Soundings, October 1997

The mind/body dichotomy seems to have dominated a recent conference convened by a committee that advises the National Institutes of Health on genetic-engineering technology. Most participants favored such technology for "medical purposes" but opposed its use for "cosmetic" purposes. Typical was Doris T. Zallen of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Genetic enhancement should be allowed, she said, "only if it corrects a 'malfunction' in the body." To judge by reports, Sheila M. Rothman of Columbia University was the only participant to stand up for choice. "People are eager to use technology that they believe will improve their behavior, appearance or performance," she said. "These technologies are not being imposed on society but rather are being embraced by it." The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 1997.

Phillip E. Johnson's attacks on evolution, which have received much attention in conservative periodicals, were cogently rebutted by Martin Gardner in the November/December issue of Skeptical Inquirer. Alas, Gardner then announced he himself is also a theist, and on grounds that are far worse epistemologically than the "argument from design" Johnson has tried to concoct. "I believe," wrote Gardner, "by an emotional leap of faith, in a 'wholly other' deity, utterly inscrutable to our little finite minds. I believe there are truths as far beyond our grasp as calculus is beyond the grasp of a cat."

The following will not sound odd to Objectivists. But it is notable because it appears in Sharpe's Tiger, part of Bernard Cornwell's fabulously successful saga about a British soldier during the Napoleonic wars. "Trade is indeed worth fighting for, though the Good Lord knows we don't appreciate it much. We celebrate kings, we honor great men, we admire aristocrats, we applaud actors, we shower gold on portrait painters, and we even, sometimes, reward soldiers, but we always despise merchants. But why? It's the merchant's wealth that drives the mills, Sharpe; it moves the looms, it keeps the hammers falling, it fills the fleets, it makes the roads, it forges the iron, it grows the wheat, it bakes the bread, and it builds the churches and the cottages and the palaces. Without God and trade we would be nothing."

"When in 1991 the government instituted a National Lottery, Britons were hooked at once. It seemed to them that buying a winning ticket was a perfectly legitimate—perhaps the only perfectly legitimate—way of acquiring a lot of money. After all, everyone who buys a ticket has an equal chance: the effort and talent usually necessary to accumulate wealth are completely redundant. A mental defective has a much chance of winning as a genius, a slothful spendthrift as an industrious saver. This is what the British now mean when they talk of equality of opportunity." "Oh, to be in England," Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal.

Who is the real African-American? Mostafa Hefny, a dark-skinned immigrant from Egypt, is suing the federal government to change his racial classification from white to black. Hefny, who is now a naturalized U.S. citizen, said that his racial classification (which was based solely on his country of origin) has kept him from seeking jobs, grants, scholarships, and loans as a member of a minority group. Moreover, he complained, when compared to Colin Powell, his hair is kinkier, his complexion darker, and his features more African. In addition, of course, Hefny was actually born on the continent of Africa, while Colin Powell is a native New Yorker.

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