Nature vs nurture, pig kidney transplant, your support matters
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December 19, 2024
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Introducing Bioethics Chats! In this new series, Vardit Ravitsky chats informally with a Hastings Center Fellow about a timely topic.
The inaugural chat features Arthur Derse, who started the MCW-Bioethics listserv, a virtual town square for bioethicists, which turned 30 this year. Art and Vardit talk about how he came to start it, how it has evolved, his advice to young bioethicists, and more. Read the chat and watch a clip.
Is Human Agency Endangered by Genetic Determinism? Erik Parens explores Eric Turkheimer's new book on the nature-nurture debate.
In Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate, behavioral geneticist Eric Turkheimer defends “the reality of subjective experience in general, and human agency in particular, against what he worries could become a flood of genetic determinism,” writes Hastings Center senior research scholar Erik Parens. Although Parens shares the commitment to defend those fundamental ideas, he suggests where Turkheimer’s defense “is leaky” and gestures at what he thinks is a more straightforward way of resisting the implications that worry Turkheimer most. Read the essay.
Pig Kidney Transplant Gives Grandmother Hope for Life Without Dialysis Safety and efficacy questions remain, says Karen Maschke on NPR.
This week, a 53-year-old grandmother became the latest, and youngest, person to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant. While she is recovering faster than expected, it’s hard to assess the success of such transplants until they are performed with more uniform conditions, said Hastings Center senior research scholar Karen Maschke in an interview with NPR."It's difficult to draw conclusions about safety and efficacy from xenotransplants with patients who have different medical profiles," she said." It's also difficult to draw safety and efficacy conclusions when pigs with different gene edits are used." Read the interview.
[Photo: Joe Carrotta, NYU Langone]
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Cloning to Replace a Lost Child? Take Vengeance? Josephine Johnston recounts the 100-year-old debate over cloning and its ethical dilemmas.
Over the years, imaginations have run wild with the possibilities of cloning human beings for therapeutic purposes. Hastings Center senior research scholar Josephine Johnston discusses several examples and the ethical dilemmas they pose in an essay in Issues in Science and Technology. Among the examples is a new short story in which high-paying guests of a wellness retreat seek catharsis by hunting down clones of their enemies. Read the essay.
[Illustration: Rey Velasquez Sacgal]
Calling for a Deeper Understanding of Trust in Science and Health Care Mildred Solomon speaks at a Broad Institute conference.
This week, Hastings Center President Emerita Mildred Solomon participated in a panel discussion on trust in health care at a conference of the Broad Institute in Boston. “Trust in health care has traditionally been studied as an attitude that patients have or don’t have toward their physicians,” Solomon said. “But trust is not just an instrumental good predictive of patient adherence. It’s a much deeper social good with its own intrinsic value – something essential for a flourishing society.” Then, referring to a2023 Hastings Center special report, she called for more attention to studying trustworthiness – the attributes of health care professionals, scientists and the organizations where they work that make them deserving of trust. “We need a new transdisciplinary evidence-based field of inquiry that systematically studies both the erosion of trust and how best to rebuild it.”
Read the special report, “Time to Rebuild: Essays on Trust in Health Care and Science,”
The Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence in Research: Challenges and Emerging Guidance. Panel discussion with Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky. March 5, 2025.
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