Amy:	Hi, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Amy Vollmer. I'm very pleased that the Institute for the Liberal Arts re-upped our Second Tuesday Science Café for another year. This will be the second and last year that they fund this project. I'm happy to say that I've filled the Fall schedule, and the Spring schedule is 1% away from being full. After today, we'll have three more presentations this semester, and, then, four more next semester.
	I try to save time by not giving long introductions for the speaker. If I were to properly introduce Scott, I would use up all of his time. Suffice it to say that he has an international reputation in the area of Developmental Biology. He's been asked to speak at places as different as the Vatican and, what, the Rotary Club? 
Scott:	Planned Parenthood.
Amy:	Planned Parenthood, right. That's the spectrum. Anyway, when I invited my colleagues to speak, Scott was one of the first people to volunteer. I'm very pleased to turn the podium over to him, so, Scott.
Scott:	Thank you, Amy. Thank you very much. I appreciate being here under the auspices of the Institute for the Liberal Arts because it's often said that a major role of Liberal Arts education is to recognize excellence in whatever form it might take. I amend this to saying that a major role of science in the Liberal Arts education is to recognize garbage, it's being the polite word for it, no matter how well it is packaged. 
	The objects that I want to do today are really quite simple. One is to understand the biological reasons why different groups of scientists claim that embryos become persons at different stages of development, and that there is no scientific consensus as to when an embryo is a person. That's the first objective. Second, I want us to understand some of the rhetoric of the public media that might predispose us to think that there is a consensus that personhood begins at fertilization. Something that is not an object, I will not tell you when personhood begins. Okay.
	Now, really, I've given this talk, as Amy mentioned, at the Vatican and at the annual meeting of Planned Parenthood. Interestingly, when I gave this lecture at the Vatican, it was November 15, which is the saint's day for Albertus Magnus, the only canonized embryologist, doctor of the church. Albertus Magnus was actually one of the people responsible for starting what we now call "Natural Science." In doing so in the 1,200's, he said that "The aim of natural science is not simply to accept the narratives of others, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature."
	What are the narratives that I'm going to ask you not to accept? What are the narratives of others that I think are not based on natural observation? Okay. Well, here we have Michael Huckabee saying, "Pro Life is scientific. Biologically, life begins at conception. That's irrefutable from a biological standpoint." Well, I think it can be refuted, and that's, actually, one of the things I hope to do. 
	Why might he and the public assume that life begins at fertilization? I want to point out that there are four things that I'll be talking, maybe, two or three of them. First, the notion that the instructions for development and heredity are all contained in the fertilized egg. We'll see that that is false. Second, that the implanted embryo is safe within the womb, and that the fetus is an autonomous entity. We'll see that is false, and that there is a consensus among scientists as to when personhood begins. I'll show that that is false, as well. We won't talk about fertilization too much as to the mechanisms.
	Okay. Error one, that the instructions for development and heredity are all in the fertilized egg. You can see a quotation here from Paul Ramsey from the 1970's, "Genetics teaches that we were, from the very beginning, what we, essentially, are in every cell and in every human attribute." StandUpGirl, very popular teen website ... This is one of a thousand that I could have put up. "Even more amazingly, intelligence and personality, the way you look and feel, were already in place in your genetic code. At the moment of conception, you were essentially and uniquely you." Okay?
	We hear this constantly. Susan Lindee and Dot Nelkin, philosopher and sociologist of science, looked at the rhetoric of DNA. They looked at the important rhetoric. They didn't look at nature, cell, proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They looked at "Red Book," "Newsweek," "Cosmopolitan," "Vogue," "Readers Digest," and asked, "How was it that DNA was being represented to the public?" What they found out was amazing. They found out that DNA has become the secular analog of soul. It is that which is your essence, that which determines your behaviors, and that from which you can be resurrected after death, a la Jurassic Park.
	Soul. DNA has become our soul. DNA has become sacred. Again, you don't have to go far. Now that I've told you this, you will be seeing it every week of your life. You go to the web. Okay? Blake, Michelangelo, new age stuff. DNA is being seen as our essence, as our soul. I must say, scientists were not innocent of this. The people who were advertising the human genome project were really saying ... Watson was saying that "We will fulfill the [inaudible 00:06:37] of command to know yourself." Walter Gilbert, no relation, called his project "The Book of Life." James Watson, "DNA, The Secret of Life." 
	DNA has become our soul both in science ... This is "Nature" magazine, one of the leading scientific journals. Here is Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Here is the hand of God. This is Adam. What's going from God's hand to Adam is chromosome 22, the hemology map of chromosome 22. This is what's going from God to Adam. Chromosomes. Intelligent design. Society of [Kansas 00:07:19]. Here is it again, Michelangelo. Out of his hand comes DNA. Okay. Okay.
	We're being ensouled by DNA. Okay. We see this constantly in the media. Here's something from the Philadelphia Enquirer. I could have shown you more things, but this one was just so funny, I had to show it. "The Worrier Warrior Gene. It determines whether you're fretful or forceful. Each has advantages." They use as an example Woody Allen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know which is more aggressive. I find Woody Allen's humor very aggressive. Anyway, it has to deal with a particular gene, which encodes an enzyme, which is involved in degrading catacholamines, neurotransmitters. 
	More recently, yeah, Fox News reports that, "Don't hold liberals responsible for their opinions. They can't help themselves. A new study has concluded that ideology is not just a social thing. It's built into the DNA borne along by a gene called DRD4." That's a dopamine receptor. "Tagged the liberal gene, DRD4 is the first specific bit of human DNA that predisposes people to certain political views," the author's study claims. Needless to say, National Examiner went a little bit whole-hog there too. 
	The Philadelphia Inquirer carried this story had, "Red or blue. It's determined by your genes." Well, you actually go to the paper. It's really not a great paper. "A logical way to start our search to look for gene variance that are already known to contribute to variations and social behaviors that are related to political ideology. One such gene is the dopamine receptor gene, D4, which regulates dopamine expression in the brain," and gives references. Here, "The 7R allele of this gene has been associated with novelty-seeking behavior, which is a tendency that is related to openness." A psychological trait that has been associated with political liberalism. Yeah. This gene makes you think that you're a liberal or a conservative, right? This is just part of this notion that DNA is your essence, DNA determines your behaviors, DNA is your soul.
	Now, some of you might have heard me speak before like at the [Haight 00:09:47] meeting, so you'll know the answer to this, but I'll ask you again, do cars have DNA? Does your automobile have DNA in it? Is your automobile's structure determined by DNA? If you said, "No," you're wrong. Mid-sized Hummer, "Same DNA. Smaller Chromosomes." This was the back page of "Newsweek" magazine. This has been vetted. This has millions of dollars going into this ad. It works. You are expected to know that "Same DNA, smaller chromosomes" means "Same essence, smaller physical body." You don't have to have taken a Bio course to know that it's the same DNA. It's the same essence. Jeep Compass, it's in the genes. Okay. Let's go one more. I could show you about 20 of these. Here's the Sportage, which is genetically modified. Yeah. What's this? Completely modified DNA. Yeah. I hope it's engineered, but not genetically engineered. Okay.
	We're being told day-in, day-out that genes are our essence. Is this true? No. Here we have some mice. These are genetically identical mice, raised in the same environment with one exception. They're mothers had different diets. One has become a fat diabetes-prone golden mouse. The other is a brown [sleek beastie 00:11:35] who is pretty healthy. Okay. This had low folate in its diet, in the maternal diet. The mother had low folic acid in her diet. The mother had high folic acid in its diet.
	Here we have Eng and Chang, the original Siamese twins. Eng was rather happy, a teetotaler. Chang was rather morose and liked his whiskey straight. They shared a liver. One kind of liked the buzz. The other did not. They were very different people. These guys had the same genome and the same environment, okay, so it isn't the genes that are calling the shots here. The genes are part of the story, but they are not the definitive story. 
	One of the things that's known now, and this is just amazing. It was be science fiction 10 years ago. Maternal care can affect your DNA. Maternal care actually changes your genome. It changes which genes are active. Genes don't determine your destiny, but gene expression certainly helps. It determines which genes are active in which places. If a mouse, rather, a rat ... If a rat has gotten maternal care during the first 10 days of its life, it's gene expression changes such that it makes the glucocorticoid receptor in its brain to down regulate the glucocorticoid response. The glucocorticoid receptor in the brain binds the stress hormones. It says to the rest of the brain, "Okay. The stress hormones are high. It's getting too high. Lower them. The stress is no longer there. Just lower it. Take it easy." 
	Without the glucocorticoid receptor in the brain, the rats stay anxious even though there's no stress on them anymore. They stay anxious. You have two groups of rats, same genome. One, high-stressed. One, low-stressed. What's causing it? Maternal care. Maternal care is actually altering the DNA. The DNA is not altering maternal care here. The DNA is being altered by maternal care. 
	In both cases that I gave, the golden mice and the rats with the difference in anxiety, it both has to do with which genes are turned on and off. Here you have methyl groups which are put-on genes. Methyl groups turn genes off. The golden mice actually have this [inaudible 00:14:23] gene on the gene ... This gene is turned off in the normal mice over here. This is low-licking and grooming and high-licking and grooming. This is the one that I want to look at. This is the control, that high-licking and grooming takes down methylation to 10% what it is in the rats that did not get licking and grooming from their mothers. There's a hormone that licking and grooming stimulates that hormone, actually de-methylates this gene. Okay?
	No. We're not determined strictly by the DNA. The DNA, actually, can be acted upon by the environment. Similarly, we have bacteria in us. As a matter of fact, nine out of every ten cells in our body is bacteria. The bacteria do something with us. They're not merely eating our food with us. They're helping us digest the food. If you have nice here, and they're raised without bacteria in their guts, you have very few capillaries. The capillaries are needed to get the food out of the gut. That's the green here. The green are the capillaries. If you add the bacteria back, you'll get your normal capillary system.
	The bacteria, especially bacteroides, is telling our cells, telling the mammalian cells, "Make a protein called angiogenin 4." If angiogenin 4 is made, the blood vessels get made in the intestines. If the bacteria are not present, that protein is made in very low amounts, and you don't get the full capillary system. The bacteria are needed for our development. Same in the immune system. This over here is the normal gut-associated immune system. These are activated lymphocytes over here. If you don't have the bacteria, you don't get this. You add the bacteria back, you do.
	The new syllabus says that we are not determined to be essentially who or what we are at fertilization. Many of our fundamental bodily and behavioral characters are determined by the environment, not by genes. This notion of the DNA being our soul is wrong. Okay. 
	I'm going to go to error two, which is that the implanted embryo is safe within the womb, and that it's an autonomous self. You have here Ward Kischer saying, "From the first moment of conception, human development is a fait accompli under conditions which we have come to understand and, then, embrace as normal." His emphasis. In other words, when fertilization occurs, it's going to be a baby. No. Less than 1/3 of conceptions come to term in humans. Less than one out of three sperm-meets-egg stories actually comes to term. We are not very good as mammals to bring forth babies from conceptions. The default state, if you will, of conception is actually abortion. Most embryos do not make it.
	What Sandel says over here, "If the embryo lost that accompanies natural pro-creation with a moral equivalent of infant death ..." In other words, if you equate the embryos with an infant, "Then pregnancy would have to be regarded as a public health crisis of epidemic proportions. Alleviating natural embryo loss would be a more urgent moral cause than abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell research combined."
	We're putting into the environment all sorts of things which are bringing this number down. Bisphenol A. You've heard all the debates about bisphenol A. You have mice with bisphenol A in a cage. This is less bisphenol A than the government says in harmful by an order of magnitude. The chromosomes split up during the formation of the egg 40% of the time. Yeah. The fetus is not safe. It's not a [inaudible 00:18:42] once fertilization occurs that you're going to get pregnant or even get a baby. 
	What we've seen, what we're being told day-in and day-out, the rhetoric of this, is that once fertilization occurs, you get pregnant, you have a baby. The whole word, "impregnation," is about that. If you look at pictures of human fetuses on the web, or in your mail, or in the doctor's office what you see is an autonomous fetus. You see a fetus like this. "Newsweek," "Should a fetus have rights? How science is changing the debate." Here's your fetus. This does not exist in the real world. There's no mother. There's no uterus. There's no umbilical cord. It could be how Photoshop is changing the debate.
	This does not exist, but this is what we are shown constantly, the fetus having its own propulsion and its own control system over here. This is from Leonard Nilsson in '65. This is from NASA, '61. The notion of this embryo is, by itself, alone in space. Here's just from a website from Standupgirl, all these isolated embryos. They also got the dates wrong. These are much older than they say. Also, they can't say whether it's a boy or a girl. This actually doesn't look like a girl. They're identifying with the audience that they want. Again, Standupgirl poses as a cool teen website. It actually is sponsored by the Oregon Right To Life Society.
	We've all seen the Leonard Nilsson pictures. I could talk about Leonard Nilsson for another 45 minutes. Leonard Nilsson's pictures have been incredibly influential in how we see the embryo. "Life" magazine, of course, had two big issues of Leonard Nilsson photographs. One of them was written by nobody. There was no author tagline to it. It's completely objective. "Here are the pictures." Leonard Nilsson's pictures in "Life" magazine and Leonard Nilsson's pictures in his book, "A Child Is Born," are different pictures. First of all, they're from [abortasists 00:21:20]. That's not mentioned either, that these are not pictures of actual embryos inside the mother. These are abortions that have been injected to make them look plump and orange.
	What Leonard Nilsson has in his book is, in "Life" magazine the goal of the story, the end of the story, was, this fetus here was a child about to be born. That was not the end of the Nilsson's bok. Nilsson's book begins with courtship, and it ends with the baby being introduced to the parent's friends. It's the development of community. Everywhere in Nilsson's book, this is the finished version of the book, there's been "yets." Here's the baby in utero, but here's the baby in society. You can see, it's dark outside. The mother is struggling to get out of bed with her other child while the husband sleeps. The embryo in Nilsson's books are always part of society. In "Life" magazine, they were autonomous fetuses. We are just being told over and over again, the fetus is autonomous.
	I'll make a syllogism here, the fetus is autonomous. Just showed that. DNA is soul. I just showed that we're being told that day-in, day-out. Given. We receive our DNA at fertilization, therefore, fertilization becomes ensoulment. That's when we get our DNA. That's where we get our selfhood from. This is all, as I said, wrong. The fetus is not autonomous. DNA is not our soul. Yes, we do receive our DNA at fertilization. Okay.
	The last thing I want to talk about is the notion that there's a consensus among scientists as to when personhood begin. Again, from the American Bioethics Advisory Commission, "Every human embryologist worldwide states that the life of a new individual being begins at fertilization." Well, that's easy to disprove, actually. Okay. There are scientists who claim that it does begin at fertilization. There are scientists who say that life begins at gastrulation. I'll talk about that and define that in a moment. There are other scientists who say that human personhood begins when you have an EEG, when you get your brainwaves, and other scientists who say it's at birth or when the baby can survive outside the uterus. 
	Position one, which we've gone over a bit before, is that personhood begins at fertilization. It's the genetic view as to when you become a person. You get a genome. You get a genome, and you get the conditions that can generate a baby. Okay. Fertilization. When "Human Life Review" asked Jerome Lajeune, one of the most famous pediatricians in the world, "At what point does individuation take place?", Lajeune answered, "Oh, that takes place at fecundation, at fertilization, at conception, because it just tells us that the constitution of this person is unique to this person." Okay? That's where he says fertilization takes place.
	Other people will say that it takes place at gastrulation. Now, gastrulation is not something that most people talk about at their dinner tables. Gastrulation, which used to be called "individuation," is when you become one embryo because, beforehand ... This is over here. When the fertilized egg divides, it forms this structure here. The outer cells of this structure, the outer cells, become the placenta. They do not become the embryo. The early embryo actually gets divided very quickly into those cells which are not going to be embryo, the placental cells. This small groups of cells here, those are the embryonic stem cells. That's what everybody's debating about, these cells over here. Okay? 
	Now, they divide, these embryonic stem cells divide, and they give rise to a gastrula. As my friend and rival, Louis Wolpert says, "It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life." He's absolutely true, absolutely right. Gastrulation is when the cells interact with each other. They tell the cells, "You can only become a belly cell. You can only become a brain cell. You are going to be a heart cell. You are going to be an intestinal cell." It's when the cells get their marching orders. It's when the cells get specified as to what they are going to become. Before that, when they're still embryonic stem cells, they can become twins. You can divide that embryo, so that the same fertilization event give rise to two embryos, or you could get identical triplets, but after gastrulation, you can only have one individual. This is why it was called "individuation." Okay?
	Gastrulation, the cells interact such that you can no longer form twins. Renfree, biologist, 1982, "Assuming that monozygotic twins, identical twins, have separate souls ..." Good assumption. "It follows that ensoulment must occur after cleavage, at least 12 days after conception because before that you can get twins from the same DNA. Bioethicist, Green, "Twinning and fusion events suggest that even well after the formation of the zygote, biological individuality is not firmly established. Only at gastrulation can we say that the lengthy process of individuation is complete." Many embryologists say, "Well, if there's such a thing as ensoulment, if there's such a thing about becoming an individual, it's not at fertilization. You can get many individuals from that fertilized egg, but, gastrulation is when you become a real individual." That's position two. 
	Position three. Personhood begins when the fetus gets its EEG, it's electroencephalogram. You have, at about week 28, the EEG pattern forming. In other words, before then, the embryo is flat lining. Now you get the human specific electroencephalogram. At about week 28, it means the brain is starting to form. The brain is approaching awareness, if you will. If we are willing to say that death is the loss of the EEG, flat lining, what these people, especially Marowitz and Trefel, are saying is that, how about having the acquisition of the EEG pattern equivalent to when you are a person?
	There's a certain symmetry here that just as embryos and corpses are humans, but not persons ... So, neither is counted in the census. A pregnant woman is not counted twice. Corpses are not counted, except in Chicago. Neither can inherit. Fetus can't inherit. Corpses can't inherit. Neither is given moral agency. Okay? They have to be treated with respect because of their human condition. One doesn't eat a corpse. One doesn't have to. There's something special about them, but they are not considered persons. They see this, the EEG pattern, as being a good milestone to do this. Okay.
	Position four. Personhood begins around the time of death. That certainly legal personhood, the time of one's identity. Jeffrey Baker, and embryologist, says that "Birth is not merely a move from one room to another, but a passage through a perilous discontinuity between fetal and newborn life." At birth many things happen. The lungs have to be able to function for the first time, and they have to be able to function immediately. Kidney also has to function for the first time, but it can wait. Okay. The first breath changes the anatomy of the heart. The actual heart anatomy is altered by the first breath, by the change in oxygen pressure. It actually changes its anatomy. The circulatory pathways to the lungs are opened up now for the first time. No functional lung, an embryonic or infantile life, but, now, all of a sudden, the circulation has to be open. The lungs have to work, and the heart has to pump the blood into the lungs for the first time. Of course, the head has to get through the birth canal. Changes in anatomy, important life, critical changes, happen at birth. 
	Firth position that embryologists have is that, this is a stupid question. Ensoulment can't be measured, and "The wish," like Dobzhansky said, "Felt by many people to pinpoint such a stage ..." where on one side it's human, on the other side, it's not. On one side it's a person. On the other side it's not, "Stems from the belief that a soul conceived as a preternatural entity descends upon formerly soulless living stuff and, suddenly, transforms that latter into human estate. I hope that modern theologians ..." This is '76. "Can accept the idea that transformation is not sudden, but gradual." Okay, that's there a gradual ... You become human.
	Well, what's interesting is that this goes back to Thomas Aquinas with his ideas of a vegetative soul, an animal soul, and a rational soul. A vegetal soul is very much like the stem cells which are pluripotent like plants and can replicate. Animal soul, that's gastrulation. All animals gastrulate. Nothing that is not an animal gastrulates. It's the [sidiqua 00:31:48] known of being an animal is to gastrulate. Rational soul, well, our ability to learn and interact is usually associated with the EEG pattern, so that would be week 24, actually, to 28. Then, there's the actual birth. You can actually say that this notion of the [inaudible 00:32:13], the gradual acquisition of humanness is something that was stated a long, long time ago, like in the 1,300's. 
	There is no consensus among scientists as to when human personhood begins. There are some people who say it's at fertilization with the genotype. There are other people who say it's at gastrulation when you can no longer form twins, or triplets, or quadruplets. Some people say it's when you get your electroencephalogram, which would house the rational soul, which houses rationality. Some people would say it's the perinatal period, the ability to breath, the ability to be independent from the mother. Some people would say it's gradual. It's none of these things specifically, but it's a gradual accumulation of them.
	Okay. Just some theological reflections on this. Again, going back to Albertus Magnus, very interesting. He says that, "In the unformed infant ...", which is by his definition probably before Day 40, "There is no living soul and is not covered by the laws of homicide." Okay, which is kind of an interesting position for the Catholic Church to take in the 1,200's. 
	Also, this over here, to associate the early embryo with a person, you have to remember the equation works both ways. Does it elevate the embryo to the status of person, or does it degrade the person to the status of cells that you can manipulate and culture, going from a "who" to a "what." William Holbrook put forth this question, is, "If you were to enter a burning clinic, and you saw a nurse lying on the floor, and you saw a canister that says on it, '1,000 embryos,' who or what do you take out of the burning clinic?" That becomes your answer. Okay?
	What I want to say now is just that we are constantly exposed to media images, and that these media images suggest that DNA is the equivalent to soul, that fertilization is ensoulment, and that the fetus is autonomous. None of these are scientifically valid. I also wanted to say that there are at least five places where different groups of scientists who claims personhood begins. There is no consensus that personhood begins at fertilization or anywhere else. 
	I have to end with quotation from Wittgenstein, "A picture held us captive, and we cannot get outside it for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably." We're being told this again, and again, and again, and again. Should you be interested, there are some readings that ... This is the Nelkin/Lindee, a book, which is a wonderful book. Rebecca [House 00:35:19] Michelle was an honor student and Soc/Anth who worked with me on illustrations of autonomous fetuses. This is the paper which I gave first at the Vatican and, then, at the annual meeting of Planned Parenthood. 
	Thank you very much.