Suppose You Were God!

Just suppose you were God, with the power to create life!

News from science now brings us face to face with this awesome possibility.

• Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have extracted genes from mummified muscle of a quagga.  This African animal, half zebra and half horse, was hunted to extinction 140 years ago.  The genes were cloned by injecting them into common bacteria.  The quagga copies produced give us a microscopic look at a long dead species.
• Soviet scientists - with a gene splice performed for them by U.S. technicians - have succeeded in implanting egg cells from a 10,000 year-old frozen mammoth into modern elephants.  Two living mammoths were born, complete with their wooly hide and trunks tipped with two fleshy fingers. (see note below)
• The Environmental Protection Agency has halted, perhaps only temporarily, the planned spraying in Idaho of a newly created bacteria which prevents freezing of potato plants.  The gene-spliced organisms also should be useful in protecting Florida oranges and California walnuts.

But what if this fooling around with Mother Nature gets out of hand?  Could an ancient virus harbored by a quagga infect the world's horses?  Might an anti-cancer gene start an epidemic?  Is there a chance that manufactured bacteria preventing plant freeze also destroys wheat?  What mischief would occur if another Hitler learns how to tailor-make human babies?  Against the horror scenarios we must balance probable benefits - cancer-killing vaccines, a cure for the common cold, abundant protein for a hungry world, microbes that eat poison wastes.

To help get a handle on this dilemma, let us play for a moment at being God.

We start with the knowledge that every cell of every living thing contains the genetic building blocks to reconstruct the whole organism.  Only one cell, living or perfectly preserved, can furnish the blueprint.

Now, imagine that a scientist has discovered a trillion-dollar process to clone a human being.  The cost is prohibitive for any one country.  The United Nations, therefore, gathers contributions worldwide to reproduce a human being from a cell-pattern selected by the General Assembly.

As a UN delegate, whom would you recommend for cloning?  President Reagan?  Bo Derek?  Pope John-Paul?  Mean Joe Greene?  If no living person appeals, don't forget you may reproduce a historical character for whom you have a speck of bone, blood, hair or mummified flesh.

In this category we have such candidates as Jesus who may have been wrapped in the bloodstained Shroud of Turin.  Or Einstein whose brain floats in a jar of formaldehyde at Princeton University.  Or Shakespeare whose body lies mouldering in a well-marked grave.

Communist nations campaign for Karl Marx or Lenin.  Asians demand Buddha.  Music lovers plead for Beethoven.  Moslems want the hair from the beard of Muhammad turned into a replica of their prophet.

Whom would you vote for?  What qualities of character, personality and ability would you try to recreate?

An interesting book titled "The 100" by Michael H. Hart has a go at the problem by ranking the most influential persons in history.  The first dozen on Hart's list are Muhammad, Isaac Newton, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Confucius, St.  Paul, Ts'ai Lun (the inventor of paper), Johann Gutenberg, Christopher Columbus, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and Louis Pasteur.  God, of course, has other criteria than influence to guide the decision of bestowing life.  My criterion is whether I would want the person I created living in my guest room.

On this basis, which is not as facetious as it seems, I find it difficult to choose from the giants of scientific thought: Aristotle, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Johannes Kepler, Max Planck and Albert Einstein.

Not having access to any mortal trace of Aristotle, I finally choose Galileo.

In my opinion, the pursuit of basic knowledge - the explanation of nature's mysteries - is the greatest achievement of mankind.

Each of my candidates drew liberally upon the insight of his predecessors.  Thus, Einstein made the most valuable contribution to our present lives.

Galileo, however, demonstrated a quality not required of the rest - courage to pursue truth in the face of persecution.  He discovered, and comprehended, the basic theorems of physics.  He proved what Aristotle and Copernicus had only suspected - that the earth moved.

It was a revolution in knowledge that overturned all previous beliefs regarding science and religion.  Galileo continued his controversial experiments even while confined for them.  When forced to publicly recant his proofs under threat of death, Galileo whispered, "The earth still moves."

This combination of curiosity, insight and courage is in short supply today.

The ancient writers of the Old Testament foresaw the dangers of playing God, but also the duty to forge ahead to wisdom.

Having tasted of the Tree of Knowledge in the center of the Garden of Eden, we are commanded to labor for more understanding until we become as God.

With God-like opportunity, which wise and useful life would you resurrect?

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