This article came out in The New Republic in May, but seems to have escaped the Straight Dope’s radar. There are so many different debates we could have about it that I’m just going to say it touches on all of the things mentioned in the thread title and more. See what you think:
I don’t have enough time to read and parse Pinker’s essay, but a brief glance through it reminded me strongly of this xkcd strip. 
I was born by the more dignified method of caesarean section so I am justified in thinking I am better than you.
If you want this to be anything more that a joke thread, you’re going to have to offer us something more than: read this article and report back on what you think.
If I may attempt to summarize the OP’s cite; advances in bio-engineering and medecine generally are sometimes stymied by lawmakers who use the vague concept of “dignity”, i.e. human cloning would be an affront to human dignity. Pinker’s contention is that someone seeking to screen out disease-causing genes will not lead to some kind of super- (or slave-) race, and it’s only theocratic knee-jerkery that links the two.
Of course, I may be wrong.
That’s part of it, yes.
My opinion on Kass et al: If their political influence causes so much as a decade’s delay in the final conquest of aging, they’ll have enough blood on their hands to make Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin look like two of the Little Rascals. It’s basic arithmetic, really…
Just curious: who else got the reference before reading the linked article?
I Posted about this two weeks ago:
And more.
Leon Kass
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001154.cfm
This is who you have making national policy.
[hijack]
Does anybody know who Pinker’s referring to here?
[/hijack]
If you mean the actual king, there wasn’t one. Veblen was using satire.
Ah. Gotcha. Thanks.
There are just so many angles to this that I couldn’t decide which one to pursue.
There’s the question of how and why Bush picked Kass to lead the council. I think it says something about his management style, and not just that he chooses conservatives.
There’s the question of whether it’s appropriate for a President’s Council to include members who are there to push an explicitly religious agenda.
There’s Pinker’s main point about dignity: before I read this piece, I would basically have agreed that medical advances that eat away at human dignity should be heavily restricted. I would still have differed greatly with someone like Kass on specific issues, but mostly because I have a very different concept of what is destructive of dignity. Now I find myself agreeing with Pinker and yet wondering if it’s really a good idea to throw away the concept of dignity in discussions of medical ethics just because we don’t like the way some people apply it. It’s reminiscent of the way liberals pooh-poohed the idea of states’ rights during the battle over segregation, and now are having to defend it over such issues as carbon dioxide regulation and gay marriage.
And then there’s the ice cream quote. I have to say, my initial reaction was “This guy is a total loon. It’s embarrassing that he’s been invited to participate in this lofty forum.” But then I thought perhaps that was unfair. His opinion on ice cream may be weird, but it doesn’t automatically invalidate all his other opinions, does it?
Me.
-FrL-
In itself, it’s simply an eccentricity. What makes it significant is that it relates to his notions of “dignity” (and serves as an data point showing that those notions are a grab-bag of personal prejudices dressed up as a worldview).
As for whether bringing it up for purposes of ridicule is dirty pool… well, people like Kass might tip the balance the wrong way on whether I live to be 75 or 175. If his groin is open, I’m putting a knee in it.
Well, gee, Leon, I mean…
Suppose you go down this long, romantic mooning, crooning and (very limited) spooning route, you and E. Barret Browning. You get all the way through your repression festival, pay the caterers, troth your plight, and then find out she doesn’t like sex? Or maybe just doesn’t like sex with you, whatever. Not saying sex is the whole ball game, but its at least the peanuts and cracker jacks! Shouldn’t you know this stuff before you’ve defiled her purity, and commited to community property? I mean, sometimes Very Married Sex is a natural consequence, but shit, you don’t want to start there!
If she has never once, not once! in her life awoken of a morning, gazed in the mirror and ruefully thought “God, I am such a slut!”, you should probably walk. If she has more than two cats, run!
Have any of the people on the council been a caretaker for someone with, for example, late-stage Alzheimers? How dignified is it to slowly lose control of your mind and your bodily functions? Cancer, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s–none of these are diseases that respect dignity. Furthermore, according to the article, Kass has spoken against “organ transplants, autopsies, contraception, antidepressants, even the dissection of cadavers.” I’d say he has a concept of dignity that’s far out of line with most people’s. He seems entirely willing to ignore human suffering. It scares the hell out of me that a lunatic like this is in a prominent position to affect public policy.