Time for rational systematics rather than demagogic self-serving in the atheism-religion discourse?

This is a theme I have been thinking about a lot during the last few years, and I have been sketching on a blog piece without yet having come to a publishable result. However, my Australian colleague Russell Blackford has, so awaiting my results, please check out what he writes, as well as the comments!

War - Why Not? That's Why!

The film showing how an US military helicopter without any prior warning guns down a number of journalists, other civilians, eventual rescuers and - perhaps - some armed individuals in Iraq in 2007 has been waltzing around the world's news-desks this day. We can hear the heli-crew's jovial chatting over the radio as they identify the carrying of bags, cameras and phones as the equivalent of being "armed" and jolly reactions to the result of their own response to this observation: "Right through the windshield!" the gunner exclaims happily as he has just massacred some people coming to rescue in a car. Here is the video (from the NBC news website, since the youtube posting has been blocked unless you log in):

 

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The reactions I have seen in commentaries are all about outrage, horror and amazement. I, for my part, is not at all surprised at what the video shows, but actually by this reaction. I've touched on this subject before in relation to the Swedish public reaction to the fact that Swedish soldiers are in fact being killed in Afghanistan. But this time, then, it is about the killing being done by soldiers in a war. Why, I ask, be surprised or amazed?

Not that I believe the US armed forces to be particularly sinister or evil - not at all. The behavior of the crew is what we should expect of any military unit in a similar situation. This is what war is about. This is what soldiers are for. Making war and engaging the military is when we lay to a side all normal hesitations and restrictions in the pursuit of our political goals. In a soldier's logic there is only the objective: balancing benefits and burdens, cost-benefit analyses, weighing of ends and means - all that is for the jujumen higher up to do before they choose to send the soldiers to war. For a soldier, to speak in technical terms, there is no such thing as efficiency, there is only efficacy (although the end pursued may not seem valuable to others when considering the costs). If the objective is to engage and exterminate "enemy combatants", this is what the soldier does, accepting that there will be masses of "collateral damage". This is what we spend all those tax money in the defense budget on: to teach our soldiers that lesson; to make them able to execute its practical implications on the battlefield.


This is also why war so seldom (if anytime) solve any problems, although military objectives may be accomplished. For, as Iraq so saliently illustrates, all that collateral damage inevitably invites new aggression as well as social chaos. Unless, of course, the war ends in the way that colonel Kurtz in Coppola's Apocalypse Now realised that it has to end if there is to be an end: "We have to exterminate them! Village after village, pig after pig, cow after cow" - "Drop the bomb, destroy them all!", as the final scribble in Kurtz's journal reads, echoing his namesake's "Exterminate all the brutes!". Not that this has to mean actual physical slaughter of every single human being, but the people, the nation, the culture, the group - the very institution that is attacked - has to be finally broken into total defeat and to accomplish that (as the WW2 defeat of Germany showed) takes a lot of killing - a lot. Wars with such objectives can indeed be won! But if we want a war with moderation, with human restraint, with moral consideration - forget it! This is why Apocalypse Now is the greatest anti-war movie ever made. This is why the very idea of a just war - while logically conceivable - is a practical misnomer, unless you accept the military logic that achievement of the objective - whatever it is - is worth just about any cost.


Admittedly, in very rare, extreme circumstances, even a winnable war may seem worth it to a decent person. In that case, we may accept that we have to lay off our normal cloak of decency and restraint in order to prevent the worst. This is why politicians keen of attaining a legacy as leaders in times of war and conflict always do their best to create the public image of such circumstances being the actual situation before taking action. Knowing or sensing that people, even under the influence of such manipulation, are normally quite unwilling to have masses of uncontrollable violence and destruction unleashed, our leaders most often also convey messages about the war being undertaken in a controlled, moderated, restrained and considerate manner. Also this is a part of the idea of the just war and when preaching this doctrine they lie. Of course, they lie. This is why the US army tried to cover up the event shown in the 2007 film: it exposes their and their leaders lies.


But back to the Iraq-footage from 2007. My simple point is: you went to war, what the heck did you expect? If you go to war, it is perfectly normal to have people gun each other down for no better reason than that they assemble in a group, wear certain clothes or carry cameras, phones or handbags. For all those things might be what that soldier in the film reports over the radio: firearms, bombs, grenades, scouts, infiltrators, you name it! He did his job, he assumed the worst and acted accordingly. If you still feel that there is some wrong that has been committed here, you need to look further; to the original decision to make war in the first place.

Myriads of Indecency: Ruling Against Patenting Cancer Genes Makes Scientific, Legal and Ethical Sense

Addendum 2014-04-25: I have updated some of the links and an image below, since Myriad has now updated its site. Still the same moonshine, just a slightly polished bottle.

The decision of a US federal judge to rule against the patenting of the BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes this Monday came as a pleasant surprise after a period of several years when the ability to patent human genome segments within the US legal context has been taken for granted. The ruling - a result of the efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union in conjunction with the Association for Molecular Pathology, individual women and others - was, of course, not welcomed by the commercial company Myriad Genetics, which during the period when it thought it had its patent rights secured has been pestering genetic health service providers in the US and around the world with their absurd claims (by implied threats of massive compensation suits) to world monopoly on predictive genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer, alternatively the cashing in of handsome licensing fees.

Just a quick browsing of the Myriad Genetics website tells you that this company embodies just about everything bioethics researchers have been warning for in connection to the commercialisation of genetic testing since the late 1980's. The University of Utah Research Foundation that held the claimed patent together with Myriad - and that may be assumed to have been cashing in handsomely as a passive partner - should be held equally, if not more, accountable for this attempt to undercut sound business law, decent health care ethical standards, scientific progress and, not least, the health of those people belonging to families burdened by hereditary cancer, whose access to the preventive opportunities offered through genetic testing, and forthcoming advances of medical research, has been undercut. But back to the poverty of Myriad Genetics.

To take just one example of this moral morass, Myriad offers predictive genetic testing for hereditary melanoma - a disease for which the actual risk figure is never given at the Myriad website. Clicking this product, you are immediately told that "Changes in the p16 gene increase cancer risk, making a melanoma diagnosis up to 50 times more likely by age 50", which of course tells you absolutely nothing about what risk of melanoma you actually run before the age of 50 if you have the indicated genetic mutation, but for most people convey the impression that a mutation makes your risk of contracting melanoma before 50 an even game. Clicking further on to the page supposed to give you an in-depth background to hereditary melanoma, you're exposed to the following explanation. Take a minute or so to read it!

Having that horrible mutation must make for a helluva risk, doesn't it? Actually: no! Even considering that the people involved in Myriad are presumably not proper clinical doctors (if they were, AMA would have revoked their licenses by now, right? - I'm being charitable to the US medical profession here), but a bunch of lab rats and business executives, this is as close to actual fraud you can get without actually committing it in the strict legal sense. Remember that nice graph you just saw? Its Y-axis measures not the actual risk of contracting melanoma, but - again! - the change in risk compared to what risk of contracting melanoma you would run were you a random member of the general population. But the impression of the picture is not that - the impression is - once again - that if you carry the mutation you run a 50/50 risk. This message is cleverly conveyed by the sinister manner in which the general population risk figure is illustrated in the graph. That blue staple to the left of the tall purple one seems to reach up to the 1 of the Y-axis, right? It's 1% - right? Or something close to 1%? Actually, no! Have a closer look at the graph:

It is "< 1%" = "less than one percent", i.e.the risk is not given. It could be 0.99%, it could be 0.0000000000000000000001% For all we know based on the information provided, the 50% increased risk may thus equal a 0.0000000000000000000002% risk. Who knows? Obviously not Myriad Genetics - or can they really be consciously hiding highly relevant facts from potential customers??
Just to get some perspective, hereditary melanoma is what geneticists refer to as a multi-factorial disease, i.e. it occurs as a result of the interaction between several genetic mutations and the environment. The p16 test offered by Myriad targets just one among many different genes where a mutation may increase the risk for melanoma. This should be conveyed by the explanatory leaflets downloadable from here, but is not explicitly mentioned with one word and not in the presentation of this test either. So, suppose your test negative in a "comprehensive" Melaris test, what Myriad so handsomely calls "no mutation detected" - this is compatible with you carrying any of the other known genetic mutations of other genes that increase the risk of melanoma, what Myriad refers to as the risk being "not ruled out". It would be interesting indeed to have melanoma or cancer patient organisations trying out that concept in US civil courts (in which case, the University of Utah Research Foundation must, of course, be included in the lawsuit)!

Hopefully, the ruling against patenting actual genes or naturally occurring genetic mutations will undercut the sour-tasting business of Myriad Genetics and other similar companies. For one thing, as a legal precedent, it has the potential of putting a stop to attempts of making ethically well-motivated and responsibly handled predictive genetic testing offered by national health services - for instance for colon-, breast- and ovarian cancer - unnecessary expensive and thus accessible for more people at risk. From a moral point of view, it is thus most welcome. From a legal point of view as well, since what judge Robert Sweet argues in the ruling, "...the claimed isolated DNA is not markedly different from native DNA as it exists in nature, it constitutes unpatentable subject matter" has been obvious to anyone from the outset interested in applying actual patent law, rather than laying the foundation for a new branch of business. If Myriad has a unique procedure to detect DNA, they may patent that, of course, but do they? It remains to be seen, but my guess is that they use the same state of the art science and technology as does any molecular genetic research lab, and that they knew very well that their only chance to make a buck was attempting the patenting of DNA trick.

The only defense offered by Myriad's and the UURF's lawyer was that patenting genes promotes "innovation" and therefore promotes health. False. In fact, the patent claims on BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 has made medical research based on these genes that may lead to deeper understanding of the mechanisms of these forms of cancer, and thus to newer and better treatments, slower and/or more expensive. Patents have the potential of furthering innovation only when all of the basic scientific work has been done (until then, the scientific principle of openness, free sharing, access and use of information is far superior), and in the case of human genetics, identifying genes connected to disease-groups is just the first letter of the first name of that long process. When Myriad says "innovation" they mean business and so does - shame on them - the UURF.