Prof. Maxwell J. Mehlman
“Improved Humans: Legal and Political Aspects of the New Genetics”
Templeton Research Lecture
November 12, 2008
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“Directed Evolution: Public Policy and Human Enhancement”
Templeton Research Lecture
April 20, 2009
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Maxwell J. Mehlman is the Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University and the Director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western University’s School of Medicine.
His recent publications include: Genetics: Ethics, Law and Policy [Second Edition] (2006, co-authored with Lori Andrews and Mark Rothstein); and Wondergenes: Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society (2003).
n response to the criticism of unethical human experimentation, the Reich government issued “Guidelines for New Therapy and Human Experimentation” in Weimar, Germany. The guidelines were based on beneficence and non-maleficence, but also stressed legal doctrine of informed consent.
The ten points of the code were given in the section of the verdict entitled “Permissible Medical Experiments”
The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.
The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
Henry T. Greely, From Nuremberg to the Human Genome: The Rights of Human Research Participants, in Medicine After the Holocaust: From the Master Race to the Human Genome and Beyond, Sheldon Rubenfeld ed., New York: Palgrave, 2010.
Over the next few decades, Elon Musk is hoping to send 42,000 satellites to space.
He is hoping those satellites bring high-speed internet to every corner of the world— from the rainforest to Antarctica.
Foreign Policy writer, Evgeny Morozov, questions whether “the Internet brings us closer together”, and despite its early ideals that it would “increase understanding, foster tolerance, and ultimately promote worldwide peace”, the opposite may be happening.
Google, Twitter, Facebook—are U.S. companies that other governments increasingly fear as political agents. Chinese, Cuban, Iranian, and even Turkish politicians are already talking up “information sovereignty” a euphemism for replacing services provided by Western Internet companies with their own more limited but somewhat easier to control products, further splintering the World Wide Web into numerous national Internets. The age of the Splinternet beckons.[
The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.
The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
The list of the Bradford Hill criteria is as follows:
Strength (effect size): A small association does not mean that there is not a causal effect, though the larger the association, the more likely that it is causal.
Consistency (reproducibility): Consistent findings observed by different persons in different places with different samples strengthens the likelihood of an effect.
Specificity: Causation is likely if there is a very specific population at a specific site and disease with no other likely explanation. The more specific an association between a factor and an effect is, the bigger the probability of a causal relationship.[1]
Temporality: The effect has to occur after the cause (and if there is an expected delay between the cause and expected effect, then the effect must occur after that delay).
Biological gradient (dose-response relationship): Greater exposure should generally lead to greater incidence of the effect. However, in some cases, the mere presence of the factor can trigger the effect. In other cases, an inverse proportion is observed: greater exposure leads to lower incidence.[1]
Plausibility: A plausible mechanism between cause and effect is helpful (but Hill noted that knowledge of the mechanism is limited by current knowledge).
Coherence: Coherence between epidemiological and laboratory findings increases the likelihood of an effect. However, Hill noted that “… lack of such [laboratory] evidence cannot nullify the epidemiological effect on associations”.
Experiment: “Occasionally it is possible to appeal to experimental evidence”.
Analogy: The use of analogies or similarities between the observed association and any other associations.
Some authors consider, also, Reversibility: If the cause is deleted then the effect should disappear as well.
The PCR test “is unable to determine, beyond reasonable doubt, that a positive result corresponds, in fact, to the infection of a person by the SARS-CoV-2 virus”, stated the Lisbon Court of Appeal on 11 November 2020.
Proc. Nº 1783/20.7T8PDL.L1
Most importantly, the judges decided that a single positive PCR test cannot be used as an effective diagnosis of infection. If this decision is a precedent remains an open question.
Daniel J simon, C. F. C. (1999). Gorilla in our midst – reference. Gorillas in Our Midst: Sustained, Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events – Perception.
Simons, D. J. (2010).
Monkeying around with the Gorillas in Our Midst: Familiarity with an Inattentional-Blindness Task Does Not Improve the Detection of Unexpected Events. I-Perception, 1(1), 3–6. doi.org/10.1068/i03865
5G map: www.nperf.com/de/map/5g
5G has been developed by the US/Israeli military as a weapon to disperse crowds (directed energy beams which are harmful to biological organisms). It has been used twice during the illegal Irak-war. There are virtually no studies about the safety of 5G and it can be regarded as a social experiment without consensus and control-group. The 60Ghz frequency interferes with oxygen absorption of hemoglobin.
Tretyakov, M. Y., Koshelev, M. A., Dorovskikh, V. V., Makarov, D. S., & Rosenkranz, P. W. (2005). 60-GHz oxygen band: precise broadening and central frequencies of fine-structure lines, absolute absorption profile at atmospheric pressure, and revision of mixing coefficients. Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy, 231(1), 1–14. doi.org/10.1016/j.jms.2004.11.011
PhysicalControloftheMind: Toward a Psycho-civilized Society by José M. R. Delgado. Publication date 1969
Electronic technology has reached a high level of sophistication,
and two-way radio commJ’nication with automobiles, airplanes,
and outer space vehicles is commonplace today. The
notable lag in development of similar instrumentation for communciation with the depth of the brain reflects the already
mentioned unbalanced evolution of our technological civilization,
which seems more interested in accumulating power than
in understanding and influencing the basic mechanisms of the
human mind.
This gap is now being filled, and as Figures 4 and 5 show, it
is already possible to equip animals or human beings with
minute instruments called “stimoceivers” for radio transmission
and reception of electrical messages to and from the brain in
completely unrestrained subjects. Microminiaturization of the
instrument’s electronic components permits control of all parameters of excitation for radio stimulation of three different points
within the brain and also telemetric recording of three channels
of intracerebral electrical activity. In animals, the stimoceiver
may be anchored to the skull, and different members of a colony
can be studied without disturbing their spontaneous relations
within a group. Behavior such as aggression can be evoked or
inhibited. In patients, the stimoceiver may be strapped to the
head bandage, permitting electrical stimulation and monitoring
of intracerebral activity without disturbing spontaneous activities.
Keywords: Population-wide genetic sequencing, eugenics on steroids, full-spectrum surveillance, bio-sensors, bio-hacking, bio-data, big-data, population control, population surveilance, brain-computer interfaces, nano-technology, scientific propaganda, technocratic agenda, silicon valley, ray kurzweil, singularity, academic prostitution, intellectual sell out.
Selected publications:
Huxley, J. (1968). Transhumanism. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. doi.org/10.1177/002216786800800107
Kurzweil, R. (2008). The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine. Scientific American Sp. doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0208-20sp
Sorgner, S. L. (2008). Nietzsche, the Overhuman, and Transhumanism. Journal of Evolution & Technology.
Carafides, J. L. (2003). Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism? Philosophical Inquiry, 25(1), 259–260. doi.org/10.5840/philinquiry2003251/222
Mead, W. R., & Kurzweil, R. (2006). The Singularity Is near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Foreign Affairs. doi.org/10.2307/20031996
Kurzweil, R. (2013). How to create a mind: The secret of human thought revealed. New York Review of Books. doi.org/10.5860/choice.50-6167
Goertzel, B. (2007). Human-level artificial general intelligence and the possibility of a technological singularity. A reaction to Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near, and McDermott’s critique of Kurzweil. Artificial Intelligence. doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2007.10.011
Kurzweil, R. (2014). The Singularity is Near. In Ethics and Emerging Technologies. doi.org/10.1057/9781137349088_26
Kurzweil, R. (2004). The Law of Accelerating Returns. In Alan Turing: Life and Legacy of a Great Thinker. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05642-4_16
Kurzweil, R. (2010). How my predictions are faring. How My Predictions Are Faring.
Ray Kurzweil. (2010). In Talking About Life. doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511763328.033
Kurzweil, R. (2008). The singularity: The last word. In IEEE Spectrum. doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2008.4635038
Reed, C., & Galeon, D. (2017). Kurzweil Claims That the Singularity Will Happen by 2045. Futurism.
Kurzweil, R. (2013). How to make mind. Futurist.
McDermott, D. (2006). Kurzweil’s argument for the success of AI. Artificial Intelligence. doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2006.10.006
Berman, A. (2016). Technology Feels Like It’s Accelerating — Because It Actually Is. In Singularity Hub.
Butler, D. (2016). Tomorrow ’ S Technological Change Is Accelerating Today At an Unprecedented World. Nature.
Calwalladr, C. (2014). Are the robots about to rise? Google’s new director of engineering thinks so…. The Guardian.
Gidley, J. M. (2019). Transhumanism. In Critical Terms in Futures Studies. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28987-4_49
Bostrom, N. (2005). A History of Transhumanist Thought. Journal of Evolution and Technology.
Persson, I., & Savulescu, J. (2010). Moral transhumanism. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhq052
Fukuyama, F. (2004). Transhumanism. In Foreign Policy. doi.org/10.2307/4152980
Porter, A. (2017). Bioethics and transhumanism. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (United Kingdom). doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhx001
Conclusion: The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate [i.e., no statistically significant difference between groups was found at the coventional α-level; p = 0.38; (odds ratio [OR], 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; p = 0.33)]. (Content in brackets added)
title = {Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers},
journal = {Annals of Internal Medicine},
volume = {0},
number = {0},
pages = {null},
year = {0},
doi = {10.7326/M20-6817},
note ={PMID: 33205991},
Observational evidence suggests that mask wearing mitigates transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It is uncertain if this observed association arises through protection of uninfected wearers (protective effect), via reduced transmission from infected mask wearers (source control), or both.
Objective:
To assess whether recommending surgical mask use outside the home reduces wearers’ risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a setting where masks were uncommon and not among recommended public health measures.
Design:
Randomized controlled trial (DANMASK-19 [Danish Study to Assess Face Masks for the Protection Against COVID-19 Infection]). (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04337541)
Setting:
Denmark, April and May 2020.
Participants:
Adults spending more than 3 hours per day outside the home without occupational mask use.
Intervention:
Encouragement to follow social distancing measures for coronavirus disease 2019, plus either no mask recommendation or a recommendation to wear a mask when outside the home among other persons together with a supply of 50 surgical masks and instructions for proper use.
Measurements:
The primary outcome was SARS-CoV-2 infection in the mask wearer at 1 month by antibody testing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or hospital diagnosis. The secondary outcome was PCR positivity for other respiratory viruses.
Results:
A total of 3030 participants were randomly assigned to the recommendation to wear masks, and 2994 were assigned to control; 4862 completed the study. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 occurred in 42 participants recommended masks (1.8%) and 53 control participants (2.1%). The between-group difference was −0.3 percentage point (95% CI, −1.2 to 0.4 percentage point; P = 0.38) (odds ratio, 0.82 [CI, 0.54 to 1.23]; P = 0.33). Multiple imputation accounting for loss to follow-up yielded similar results. Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection.
Limitation:
Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.
Conclusion:
The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.
