Leon Kass' Literary Offenses

New at Reason: The chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics tells some whoppers in an Op/Ed. Ron Bailey catches him.

Comments

[spur]

Ron,

Great article - sounds like you got those lying, luddite knobbers dead to rights...

[Randy]

Typo/mistake at the end of the first paragraph in the article. Heads up!

[Em]

A nice article, but kind of self-contradictory isn't it? The fact that Kass heard Lawler at the AEI event seems to me to speak against the 'stacking' charge. I was at that event, and Lawler basically ripped Kass a new one, and totally assaulted his "brave new world" nonsense. The fact that Kass would then pick that guy for the council tells me he wants disagreement, not head-nodding. And isn't lawler pro stem cell research? He certainly seemed to be. I guess what Kass meant was that the new people's views about the *future* subjects before the council were not known. Anyway, keep at 'em. These luddites are scary, but the fact is, they have no chance

[Jean Bart]

Is this Kass a scientist?

[Jennifer]

You mean that an apologist for President Bush might have been less than honest? Wow, talk about an event totally lacking in historical precedent.

[SM]

Jean Bart,
Here's Kass's resume. He has a degree in bio-chemistry.
http://www.bioethics.gov/about/kass.html

Here's the significant quotation - "Shifting directions from doing science to thinking about its human meaning, he has been engaged for more than 30 years with ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advance, and, more recently, with broader moral and cultural issues."
"Human meaning" ! Who but a nazi executioner could object to all that ? I hope that settles it - the guy is not a scientist. He often writes for publications like "First Things" & the like where he is the company of like minded people who believe that humanity peaked in the late 1890's or thereabouts and that it is verboten & an affront to "human dignity" to tamper with the human template. I suggest you take a look at First Things to see where he & his ilk are coming from. That magazine overflows with nothingness.

[SM]

... overflows with Nothingness. Sorry...

[Mark]

All I can say is, it's great to see some good reporting out of Ronald Bailey for once--he's usually such a tiresome corporate shill.

[joe]

Catching these things is where the blogosphere really excells. Good job, Mr. Bailey. May you be endlessly linked to.