18AR23-29

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AR 23:29 - CRISPR-Cas9 causing significant unintended DNA damage?

In this issue:

BIBLICAL RELIABILITY - yet another attack on traditional understandings of early Christian manuscripts

DEATH - replacing utopian fallacies with dystopian realities?

GENETICS - off-target gene editing DNA damage found to be more common than expected

Apologia Report 23:29 (1,395)

September 13, 2018

BIBLICAL RELIABILITY

God's Library: The Archaeology of the Earliest Christian Manuscripts, by Brent Nongbri [1] -- the promo reads: "In this bold and groundbreaking book, Brent Nongbri provides an up-to-date introduction to the major collections of early Christian manuscripts and demonstrates that much of what we thought we knew about these books and fragments is mistaken. While biblical scholars have expended much effort in their study of the texts contained within our earliest Christian manuscripts, there has been a surprising lack of interest in thinking about these books as material objects with individual, unique histories. We have too often ignored the ways that the antiquities market obscures our knowledge of the origins of these manuscripts. Through painstaking archival research and detailed studies of our most important collections of early Christian manuscripts, Nongbri vividly shows how the earliest Christian books are more than just carriers of texts or samples of handwriting. They are three-dimensional archaeological artifacts with fascinating stories to tell, if we're willing to listen."

Library Journal (Aug 1 '18): "Nongbri (ancient history, Macquarie Univ.) challenges readers to reconsider the earliest Christian writings as three-dimensional objects, theorizing that we are unable to know precisely the dates or provenance of these texts, owing to circumspect antiquities dealers, questionable and/or dated excavation methods, and a singular focus on paleography. The first chapter details what we should consider in determining this critical bibliographical information: archaeological context of the collection(s), the size and layout of the text, binding techniques, type of paper and inks used, etc. The following sections focus on archaeological and scientific methods previously used to date these documents. ... This well-researched, richly illustrated, and readable volume makes a strong case for why alternative methods ought to be used in the dating and locating of early Christian documents."

Publishers Weekly (Jun 25 '18) adds: "Nongbri challenges beliefs about ancient Christian papyri in this readable account of the gaps and suppositions regarding them within modern scholarship. He challenges the fixation on the contents of ancient writings at the expense of considering them as objects. He provides clear explanations of the production of ancient codices, the imprecise methods of dating them, and the complicated history of their reemergence - mostly in the late-19th through mid-20th centuries. Nongbri turns to three big papyri finds in order to home in on key problems. For the Beatty Papyri, Nongbri uses the wide range of dates assigned to the artifacts to show how paleography is much less precise than is often claimed. The murky tales of antiquities dealers complicates the study of the Bodmer Papyri, as researchers cannot be sure where they were found. Lastly, the records surrounding the excavation methods of the massive number of items found in trash heaps at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt leave many questions unanswered. Nongbri's concluding chapter on the leaps scholars make to explain fragments is particularly illuminating. For instance, Nongbri questions many scholars' assumption that fragments of gospels found today would have been contained within gospel compendiums in ancient times - a common belief among paleographists. Nongbri's lucid arguments, free from any rancor, will give researchers and lay readers a greater appreciation for the complex problems involved in working with ancient writings."

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DEATH

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, by Barbara Ehrenreich [2] -- begins: "America is experiencing an outbreak of distrust. We doubt government, the media and climate change. In a 2016 Gallup poll, three-fifths of respondents characterized members of Congress as dishonest and unethical. Two-fifths felt the same way about journalists."

Reviewer Judith Shulevitz describes it as "a work of sweeping social critique. Ehrenreich's stated target is the fantasy that we can cheat the ravages of age and death. Fair enough. She directs a goodly portion of her wrath at the American candy store of quackeries: the 'mindfulness' industry; Silicon Valley-style 'biohacks' meant to engineer immortality; integrative holistic health; the mania for fitness (even though the author [who has a Ph.D. in cell biology] admits to being something of a gym rat herself).

Natural Causes asks us to accept that our bodies defy our control. Ehrenreich bases her case on a new paradigm in scientific thought which argues that, contrary to popular belief, the body is not a unified army able to repel dangerous invaders, but 'at best a confederation of parts … that may seek to advance their own agendas.' Moreover, the immune system may be our enemy, not our friend. ...

"Ehrenreich moves swiftly, to my mind too swiftly, from the metaphor of intrabody conflict to critiques of religion, psychology, philosophy and our cheerful American worldview. She has come to lay waste to utopian fallacies, she says, and replace them with dystopian realities. She contests almost everything that promises harmony between mind and body, self and world, God and universe. [And especially, doctors and nurses.]

"The book concludes with an admonition to die well. We must undo the clutch of the ego and free ourselves of tortuous end-of-life interventions, finding comfort instead in the richness of the universe that will survive us. 'It is one thing to die into a dead world and, metaphorically speaking, leave one's bones to bleach on a desert lit only by a dying star,' she writes elegiacally. 'It is another thing to die into the actual world, which seethes with life, with agency other than our own, and at the very least, with endless possibility.'"

In her conclusion, Shulevitz advises: "Let us age with grace, but let us not spread the plague of distrust by tarnishing [doctors and nurses] who do what they can for those they can reach, and under increasingly difficult conditions." New York Times Book Review, Jun 17 '18, p19. <www.nyti.ms/2x3RaIj>

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GENETICS

"Cutting to the Truth: The safety of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing is being debated" (no byline) -- notes that "a study published in Nature Biotechnology has found that when CRISPR-Cas9 is used to edit genomes, off-target DNA damage is more common than had previously been appreciated. ... In around 20% of cells examined, the use of CRISPR-Cas9 had caused unintended deletions or rearrangements.... This raises the possibility that non-target genes or regulatory sequences could be affected by the editing process, a discovery which comes in the wake of other recent work which raised concerns that CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing might trigger cancers. ...

"There are a number of caveats which may, in time, turn out to mean the findings are less concerning than they seem today." Examples follow.

The study serves as a "timely reminder of the need for caution when the technology is used in people. ...

"In particular, the study raises the stakes for those who wish to make heritable changes to the human genome. This week a group of bioethicists concluded, in a report for the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a think-tank in Britain, that in some circumstances the genetic engineering of human sperm, eggs or embryos could be morally acceptable. ...

"But the report concluded that two principles should serve as a guide. One is that the changes brought about by gene editing should not increase 'disadvantage, discrimination or division in society.' The other is that such changes should be consistent with the welfare of the future person. For that to happen, any form of gene editing needs to be demonstrably safe." The Economist, Jul 21 '18, p64. <www.econ.st/2p5IoFL>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Twelve, 2018, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/2NqXsvC>

2 - Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Twelve, 2018, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.amzn.to/2NqXsvC>

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