff Happens Law, and “evolved” to cooperate? Their worldview promotes non-cooperation and a universal struggle for dominance even more than it conceivably might promote cooperation.

Their worldview also believes that humans came to dominance by chance mutations. They believe that accidental events, perhaps a meteorite impact, turned tree-climbing apes into savannah hunter-gatherers who took over the world by learning how to control fire. All those things were selfish and utilitarian, not “moral” by any stretch. And now, humans are causing other “potential wide-reaching societal implications,” they believe, such as destroying the planet by anthropogenic climate change. Is that “suboptimal” too?

There are some within the evolutionary camp who believe it is inevitable that humans will meld with machines, which will eventually discard their fleshy parts and evolve into cyborgs that will reproduce around the galaxy. So why do they think they can say, “Thou shalt not edit the human germline,” when that is the very thing their worldview expects?

In their morality, the culture with the most fitness wins. Do they really think they can stop rogue regimes, like China, Iran, or North Korea, from doing whatever it takes to dominate the world? If there is any ‘good’ in Darwinism, it is that: Dominance. Power. Fitness. Survival. Stuff will happen, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Their imago dei is showing. Something deep in their hearts is crying out, saying that tampering with the human germline is dangerous (which it is). Without any appeal to a Creator God who makes the rules, these editors’ pleas are whispers in the wind.

By the way, God is doing something about it. But He gave us fair warning that things are going to go from bad to worse—a lot worse—under a tyrannical world ruler possessed by Satan, whom mankind chose over their Creator. The catastrophic collapse of human effort to control the world will display forever the weakness of Satan as well as the futility of fallen man to solve his deepest problems and meet her greatest needs. Take the way of escape while you can.

Credit: Decision Magazine cover, Dec 1966.