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I recently discovered through a google stroll that there is such a thing as an Ayn Rand Institute. I read “The Fountainhead” about 15 years ago and really liked the novel. Ayn Rand is not everyone’s cup of tea (with one dimensional characters and uncompromising extremes), but I rather liked the dramatic style and found it’s message to be powerful and refreshing - that is, refreshing in the sense that it celebrates the nobility of human achievement in a decidedly unapologetic manner. Rand, of course, developed her own philosophy, called Objectivism, which I haven’t spent a lot of time studying. But her fictional works express some clear themes about human dignity, the role of the individual within society, a mistrust of the power of government, and a sharp rebuke of socialism.
Indeed, our government’s sudden slink from the matrimonial bed of free market capitalism for a sordid tryst with socialism got me thinking about Rands’s prophetic 1957 work “Atlas Shrugged.” I began that book shortly after finishing “The Fountainhead,” but I soon flamed out in the face of its one thousand plus pages. I picked it up again recently, and am having another go at it because of the uncanny parallels between the book and what is happening today. I am through the first third of the book and it is almost stunning how several of the events depicted could have been pulled from today’s headlines. Anyway, my renewed interest in Ayn Rand led me to an internet search which led me to the Ayn Rand Institute and its Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, whose blog fancies itself “Voices for Reason.”
“Voices for Reason” is less than six weeks old. It’s off to an inauspicious start.
The day I found the ARI blog, the breaking news was President Obama’s executive order freeing up federal subsidies for new lines of embryonic stem cell research. His order also removed President Bush’s emphasis on effective alternatives to this embryonic form of stem cell research. To be clear, we are talking about using taxpayer money - Rand would describe it as money confiscated from the personal wealth of the citizenry under the rule of law backed by the force of arms - to subsidize a morally and ethically controversial area of scientific research; research that already has private sector investment, owing to the anticipation of potential earnings.
Indeed, our government’s sudden slink from the matrimonial bed of free market capitalism for a sordid tryst with socialism got me thinking about Rands’s prophetic 1957 work “Atlas Shrugged.” I began that book shortly after finishing “The Fountainhead,” but I soon flamed out in the face of its one thousand plus pages. I picked it up again recently, and am having another go at it because of the uncanny parallels between the book and what is happening today. I am through the first third of the book and it is almost stunning how several of the events depicted could have been pulled from today’s headlines. Anyway, my renewed interest in Ayn Rand led me to an internet search which led me to the Ayn Rand Institute and its Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, whose blog fancies itself “Voices for Reason.”
“Voices for Reason” is less than six weeks old. It’s off to an inauspicious start.
The day I found the ARI blog, the breaking news was President Obama’s executive order freeing up federal subsidies for new lines of embryonic stem cell research. His order also removed President Bush’s emphasis on effective alternatives to this embryonic form of stem cell research. To be clear, we are talking about using taxpayer money - Rand would describe it as money confiscated from the personal wealth of the citizenry under the rule of law backed by the force of arms - to subsidize a morally and ethically controversial area of scientific research; research that already has private sector investment, owing to the anticipation of potential earnings.
Anyone remotely familiar with Ayn Rand or her writings could assert with absolute certainty that she would have rejected the infusion of federal money. Any institute bearing her name, or any such institute’s web blog proclaiming itself “Voices for Reason” in her name, should be expected to lambaste Obama’s executive order, and with good reason in light of her life’s work. That is why I was surprised to see Keith Lockitch’s commentary supporting Obama’s order. I was even more surprised to see such weak argument under the lofty banner of “Voices for Reason.”
Let's set aside, for the moment, the overall intellectual dishonesty of his blog post, and look at the problems with his argument as such. Lockitch dutifully recites the official party line when he states, “Now just to be perfectly clear, I am not praising the use of federal tax dollars to fund scientific research. I think all research should be privately funded.” But it is the next line that damns him as a charlatan as he states, “What I’m praising is the fact that this crucial area of research will no longer be hampered by state-enforced religious dogmas.”
What would Rand have to say about that? President Bush did not ban any research, contrary to what most people believe. How is it that “crucial” research can be hampered simply because it is not subsidized by the state? If a particular research were truly crucial, the marketplace would embrace its potential and rush to invest private capital. Along with another lukewarm believer, ARI executive director Yaron Brook, they seem to belie and directly contradict the professed preference for private funding. They endorse a government handout, but only after throwing around hollow caveats about their official reluctance to do so.
And, what of the moral and ethical debate? Ethics and morality are subjects that can be addressed rationally without ever once mentioning God or religion. Unless it is Lockitch’s contention that an atheist is incapable of holding moral values and ethical standards, bringing religion into this discussion is simply a red herring. In fact, if you check dictionary dot com, the lengthy result for the entry “moral,” under all the major published American dictionaries, has a single mention of the word “religious,” (definition no. 2 of the Webster’s entry) which clearly draws the distinction: “Used sometimes in distinction from religious: as, a moral rather than a religious life.” (emphasis added) The entry for “ethical” makes no religious reference at all.
At the same time, he advances that old shopworn false dichotomy that pits religion against science. Remember, it is he, the scientist, who injected religion into the discussion. Granted - in years past, religion has not always handled scientific advances gracefully. But then again, science at one time taught that the earth was flat. There has been a steady maturation of thought on both sides that enables people of faith today to discern no significant conflicts between science and their beliefs. He should concede that fact even if he is not broad-minded enough to embrace it. His rhetoric clearly demonstrates that there are still intransigent holdouts on both sides of this imaginary divide.
But regardless of whether we are talking about scientists, clergy, atheists, agnostics, or left-handed dental hygienists, no group can be excluded from crucial ethical debates. And the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights should recognize that it is up to the individual to decide which influences will inform and shape his or her ideals; be it Objectivism or "religious dogma." The state has not outlawed religious thought. Yet.
Ultimately, though, nothing on his blog post merits serious consideration, since it lacks basic integrity. I have never heard of Keith Lockitch until now, and found his bio information on the website. I don’t have practical use for the whole Theoretical Physics thing, in which field Lockitch holds a Phd., and frankly, his post doctoral work in Relativistic Astrophysics to me sounds as though it could be script writing work for the original series episodes of Star Trek. But I defer to the scientific community and acknowledge that Lockitch must be a serious academic. I can therefore only conclude that by withholding key elements of the ethical debate, he is being intellectually dishonest.
The ethical debate is real, it’s serious, and scientists themselves are struggling with its implications - including Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells. It concerns the dignity of human life, and the rights of human beings still in their embryonic form. Lockitch will not mention that, as Al Gore would put it, the debate is over in the scientific community as to when human life begins. But unlike the Gore analogy, the debate is over because of the science (updated link), not the politics. Being a member of the scientific community, Lockitch presumably understands this full well.
But, most damning of all, and most disingenuous, is that he does not mention the recent breakthrough in infused plouripotent stem cell research, which utilizes a patient’s own skin cells instead of embryonic stem cells. In contrast to embryonic stem cell science, it holds more promise, its techniques are available now, it is patient specific (overcoming the danger of immune rejection). It's cheaper, it's more practical - and it makes the entire ethical dilemma of destroying human life in its embryonic stage a moot point.
The promising plouripotent research led Dr. Thomson to say of the current controversy, “a decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote.” (I sincerely believe that he meant funny “odd” and not funny “ha-ha”) It is so promising, in fact, that apparently hundreds of research labs are switching from embryonic to plouripotent stem cells. Ayn Rand would not only have a full appreciation of this, but I can’t help thinking she would honor this outstanding human achievement in the field of science that, at the same time, preserves human dignity. It just seems so reasonable.
Let's set aside, for the moment, the overall intellectual dishonesty of his blog post, and look at the problems with his argument as such. Lockitch dutifully recites the official party line when he states, “Now just to be perfectly clear, I am not praising the use of federal tax dollars to fund scientific research. I think all research should be privately funded.” But it is the next line that damns him as a charlatan as he states, “What I’m praising is the fact that this crucial area of research will no longer be hampered by state-enforced religious dogmas.”
What would Rand have to say about that? President Bush did not ban any research, contrary to what most people believe. How is it that “crucial” research can be hampered simply because it is not subsidized by the state? If a particular research were truly crucial, the marketplace would embrace its potential and rush to invest private capital. Along with another lukewarm believer, ARI executive director Yaron Brook, they seem to belie and directly contradict the professed preference for private funding. They endorse a government handout, but only after throwing around hollow caveats about their official reluctance to do so.
And, what of the moral and ethical debate? Ethics and morality are subjects that can be addressed rationally without ever once mentioning God or religion. Unless it is Lockitch’s contention that an atheist is incapable of holding moral values and ethical standards, bringing religion into this discussion is simply a red herring. In fact, if you check dictionary dot com, the lengthy result for the entry “moral,” under all the major published American dictionaries, has a single mention of the word “religious,” (definition no. 2 of the Webster’s entry) which clearly draws the distinction: “Used sometimes in distinction from religious: as, a moral rather than a religious life.” (emphasis added) The entry for “ethical” makes no religious reference at all.
At the same time, he advances that old shopworn false dichotomy that pits religion against science. Remember, it is he, the scientist, who injected religion into the discussion. Granted - in years past, religion has not always handled scientific advances gracefully. But then again, science at one time taught that the earth was flat. There has been a steady maturation of thought on both sides that enables people of faith today to discern no significant conflicts between science and their beliefs. He should concede that fact even if he is not broad-minded enough to embrace it. His rhetoric clearly demonstrates that there are still intransigent holdouts on both sides of this imaginary divide.
But regardless of whether we are talking about scientists, clergy, atheists, agnostics, or left-handed dental hygienists, no group can be excluded from crucial ethical debates. And the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights should recognize that it is up to the individual to decide which influences will inform and shape his or her ideals; be it Objectivism or "religious dogma." The state has not outlawed religious thought. Yet.
Ultimately, though, nothing on his blog post merits serious consideration, since it lacks basic integrity. I have never heard of Keith Lockitch until now, and found his bio information on the website. I don’t have practical use for the whole Theoretical Physics thing, in which field Lockitch holds a Phd., and frankly, his post doctoral work in Relativistic Astrophysics to me sounds as though it could be script writing work for the original series episodes of Star Trek. But I defer to the scientific community and acknowledge that Lockitch must be a serious academic. I can therefore only conclude that by withholding key elements of the ethical debate, he is being intellectually dishonest.
The ethical debate is real, it’s serious, and scientists themselves are struggling with its implications - including Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells. It concerns the dignity of human life, and the rights of human beings still in their embryonic form. Lockitch will not mention that, as Al Gore would put it, the debate is over in the scientific community as to when human life begins. But unlike the Gore analogy, the debate is over because of the science (updated link), not the politics. Being a member of the scientific community, Lockitch presumably understands this full well.
But, most damning of all, and most disingenuous, is that he does not mention the recent breakthrough in infused plouripotent stem cell research, which utilizes a patient’s own skin cells instead of embryonic stem cells. In contrast to embryonic stem cell science, it holds more promise, its techniques are available now, it is patient specific (overcoming the danger of immune rejection). It's cheaper, it's more practical - and it makes the entire ethical dilemma of destroying human life in its embryonic stage a moot point.
The promising plouripotent research led Dr. Thomson to say of the current controversy, “a decade from now, this will be just a funny historical footnote.” (I sincerely believe that he meant funny “odd” and not funny “ha-ha”) It is so promising, in fact, that apparently hundreds of research labs are switching from embryonic to plouripotent stem cells. Ayn Rand would not only have a full appreciation of this, but I can’t help thinking she would honor this outstanding human achievement in the field of science that, at the same time, preserves human dignity. It just seems so reasonable.
