Brave New Monkey by Creating the First Genetically Altered Primate, Scientists Take One Step Closer to Allomng Parents to Custom-Order Their Child's Genetic Traits

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Brave New Monkey By creating the first genetically altered primate, scientists take one step closer to allomng parents to custom-order their child's genetic traits

By SHARON BEGLEY Until A.NDi, genetic engi E'S A FRISKY LITTLE FEL neering had meant slipping a low, S\\inging from a ring bit ofhealthy DNA into cells of ".~_ in his doll-size white T shirt a patientwho is sufferingfrom a ~ \\ith the black belt, clam genetic disease such as cystic fi- ~.~~_ bering over and through an brosis. A:.~Di breaks that mold, __=~ elaborate cat-scratching post, bringing us a step closer to tinker- ~~~ sucking his thumb and duck ing "ith an indi\idual's genetic en- ~Z'~ ing for cover when playmates Sandy and dowment before birth, and "ith the ge- -: Sammy ambush him. To all appearances, netic legacy of generations unborn. The A....l"''Di (we'll explain soon) is an ordinary Oregon scientists don't know whether rhesus monkey. But appearances deceive. ANDi's sperm contains the green gene, Born by cesarean section last October, and they won't know for four years, ..L...... Di is the first genetically altered primate PLAY TIM E: ASDi looks and acts nonnal, when the little guy reaches sexual ma ever created. If he were human, he'd be romping with other test-tube toddlers turity. But if A..'\'Di's sperm does called a designer baby. And that makes him carry the green gene, he "ill pass the embodiment of the greatest hopes as set of twins miscarried. One embryo failed it on to all his offspring. And well as the worst nightmares here at the to implant. Three monkeys were born. then the first genetically dawn of the age of genetics: that desirable Sandy and Sammy show no sign of the altered primate will genes "ill be inserted into human eggs, green gene. But ..L...... TIi does. Hence his claim another ti producing "genetically enhanced" children. name: short for "inserted D~A," backward. tle: father to a Although that was not the purpose of the The next step is to give rhesus monkeys geneticallyal research that produced A:.'\i'Di, the little guy human genes that play a role in Alzhei teredrace. ",ith the soulful eyes is a landmark proof of mer's disease, cancer, hereditary blind concept. "At some point in the future," ad ness, schizophrenia, Parkinson's or other mits Anthony Chan ofthe Oregon Regional scourges. A primate version of such a dis Primate Research Center, who performed ease, scientists believe, should lead more the manipulations that created A._1\"'Di, "it is quickly to vaccines or treatments than the conceivable that others may attempt this mouse models that currently exist. In addi technique to enhance humans." tion, genetically altered monkeys can:ing a The researchers say they had no such gene "for" Alzheimer's or prostate cancer, goal in creating A...... TIi. Instead, they hope say, might show whether the suspect gene to create primate models of human dis always causes the disease, or whether emi eases, and they had to start simply. They ronmental factors like diet or acti\ity can first retrieved a well-studied. gene, called cheat genetic destiny. the green fluorescent protein gene, from The researchers chose the green gene be jellyfish. Ttue to its name, the gene makes a cause its presence is so easy to detect, not be protein that, in blue light, glows green. cause they wanted glow-in-the-dark mon They then put copies ofthe gene into virus keys. In fact, AJ...... TIi looks nothing like a hairy es, since (as anyone with the flu knows) green Lava lamp; the gene, although present ,iruses are adept at penetrating cells. Each in every tissue the Oregon scientists tested, \irus dutifully carried. the green gene into seems to be dormant. That's acrually a red 224 rhesus-monkey eggs, where it slipped flag. Since A.:...... TIi shows no sign of the trait into the monkey genes like a foreign spy that was supposedly engineered into him, hiding in a crowd. The eggs were then fer \iruses-which insert the foreign gene ran tilized through microinjection ofsperm. Af domly-may not be the way to produce genet ter 126 ofthe fertilized eggs grew and di\id ically altered animals. For genetic enhance ed beyond the four-cell stage, Chan selected ment, and perhaps even for making a monkey what looked like the 40 best embryos and model ofa human disease. you have to get the transferred them into 20 surrogate-mother gene to the spot in the chromosomes where it monkeys. Five pregnancies resulted. One will be properlycontrolled.

~EWSWEEK 50 JANUARY 22, 2001 COURT!:SY 0AfG0N I"tEAl~ SCJelCl::S l!NlvtRS,"" :LE~Tl OFlE.GON "'EA<. TH SCIE-!'otCES U"ftVERSiTY-SC,ENCE ~AGt.l1"'f Although Oregon's Gerald Schatten is em phatic that ~we don't support the extrapola tion of this work to people for genetic en RHESUS PIECE: hancement,~some regard that stepas an act of Out o{224 tri'?s, medical humanitarianism. Engineeringeggs A..SDi was the so thata healthy gene replaces a disease-caus only success ing one should help both the child-to-be and his or her descendants, lifting a family curse of cancer, atherosclerosis, schizophrenia or anotherdisease \\;th a stronggenetic compo nent. ~lfyou could pre\"entfuture generations from ha\;ng grave genetic diseases, it would make the life ofour species a little less terri ble.~ says bioethicist Arthur Schafer of the Uni\"ersity ofManitoba. E\"en genetic enhancement for reasons that fall short of life and death has ad\"o cates. If parents want a tall, thin, hazel eved, athletic, brain\" kid, whose business is it ofanyone else's? 'foday's well-offparents hire tutors. music teachers, pri\"ate sportS coaches and SAT ad\;sers for their chil dren, if they can afford to. "Ko one calls for banning SAT tutors in the in terest of egalitarianism. ~But genes are dif

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Present at the Creation SPE~ Until now, genetic engineering has meant getting . '. ..' . Sperm is micro~ed healthy genes into a few ofa patient's cells. ButANDi ·~'.iij3if';:;* ~~~::rcliZ~~d was created in a way that should get a f~~ gene t NTO Tft E ,-,;' i into all his cells-and his descendant8~o, The virus sheds its coat, ~e ft'SUlting e~bryo, , and the foreign gene IS transplantedwto a \ ,.. " insinuates itself, at ran- surrogate mother. 'oi: ~~:SPEClll DELIVERY ~"i''''', A~s~,.~;ng.aforeign dom. into the egg's D!\A. " ,.,,,,, ....',.'''.'-r,,', gene IS fiJeeted fito "-:", """ '.". " A"""/~' ..monkey egg. Thn;;us . ",'/ -. beads toward the egg s D~A. ~Y'" ""-=< .0' Egg

-.--/" ' ~ Microlrijection r'.;:A Sperm ~ i ~ ~-r,7,',.•~iJ,'« :',': r f.i' ...~ '~~j 1 . '-.,/ C~l.c ... ·~~. : .. ='S~:;P ... &.,,1.':; :_-.;:;::;.'::.:. 't, Virus sheds coat, releasing gene

\1; \; SCI El'iCF. & TECHNOLOGY ferent." argues bioethicist \[argaret Somenille of \lcGill L"niversity in Canada. The human genome-the collection of some 70.000 genes carried by every hu man-is ~the patrimony of theentire species. held in truSt for us byour ancestors and in truSt by us lor our descendants. It has taken millions of years to evoh"e: should we really be changing it in a gen lTation or two?" :\nd Schaler warns of new social di\isions: inaddition to hayes and ha\'e-nots, we \\ill have the gene-rich and the gene-poor. .\t infertility clinics. couples are not clamoring to choose their would-be child's traits the way they choose options on a car. :\t least not yet. ~Some request a particular gender. but no one has "'sked for a specific gene." says Dr. Paul Gindotf of the George Washington l:niYersity in \itro lertilization clinic in Washing ton, D.C. ~The traits that couples might care about-eye color. hair color. height, intelligence and per sonality-don't come from a single gene anyway. but from a complex combination. We are orders of mag nitude away from being able to offer traits to order." The closest couples come to their own pri\'ate eugenics is embryo selection, says Dr. \lartin Keltz of ' St. Luke's-Roose\'e!t Hospital Center in \Ianhanan. In this process, clinics screen I the embryos thay create to determine \\ hether any carries a deleterious gene that runs in either partner's family. If it does, that embryo is discarded; only healthy-seeming ones go into the woman's uterus. But if taday's patients aren't asking for custom-made babies, tomorrow's might. \\nen a \Iarch of Dimes pollasked people if they would ~impro\'e"their child's appearance or in telligence through genetic tinkering, 42 percent answered yes. \\nether society allows that \\ill likel\' depend on what ~ight be called the ~ick'" faetor-a sense of repugnance at treating children as a product. at robbing life of its sacredness. Society emitted a collecti\'e ~ick" at the first test-tube baby, the first surrogate mother, the first baby"bom to its biological grandmother. But "ick" tends to dissipate; more than 300,000 test-tube babies ha\'e been born. Science now has the power not merely to create, but to manipulate creation ~as ne\'er before. In a 1944 essav, noyelist' C. S. Lewis warned that "the final stage is come when :\1an by eugenics, by prenatal conditioning .. , has obtained fuji control over himself." That day is no\\' a little closer. •

52 :-; E w S \\' E E K } .\:IIl:.\ R Y 2 2. 2 00 [

• detente broke down. Some of its greatest minds dismissed God as an unnecessary hypothesis, one they didn't need to ex plain how galaxies came to shine or how life grew so complex. Since the birth ofthe universe could now be explained by the laws of physics alone, the late astronomer and atheist Carl Sagan concluded, there was "nothing for a Creator to do," and every thinking person was therefore forced to admit "the absence of God." Today the scientific community so scorns faith, says Sandage, that "there is a reluc tance to reveal yourself as a believer, the opprobrium is so severe." Some clergy are no more tolerant of scientists. A fellow researcher and friend of Sandage's was told by a pastor, "Un less you accept and believe that the Earth and universe are only 6,000 years old [as a literal reading of the Bible implies], you cannot be a Christian." It is little wonder that people of faith resent science: by re ducing the miracle of life to a series of biochemical reactions, by explaining Creation as a hiccup in space-time, sci ence seems to undermine belief, render existence meaningless and rob the world of spiritual wonder. But now "theology and science are en tering into a new relationship," says physicist turned theologian Robert John From Georgetown to Berkeley, theolo Physicists have stumbled on signs that the Russell, who in 1981 founded the Center gians who embrace science, and scien cosmos is custom-made for life and con for Theology and the Natural Sciences at tists who cannot abide the spiritual sciousness. It turns out that if the con the Graduate Theological Union in emptiness of empiricism, are establishing stants of nature-unchanging numbers Berkeley. Rather than undercutting faith institutes integrating the two. Books like like the strength of gravity, the charge of and a sense of the spiri "Science and Theology; The an electron and the mass of a proton tual, scientific discov New Consonance" and "Be were the tiniest bit different, then atoms eries are offering sup lief in God in an Age of Sci woul~ not hold together, stars would not port for them, at least in ence" are streaming off the bum and life would never have made an the minds of people of presses. A June symposium appearance. "When you realize that the faith. Big-bang cosmol on "Science and the Spiritual laws.of nature must be incredibly finely ogy, for instance, once Quest," organized by Rus tuned to produce ,the universe we see," read as leaving no room sell's CTNS, drew more than says John Polkinghorne, who had a distin for a Creator, now im 320 paying attendees and 33 guished career as a plies to some scientists speakers, and a PBS docu physicist at Cam that there is a design mentary on science and faith bridge University be and purpose behind the will air this fall. fore becoming an An universe. Evolution, In 1977 Nobel physicist glican priest in 1982, say some scientist-the Steven Weinberg of the Uni "that conspires to ologians, provides clues to the very na versity ofTexas sounded a famous note of plant the idea that ture of God. And chaos theory, which de despair; the more the universe has be the undverse did not scribes such mundane processes as the come comprehensible through cosmolo just happen, but that patterns of weather and the dripping of gy, he wrote, the more it seems pointless. there must be a faucets, is being interpreted as opening a But now the very science that "killed" God purpose behind it." door for God to act in the world. is, in the eyes ofbelievers, restoring faith. Charles Townes,

~ " j; e Jln Uneasy 800-1000 The 1268-73 In writings 1543~ 1633 Galilee is cen Islamic Empire, where it on Aristotle's physical publishes "De lI.evolu sured by the Inquisition Truce is believed that astrono studies, Thomas Aquinas tionibus." It concludes for writing about and Throughout Western my and mathematics synthesizes scientific that the earth revolves teaching the Copernican history, science and provided a glimpse of inquiry with Christian around the sun, challeng system against papal religion have been like God, is for centuries the thought. After him, ing man's exalted place orders. He's made siblings-sometimes at only repository ofmany medieval scientists see at the center ofGod's to recant and is placed loggerheads, sometimes ancient Greek and their role as uncovering plan ofthe universe. underhouse arrest. on common ground. Egyptian texts. the divine plan.

48 NEWSWEEK JULY 20, 1998 FRO\-l LEFT T() RiGHT TOP Tn 80TT0\1 Il'LW ETCH:\RT-IMPACT \'ISt :\L~ BfTTMA!\''' ARCHrn: ~l'PERST()Cil. <;HEILA TERR~ -PHOTO RESE:\RCH£R~ IAML~ D W1Lsn" 1011" MILLFH-ARIZO!\'A REPtBl.l( who shared the 1964 Nobel ic events. In this spooky realm. the be Prize in Physics for discovering havior of particles is unpredictable. In the principles ofthe laser, goes perhaps the most famous. example, a ra further: "Many have a feeling dioactive element might have a half-life that somehow intelligence of, say, one hour. Half-life means that must have been involved in the half of the atoms in a sample will decay laws ofthe universe." in that time; half will not. But what ifyou Although the very rationali have only a single atom? Then, in an ty of science often feels like an hour, it has a 50-50 chance of decaying. enemy of the spiritual, here, And what if the experiment is arranged too. a new reading can sustain so that if the atom does decay, it releases rather than snuff out belief. poison gas? If you have a cat in the lab, Ever since Isaac Newton, sci will the cat be alive or dead after the ence has blared a clear mes hour is up? Physicists have discovered sage: the world follows rules, that there is no way to determine, even rules that are fundamentally in principle, what the atom would do. mathematical, rules that hu Some theologian-scientists see that deci mans can figure out. Humans sion point-will the atom decay or not? invent abstract mathematics, will the cat live or die?-as one where basically making it up out of God can act. "Quantum mechanics al their imaginations, yet math lows us to think of special divine ac magically turns out to describe tion," says Russell. Even better, since the world. Greek mathemati few scientists abide miracles, God can cians divided the circumfer act without violating the laws ence of a circle by its diame ofphysics. ter, for example, and got the .t\n even newer science, number pi, 3.14159 ... . Pi .' os theory, describes turns up in equations henomena like the that describe sub weather and some atomic particles, light chemical reactions and other quantities whose exact out- that have no obvious connec L comes cannot be tions to circles. This points, predicted. It could says Polkinghorne, "to a very be, says Polking deep fact about the nature of horne, that God the universe," namely, that . selects which pos our minds, which invent sibility becomes re mathematics, confonn to the '\ ality. This divine ac reality of the cosmos. We are tion would not violate somehow tuned in to its truths. physical laws either. Since pure thought can penetrate the uni Most scientists still park their faith, if verse's mysteries, "this seems to be they have it, at the laboratory door. But telling us that something about human just as belief can find inspiration in sci consciousness is harmonious with the ence, so scientists can find inspiration in mind of God," says Carl Feit, a belief. Physicist Mehdi Golshani of Sharif cancer biologist at Yeshiva Uni University of Technology in Tehran, versity in New York and Talmu drawing from the Koran, believes that dic scholar. natural phenomena are "God's signs in To most worshipers, a sense of the universe," and that studying them is the divine as an unseen presence almost a religious obligation. The Koran behind the visible world is all asks humans to "travel in the earth, then well and good, but what they re see how He initiated the creation." Re ally yearn for is a God who acts search, Golshani says, "is a worship act, in the world. Some scientists see in that it reveals more of the wonders of an opening for this sort of God at God's creation." The same strain runs the level of quantum or subatom through Judaism. Carl Feit cites Mai

1687 Isaac Newton's 1802 In "Research 1842 Richard Owen gravitational theory, on the Organization of determines that recently published in the Living Bodies," the found fossils belong to an "Principia," completes chevalier Lamarck posits extinct animal group he the mechanistic vision of an evolutionary view calls dinosaurs. Some see the cosmos. Newton of animal species further evidence of leaves in a sliver ofGod contradicting the idea mutating species, others as the "first cause" ofthe that God created them in the effects ofNoah's flood. universe. immutable, constant form.

JULY 20, 1998 NEWSWEEK 49 .. monides, "who said that the and the Natural Sciences says. only pathway to achieve a "Science may not serve as an eye love of God is by understand witness of God the creator, but it ing the works of his hand, can serve as a character witness." which is the natural universe. One place to get a glimpse of Knowing how the universe God's character, ironically, is in functions is crucial to a reli the workings of evolution. gious person because this is Arthur Peacocke, a bio the world He created." Feit is chemist who became a hardly alone. According to a priest in the Church of Eng study released last year, 40 land in 1971, has no quarrel percent ofAmerican scientists with evolution. To the con believe in a personal God trary: he finds in it signs of not merely an ineffable power God's nature. He infers. from and presence in the world, but evolution, that God has cho a deity to whom they can pray. sen to limit his omnipotence To Joel Primack, an astro and omniscience. In other physicist at the University of words, it is the appearance of California, Santa Cruz, "prac chance mutations. and the ticing science [even] has a Darwinian laws of natural spiritual goal" -namely, pro selection acting on this viding inspiration. It turns "variation," that bring about out, explains Primack, that the the diversitv oflife on Earth. largest size imaginable, the en This proce;s suggests a di tire universe, is 10 with 29 ze vine humility, a God who ros after it (in centimeters). acts selflessly for the good of The smallest size describes the creation, says theologian John subatomic world, and is 10 Haught. who founded the with 24 zeros (and a decimal) Georgetown (University) Cen in front ofit. Humans are right ter for the Study of Science in the middle. Does this return and Religion. He calls this a us to a privileged place? Pri "humble retreat on God's mack doesn't knoW', but he de part": much as a loving par scribes this as a "soul-satisfy ent lets a child be. and be ing cosmology." come, freely and without in Although skepqeal sci terference, so does God let entists grumble that sci creation make itself. ence has no need of reli It would be an exaggeration to gion, forward-looking theo say that such sophisticated theo logians think religion needs logical thinking is remaking reli science. Religion "is inca gion at the level ofthe local parish, pable of making its moral mosque or synagogue. But some of claims persuasive or its spiri these ideas do resonate with ordi tual comfort effective [unless] nary worshipers and clergy. For its cognitive claims" are cred Billy Crockett, ible, argues physicist-theologian Rus nary. Otherwise, says astronomer and president of Walking sell. Although upwards of 90 percent of Jesuit priest William Stoeger, religion is Angel Records in Dal Americans believe in a personal God, in danger of being seen, by people even las, the discoveries of fewer believe in a God who parts seas, minimally acquainted with science, "as quantum mechanics or creates species one by one. To make an anachronism." that he reads about in religions forged millenniums ago rele Science cannot prove the existence of the paper reinforce his vant in an age of atoms and DNA. some God, let alone spy him at the end ofa tele faith that "there is a lot theologians are "incorporat[ing] knowl scope. But to some believers. learning of mystery in the na edge gained from natural science into about the universe offers clues about ture of things." For the formation of doctrinal beliefs." says what God might be like. As W. Mark other believers. an ap Ted Peters of Pacific Lutheran Semi Richardson of the Center for Theology preciation of science

_V~of 1871 Darwin publishes 1905 John William 1916 A1bett"tein's 1925 John Scopes, species," Charles "The Descent ofMan." Strutt determines the age groundbreaking theories a high-school teacher Darwin concludes that in which he undermines ofa rock: 2 billion years, ofrelativity reject New in Tennessee, is indicted species evolve and that the Biblical doctrine officially disproving ton's carefully ordered for teaching evolution change is driven by that humans are a divine James Ussher's 1650 universe. "Science ary theory. Scopes variations in offspring creation. Instead. he assertion that. acc;:>rding without religion is lame. along with Darwinism that are either favored or argues, mankind to Genesis. the universe Religion without science itself-is put on trial eliminated in the evolved from apes. was created on is blind," he later says. and convicted. struggle for survival. Oct. 22, 4004 H.C

fH()\1 LLr1 Til RI(.111 TO!' T(' J)IITTO\l M' H) I· \ ...... " I'll '1 l"RI LJ 1Q, ... n~ - Ptlll] (, In 'I H~ HrH" 50 NEWSWEEK JeLY 20. ]998 'JAR'" \1-\RTr" - PHf)"Jil R["rA..RCHEh'- II"t i '" l-IA,l \< I'll' "!r· ~.r\l Rl'l!rR" IIA/I.11I'III'" RI-I'T1-(1<, ("(ll llll'" 11[""' \ "rYj f''-JT) PI>I ( ,F'TR' deepens faith. "Science produces in me a terpretation of this strange situation is tremendous awe," says Sister Mary White that light is, simultaneously, wave and of the Benedictine Meditation Center in particle. Electrons are, simultaneously, St. Paul, Minn. "Science and spirituality waves and particles. Which aspect of have a common quest, which is a quest for light one sees, which face an electron truth." And if science has not yet influ turns to a human observer, varies with enced religious thought and practice at the the circumstances. So, too, with Jesus, grass-roots level very much, just wait, suggests physicist F. Russell Stannard of says Ted Peters of CTNS. Much as femi England's Open University. Jesus is not nism sneaked up on churches and is now to be seen as really God in human guise, shaping the liturgy, he predicts, "in 10 or as really human but acting divine, says years science will be a major factor in how Stannard: "He was fully both." Finding these parallels may make some people feel, says Polkinghorne, "that this is not just some deeply weird Christian idea." Jews aren't likely to make the same leap. And someone who is not already a believer will not join the faithful because of quantum mechanics; conversely, someone in whom science raises no doubts about faith probably isn't even listening. But to people in the middle, for whom science raises questions about re ligion, these new concordances can deepen a faith already present. As Feit says, "I don't think that by studying sci ence you will be forced to conclude that many ordinary religious people think." there must be a God. But ifyou have al Not everyone believes that's such a hot ready found God, then you can say, from idea. "Science is a method, not a body of understanding science, 'Ab, I see what knowledge," says Michael Shenner, a di God has done in the world'." rector of the Skeptics Society, which de In one sense, science and religion will bunks claims of the paranormal. "It can never be truly reconciled. Perhaps they have nothing to say either way about shouldn't be. The default setting of whether there is a God. These are two science is eternal doubt; the core of reli such different things, it would be like us gion is faith. Yet profoundly religious ing baseball stats to prove a point in foot people and great scientists are both driv ball." Another red flag is that adherents en to understand the world. Once, sci of different faiths -like the Orthodox ence and religion were viewed as two Jews, Anglicans, Quakers, Catholics and fundamentally different, even antago Muslims who spoke at the June confer nistic, ways of pursu ence in Berkeley-tend to find, in ing that quest, and science, confinnation of what their science stood ac particular religion has already cused of smother taught them. ing faith and kill Take the difficult Christian con ing God. Now, it cept ofJesus as both fully divine and may strengthen be fully human. It turns out that this du lief. And although ality has a parallel in quantum physics. it cannot prove In the early years of this century, God's existence, physicists discovered that entities science might thought of as particles, like elec whisper to be trons, can also act as waves. And lievers where to light, considered a wave, can in seek the divine. some experiments act like a bar With MARIAN rage of particles. The orthodox in WESTLEY

1948 George Gamow 1965 Arno Penzias 1992 Pope]ohn coins the term "big bang" and Robert Wilson find Paul II apologizes for the to describe the theory that space is filled with Roman Catholic Church's that the universe began background radiation, condemnation ofGalileo. in a primeval explosion. a discovery supporting Four years later, he An instantaneous the big-bang model. In endorses evolution as creation leaves open the 1989, the COBE satellite part ofGod's master plan. idea ofa creator. makes an image of this radiation.

JULY 20, 1998 NEWSWEEK 51 SOCIETY 'HOW THE HEAVENS GO' Science and religion are supposed to be antagonists. History tells a more complicated story. By KENNETH L. WOODWARD

HAT MANY CONTEMPORARY SCIENTISTS MAKE ROOM FOR universe in which nature served man and mankind served God. God in their understanding ofthe cosmos should hardly be "In a certain sense, religion got burned for locking itself too deeply surprising. For most of history, religion and science have into a particular scientific view which was then discarded:' says Tbeen siblings-feeding off and sparring with each other Owen Gingerich. a professor of astronomy and the history of sci rather than outright adversaries in the common hwnan quest for ence at Harvard. understanding. Only in the West, and only after the French En First Copernicus, then Galileo (aided by one of the first tele lightenment in the 18th century, did the votaries of science and reli scopes) and Kepler demonstrated with ever greater precision that gion drift into separate ideological camps. And only in the 19th cen the earth and other planets circled the sun. Hwn8.nkmd, it seemed. tury, after Darwin, was the supposed irreconcilability between was peripheral to God and the universe. All three scientists, how "God" and "science" elevated to the status of cultural myth. Histo ever, were devout Christians who defended their new worldview ry tells a different, more complicated story. as most worthy of the Creator. But Coper In the ancient world, religious myth in nicus and Kepler were denounced by Mar vested nature and the cosmos with divine tin Luther for views he thought contradict emanations and powers. But this celestial ed the Bible, and Galileo was tried and pantheism did not prevent sober observation condemned to house arrest by the Roman ofthe heavens and sophisticated mathemati Inquisition. Although Pope John Paul II cal calculations. By 1400 B.C. the Chinese declared in 1992 that the church had erred had established a solar year of 365 days. An in condemning Galileo. the incident was cient India formulated the decimal system. never a simple conflict between science Ancient Greece bequeathed Euclidean and religion. Galileo overstated the proof geometry, Ptolemy's map ofthe solar system he could provide for a heliocentric (sun and Aristotle's classification of living organ centered) cosmos and incautiously carica isms, which served biologists until Darwin. tured the pope in a published tract. Yet he But none ofthese advances seriously dis could also quote one of the pope's own car rupted religion's more comprehensive dinals in his defense: "The intention of [the worldviews. Buddhists, for example, Bible] is to teach us how one goes to heav showed no interest in investigating nature en, not how the heavens go." since it was both impermanent and, at bot In subsequent centuries, however. scien tom, an illusion. Islam made great ad tific theories of "how the heavens go" in vances in algebra, geometry and optics, as creasingly determined the place and power well as philosophy. But Muslim scholars of God. The "celestial mechanics" of Isaac left the mysteries of physics-motion, Newton produced a god who designed a causality, etc. -tothe power ofAllah and to world machine and somehow sustained it the aphorisms of Aristotle, whose works in motion. Theologians readily accepted they recovered and transmitted to the Aristotle whatever proofs for God's existence the Christian West. Modern science began not by doubting new science chose to give. The result was a The Bible, of course, has its own creation God's existence but with experiments un diminished "god of the gaps" inhabiting myth. and it is that very story that eventual dermining Aristotle's 'sacred geography' whatever dark corners science had not yet ly led scientists to realize that nature had to brought to rational light. In this way, says be discovered empirically and so fostered the development of sci Jesuit theologian Michael Buckley of Boston College, theologians ence in the Christian West. The universe created by a rational God themselves cooperated in the advent ofmodern atheism by relying had to be rational and consistent-that much the Greeks already on science to explain God and ignoring "the traditional sources of knew. But a universe created out of nothing, as Genesis described, religious insight and experience that make belief in also had to be contingent. In other words, it could have turned out God intelligible." By the 18th century, astronomer Pierre Laplace other than it did. It was only one ofan infinite nwnber ofpossibili could explain nature as a self-sufficient mechanism. As for God. he ties open to a wholly transcendent deity. Gradually. scientists real told Emperor Napoleon, "I have no need of that hypothesis." Nor, ized that the laws governing such a universe could not be deduced a century later, did Darwin in his theory ofevolution. p-om pure thought -as Aristotle supposed - but instead needed to Now. at the end ofthe millenniwn. religion and science are begin be discovered through experiment. Thus was experimental science ning to talk, though neither answers to the other's authority. John iiurtured by religious doctrine. Paul II consults with his Pontifiea] Academy of Science-most of " When the scientific revolution did occur, in Europe early in the whom are not Catholic. Philosophers of science examine the often 17th century, and researchers for the first time began to regard the hidden asswnptions on which scientific theories rest. Confronted world as a mechanism whose workings they could probe through by dimensions of the world no scripture has encoded, theologians the scienti£i~ method, it wasn't God's existence that was thrown in are discovering a God who resists domestication into any single the doubt. Rather, it was Aristotle's "sacred geography." in which ory of how the world works. And at the center-stili-are flawed Earth and the heavenly bodies were fixed and eternal. Relying on and fragile human beings trying to understand a universe that has Aristotle, medieval Christianity had imagined a tidy geocentric the uncomfortable feel ofa home away from home. •

52 NEW S WEE K J U L Y 2 O. 1 9 9 B • •••••••••••••••••~••.:.....·L..=-l.lt;J·...=...~.II.:·:Ili...t.:J· .... this~excerpt a8k~' i.·_ _-~ In from Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, the authors -_ ...... -_."-". WHAT MAKES US ?• superfluous leaves and twigs, shape it, shorten it, in What does it mean to be hunum? This q.ustion, and sert it into the tennite tunnel with a deft twisting mo the attempt to find an answer, per7Mates and propels tion to follow the interior contours, shake it seductive the important new book "Shadows ofForgonen ly to attract termites onto it, and then, with great care, Ancestors, .. by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, to be remove it without scraping offtoo many. Chimps take published tomorrow by Random House. Pulling years to perfect their technique and routinely teach it to together a vast body ofscientific information to trace their young, who are avid pupils. the origins and evolution oflife on Earth, the authors How difficult is chimpanzee termite-fishing? What address some ofthefwu:Uunental q.ustions oflife depths of intellect and manual dexterity are required? itself. In this excerpt, they examine the behavior of ~uppose you were dropped naked into the Gombe Na other animals and measure it against hunum ability. bonal Park in Tanzania and, like it or not, discovered that termites are your principal hedge against malnu E HUMANS ARE THE trition or starvation. You know they're an excellent dominant species on the source of protein; you know that self-respecting hu planet. Why us? Of all the mans in many parts of the world regularly eat them. promising lifefonns-im You manage to put aside whatever compunctions you placable killers, profession may feel. But catching them one at a time is not going al escape artists, prolific to be worth the effort. You're going to have to make a replicators-why did one ~ool, repeatedly in~rt it into their meter-high mound, primate species, nakr'.d, puny and vulnerable, manage to mtroduce the toollDto your mouth, and strip off the subordinate all the rest and to make this world, and oth ers, its domain? Why are we so different? Or are we? clinging termites with your teeth and lips as you with Most of the philosophers conventionally adjudged draw the tool from your mouth. Could you do as well great thought that humans are fundamentally different as a chimp? from the other animals-because of an immaterial The arithropologist Geza Teleki tried to find out. He "something," for which no scientific evidence has been spent months in Gombe under the tutelage of a chimp produced, that resides somewhere in the bodies of hu- ! named Leakey. Teleki found that, after months of in mans but in no one else on Earth. Only a few argued, as ' tensive effort, he hadn't a clue to finding the entrances Charles Darwin did, that the differences between our to the mounds that the tennites wall up each evening and species and others are only differences of degree. that the chimps effortlessly uncover in the morning. It is not enough that humans have a different assort He couldn't select the best stalks, prepare them, or in ment of the qualities evident in the other animals sert and withdraw them so termites would be clinging more ofsome traits, fewer ofothers. A radical difference to them. He failed miserably. It's a little daunting to in kind, not some fuzzy-edged difference in degree, is discover-on the very technological grounds on which needed, longed for, sought. The uniqueness of humans human superiority is claimed-that, after months of has been claimed on many grounds, but most often be apprenticeship, human scientists cannot do as well as cause ofour tool-making, culture, language, reason and preadolescent chimps. morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and so the arg~ment goes-that's that. While we associate culture with art, music, dance and literature, in its most general form it is a set ofcus Blase, matter-of-fact, she carefully positions the hard toms that some groups ofpeople have and others don't shelled fruit on the log and smashes it open-using a stone tool procured for the purpose. Hammer and anvil. And not just ~ople. Scientists have witnessed the emer No lightbulb goes off above her head. There's no chin gence of cultural nonns in a kind of monkey called a to fist, no hint of insight struggling to emerge, no mo macaque on Koshima, a small Japanese island. The nat· ment of revelation, no strains from Thus Spake, 'Zaralhus. ural food supply there had become inadequate. so if the tra. It's just another routine, humdrum thmg that chimps monkeys were to survive, they had to be provisioned- do. Only humans, who know where tools can lead. find with sweet potatoes and wheat dumped on the shore. As anyone knows who has ever been to a picnic at the it remarkable. Although many chimps literally do not know enough beach. sand sticks to food and makes it unpleasantly to come in out of the rain, they're able to use tools. Not gritty. In September 1953. a young female named Imo only that-they're able to make tools and premeditate figured out that she could rinse the sand off her sweet potatoes by dunking them in a nearby brook. Very slow their use: A chimp breaks off a long grass stalk or a ly. others copied her-a playmate, Imo's mother, Imo's reed so she may use it later, hundreds of meters away, brother, sister and niece, then other youngsters, then more than an hour in the future. to lure delectable ter their mothers and, only after a long delay, the adult mites out of a log or termite mound. She must remove males. Three years later, Imo dropped a handful of mixed wheat and sand in the brook. The sand sank, the wheat floated; soggy, but ungriny. it could also be COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY GWENDOLEN CATES eaten. Others began copying her again. BY CARL SAGAN AND ANN DRUYAN PAGE 4.- SEPIEi&R 20, 1912 - PARADE IMUZINE (. A bonobo typesouh request on • keybNrd of 256 abstrac:t Imo was a primnte genius, an symbols. Archimedes or an Edison among Apes seem the macaques. Her inventions spread much closer slowly; macaque society, like tra to humans ditional human societies, is very In their conservative. As is usually true, abilities adult males were the slowest to to .... catch on, obstinate to the last; a fe I1Idlmeatary male invented the process, then it was taken up by adult females and Iaquqe youngsters of both sexes. Eventu than had ally, infants learned it at their moth once been er's knee. The reluctance of the thouIbt adult males must tell us something. They are fiercely competitive and hierarchy-ridden. They are not much given to friendships or even to alli to bite"). Inventing grammar is much more impressive ances. Perhaps they felt impending humiliation--ifthey than merely being taught it. Still. after some years, about were to imitate Imo, they would be following her lead, 90 percent of Kanzi's utterances were only a single becoming in some sense subservient to her and there symbol; rarely did they comprise more than two. by losing dominance status. They would rather eat sand. Kanzi has shown that he also can understand hun dreds of words of spoken English. Place earphones on In the laboratory, chimpanzees were taught symbols his head, situate yourself in another room, make a re to describe individual foods and tools. Then the chimps quest of him through a microphone, and the video cam were taught a symbol for the category "food" and an era reveals Kanzi doing what he's asked. Done this way, ' other for "tool," and they were asked to put the indi no gestural cues can be unconsciously communicated vidual symbols in the proper category-not the food from human to ape. Typical requests, perfectly com stuffs or tools themselves, but the arbitrary names of plied with, were: "Put the backpack in the car," "Take the foodstuffs and tools. They did exceptional1y well. the mUShrooms outdoors," "Knife the orange." "Eat the How is this possible, unless chimps reason and can fonn tomato," "Do you see the rock'?...Can you put it in the abstract ideas'? Another domesticated chimp was given hat'?" 'and "I want Kanzi to grab Rose." Even Kanzi's two piles of pictures--one of humans, the other of non errors were not so bad. Asked, "Can you put the rub humans-and then handed a stack of additional pic berband on your foot'?" he promptly put it on his head. There is no dispute that chimps (and bonohos) can ma tures ~d inVited to categoriZ7' Her perfonnance was per fect, With one smal1 exceptloJl: She placed the picture nipulate dozens. even hundreds, of symbols taught to of herself among the humans. them by humans, and that they use these words to com The psychologists Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Du m~nicate an~ M. ~u!?baugh and th~ir colleagues at Georgia State their wishes. The words can stand for objects, Umverslty m Atlanta deVised a keyboard with 256 sym actiOns. people, other animals, or the chimp itself. There bols. Each symbol stood for something of interest to an are common and proper nouns, verbs, adjectives, ad ape-"tickle," "chase," '1uice," "ball," "bug," "blue yerbs. Chimps and bonobos can request, and therefore berry," "banana," "outdoors," "videotape;' and so on. are clearly thinking about. things or actions not now The symbols were geometric or abstract figures that prescnt-food. for example, or grooming. They can la only by arbitrary convention were connected with what bel an~ categ~rize inani1!1ate objects, animals and pe0 they stood for. ple usmg not Just the thmgs themselves but also arbi The scientists tried to teach this language to an adult trary words representing the things. They are capable bonobo (commonly known as a "pygmy chimpanzee") of abstraction. They seem sometimes to use language but she was an ind1fferent student, Her 6-month-old son' and gesture to lie and deceive, and to reflect an ele Kanzi, often. acc~mpanied her to these training session~ mentary understanding ofcause and effect. and was mamly Ignored by the scientists. His interest eventually became hard to miss: He would leap on her In the annals of primate ethics, there are some ac hand, her head or the keyboard at the moment she was ~ounts that have the ring of parable. In a laboratory set about to select a symbol. Two years later, Kanzi demon tmg, macaques were fed if they were willing to pull a strated.that he was learning what they were trying to chain and electrically shock an unrelated macaque whose teach hiS mother. The focus of the study switched to him. agony was in plain view through a one-way mirror. Otherwise, they starved. After learning the ropes, the By age 4, Kanzi had mastered the board and would monkeys frequently refused to pull the chain; in one routmel.y use symbols to request, confirm, choose an experiment, only 13 percent would do s0-87 percent alterna~lv~, express an emotion, or just comment. He preferred to go hungry. One macaque went without ll~d~cate food for nearly two weeks rather than hurt its fellow. would a future course of action and then do it. Macaqu~ b~~n In combmmg two ~ction srmbols, he would predict (or who had themselves shocked in previ better, reveal) the Impendmg sequence of events' if he ous expenments were even less wlllmg to pull the chain. typed ."chase, tickle," he would chase and then ti~kle a The relative social status or gender of the macaques sCientist or.another c.himp, and only very rarely tickle had little bearing on their reluctance to hurt others. ~efore chasmg. Kanzi typed "hide peanut" and then did If asked to choose between the human experimenters offering the macaques this Faustian bargain and the ~ust that. It. s~ems hard to deny that Kanzi has a mental Image of hiS mtended future actions, and in appropriate macaques themselves-suffering from real hunger rather sequence. than causing pain to others-our own moral sympa thies do not lie with the scientists. But their experiments As time ~ent on, ~e develo~d other grammatical rules, espeCially puttmg the actIOn before the object, permit us to glimpse in non-humans a saintly willing rather than vice versa ("bite tomato," rather than "toma ness to make sacrifices in order to save others-even ~ those who are not ~ close kin. By It has long been i conventional hu • man standards. claimed that ~ these macaques i'-who have nev• only humans ~ er gone to Sun• il day schoo,l and make tools, use , never squIrmed I through a junior language, reason, I high school civics lesson-seem ex emplary in their have culture and moral grounding and their coura morality. Not so, geous resistance to evil. Among say the authors. the macaques, at least in this case, heroism is the norm. If the circumstances were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scien tists, would we do as well? In human history, there are a precious few whose memory we revere because they knowingly sacrificed themselves for others. For each of them. there are multitudes who did nothing.

Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down-toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristoc racy among the beings of Earth. Instead, we are more like'the nouveau riche-incompletely accommodated to our recent exalted state. insecure about who we are, and trying to put as much distance as possible between us and our humble origins. It·s as ifour nearest relatives were a rebuke to the explanations and justifications we offer of our current dominion over the Earth. So. as counterweights to human arrogance and pride, it is good ~ ~-_ .. _~ -/ SClENCEIcontinwd for us that, at least for the mome;t, there are still apes on Eanh. Ifwe insist on absolute rather than rel ative differences. we do not discover any distinguishing characteristic of our species. Knowing how closely we're re Isn't there much to be proud of in the lated to monkeys and apes, why should lives ofthe monkeys and apes? Shouldn't we be surprised that the differences are we be glad to acknowledge a connection of degree and not of kind? Isn't this the with Leakey, or Imo, or Kanzi? Re lesson of evolution? If we require that member those macaques who would we uniquely possess tools, cultUre, lan rather go hungry than profit from harm guage., trade, art. dance. music, religion, ing their fellows; mightn't we have a morality or conceptual intelligence, we more optimistic view of the human fu will not understand who we are. Perhaps ture ifwe were sure our ethics were up to our uniqueness is only this: an enhance their standards? And, viewed from this ment of well-established, pre-existing perspective, how shall we judie our treat talents for invention, forethought, lan ment of monkeys and apes? guage and general intelligence-enough We live at a moment when our rela to cross a threshold in our capacity to un tionships to each other, and to all the oth derstand and change the world. er beings with whom we share this plan In other animals, we can find friend et, are up for grabs. As we reconfigure ship, altruism, love, fidelity, courage, in our social structures-and, in the last few telligence, invention. curiosity, fore centuries, we've been tinkering with them thought, and ahost ofother characteristics like mad-isn't it better and safer to have that we humans should be glad to have in our best understanding of human nature greater measure. Those who decry or firmly in mind? deny our "animal" natures underestimate Our intelligence is imperfect. surely, what those natures are. and newly arisen; the ease with which it A sharp distinction between human can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed or beings and "animals" is essential if we subverted by other hard-wired tenden are to bend them to our will, make them cies-sometimes themselves disguised work for us. wear them, eat them--with as the cool light ofreason--is worrisome. out any disquieting tinges of guilt or re But if in,tellig~nce is oUr only edge. we gret. With untroubled consciences, we must learn to use it better, to sharpen it, can render whole species extinct-as we to understand its limitati