Period 1 Blog #14

Your comment post should be at least 330 words this week due Tuesday by 11:59 pm and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Thursday at 11:59 pm.

Romeo and Juliet' has led us astray

Romantic love, love at first sight -- it's great theater but disastrous dating advice.

February 14, 2010|By Andrew Trees

What if Shakespeare had it wrong about love in "Romeo and Juliet"? In fact, what if all of us have it wrong and our ideals of love and romance are hopeless? Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the concept of romantic love. We need to ask whether, in the pursuit of the perfect romance, we haven't actually declared war on true love. Cupid's arrow does strike often, but with the U.S. divorce rate near 50%, one has to wonder whether the wound is particularly deep or long-lasting.

Our typical romantic beliefs are quite often wrong. For instance, even couples who are blissfully happy together can't count on a happy ending. The PAIR project, a long-term academic study of couples, found that those most in love when they marry are also the most likely to get divorced.

And the chemical attraction that many people rely on to choose a partner has been found to fade "to neutrality" in two to three years. That's right, neutrality, which is deadly for a marriage. In my research, I even discovered that wife murderers tend to be strong believers in the romantic ideal. Take that, Romeo and Juliet.

Love and romance did not always rule. As recently as the 1930s, American men ranked mutual attraction as only the fourth most important quality for a relationship, while women had it even lower, placing it fifth. But in recent decades, love has climbed to No. 1, accompanied by a rise in the importance of looks, which suggests that our romance with romance is long on style and short on substance.

I hate to sound unromantic, but perhaps it's time to place less emphasis on romantic attraction as the key to finding a partner. What can shoulder some of the load? I would suggest that we rely a little more on what science has discovered about human attraction.

For instance, some researchers can now predict whether a couple will stay together with far more accuracy than the couple themselves. And it has less to do with the things we might think, such as fighting, and far more to do with the things we take for granted, such as asking your spouse about his or her day.

According to a 1982 study by two Indian researchers, the level of self-reported love in arranged marriages increased over time. They reported more love than in marriages that were freely chosen. Incredible as it sounds, people with a very limited say in choosing their own spouses eventually became happier with their relationships than people with the freedom to choose anyone they wanted.

Although we almost always read "Romeo and Juliet" as a story of love at first sight, Shakespeare actually offered his own critique of romantic love at the beginning of the play. Romeo is pining away for love -- but not for Juliet. There is another fair damsel who has rejected Romeo's advances, and he declares himself inconsolable. He disdains finding someone else and tells Benvolio, "Thou canst not teach me to forget" -- which is, of course, precisely what happens a few scenes later when Romeo meets Juliet and realizes that he was completely wrong before and only now has discovered true love.

We never remember that part of the story, though, because if we think of "Romeo and Juliet" from that perspective, the whole play starts to contradict our usual romantic notions.

Perhaps the time has come for us to take a skeptical view of romance We should realize that "Romeo and Juliet" has led us astray. Shakespeare's story may be entertaining, but it is disastrous dating advice.

• -          Do you believe Shakespeare believed in love at first site or was criticizing it?
• 
  
• -          Do you believe in love at first site? Why or why not?
• 
  
• -          What do you think about the information the author uncovered about love in arranged marriages vs. love in freely chosen marriages?
• 
  
• -          What is your favorite love story of all time? From a book, television show, movie or real life? Why is it your favorite? 

Period 3 Blog #14

Your comment post should be at least 330 words this week due Tuesday by 11:59 pm and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Thursday at 11:59 pm.

A Harvard professor says he can cure aging, but is that a good idea?

By Joel Achenbach

At the gene-editing summit, you can’t miss George Church. He’s the big guy with the bushy beard and wavy hair, someone who looks like he stepped out of an 18th century painting of “natural philosophers.” Church, who is 61, is among several hundred scientists, policymakers and thinkers on hand to discuss the powerful technology known as CRISPR, a new method for editing genes. The technique was invented in the past four years, and Church is among those who can claim at least partial credit for the innovation.

I mentioned to Church that this is the kind of work for which Nobel Prizes are awarded. He quickly responded that there are more important things in the balance than prizes. There are cures for human diseases, he said.

Church thinks that one of the ailments he can cure is aging. When I met him early this year, in his laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he is professor of genetics, he expressed confidence that in just five or six years he will be able to reverse the aging process in human beings.

“A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy — not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging,” he said.

He noted that mice die after 2.5 years but bowhead whales can live to be 180 or 200.

“One of our biggest economic disasters right now is our aging population. If we eliminate retirement, then it buys us a couple of decades to straighten out the economies of the world,” he said.

“If all those gray hairs could go back to work and feel healthy and young,” he said, “then we’ve averted one of the greatest economic disasters in history.”

He went on: “Someone younger at heart should replace you, and that should be you. I’m willing to. I’m willing to become younger. I try to reinvent myself every few years anyway.”

So on Tuesday, I asked him if he was still on track to reversing the aging process in the next five years or so. He said yes — and that it’s already happening in mice in the laboratory. The best way to predict the future, he said, is to predict things that have already happened.

For most of us lay people, what’s striking here is not the way that scientists fiddle with the code of life but the mere fact that they do it at all. Awed though we may be by the skills of the experimenters, we naturally question whether this is a good idea.

That’s the whole point of the gene-editing summit: To find a path forward that fosters innovation but avoids crossing into unethical territory. Gene-editing could be a tool for eliminating heritable diseases. But it just as easily could be used for purely cosmetic enhancements, or for something smacking of eugenics. The gravest concern is that CRISPR enables germline edits that get passed on to future generations. You’re permanently changing the human species when you do that.

Intellectual humility requires scientists to go slowly. Editing genes isn’t like renovating your kitchen. As Klaus Rajewsky, of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine, pointed out Tuesday, “We have become masters in the art of manipulating genes, but our understanding of their function and interaction is far more limited.”

Eric Lander, who heads the Broad Institute in Cambridge and was a leader of the effort to sequence the human genome, addressed both the enormous possibilities of the new technologies and the reasons for being extremely cautious. He said there are 4,000 to 5,000 genetic variants associated with human diseases. But these variants don’t necessarily cause those diseases; they just make them slightly more prevalent. Moreover, genes can have multiple purposes — day jobs and night jobs, as Lander put it. These are complex systems, not modules that you can pop out and replace with a better version with zero unintended consequences.

Lander said he could think of only a handful of human diseases that CRISPR could plausibly address at this time, and even then, he said, we should ask whether such genetic manipulation is a good idea. That’s because Nature has had millions of years to do the same experiment and has not done so.

“If it is such a good idea, I want to scratch my head and say why didn’t evolution try to do that, and increase that in the population?” Lander said.

“We largely exist in a state of limited knowledge,” he said. “Before we make permanent changes to the human gene pool, we should exercise considerable caution.”

Which brings us back to aging. Is it a bug, or a feature?

In reporting this item I came across a story I wrote on biotech and Craig Venter, published on Nov. 29, 1998, in the Post magazine. The most surprising line came from Venter:

“Intelligent application of this technology is one to two centuries away.”

A surprising comment from one of the big boosters of synthetic biology.

Perfection may be a dangerous goal. Nature has feedback systems. There are microbes that adapt to our every move. We think of ourselves as the rulers of the planet; the microbes think of us as a useful host. At some level, we’re still just a bunch of meat.

Perfection may not even be a goal worth pursuing. There is something more interesting about a mortal, imperfect life. Here’s a thought: The revolutionaries of the future will be the people who keep their lives natural. They will choose to grow old. They will allow themselves to experience pain and suffering, so that their joys and triumphs will be all the more intense. They will walk in the woods and sing songs and appreciate the bounty of the planet. Two lovers might put down a blanket and have a picnic. They will fall asleep, because they still get sleepy. They will do this instead of going to the lab to be genetically reengineered.

-Does this author think that reverse aging is a good idea? How do you know?

-Do you believe that reverse aging is a good idea or a dangerous one? Why or why not?

- Would you like to go back to a younger age? If so, why and what age? If not, why not?

Period 4/5 Blog #14

Your comment post should be at least 330 words this week due Tuesday by 11:59 pm and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Thursday at 11:59 pm.

A Harvard professor says he can cure aging, but is that a good idea?

By Joel Achenbach

At the gene-editing summit, you can’t miss George Church. He’s the big guy with the bushy beard and wavy hair, someone who looks like he stepped out of an 18th century painting of “natural philosophers.” Church, who is 61, is among several hundred scientists, policymakers and thinkers on hand to discuss the powerful technology known as CRISPR, a new method for editing genes. The technique was invented in the past four years, and Church is among those who can claim at least partial credit for the innovation.

I mentioned to Church that this is the kind of work for which Nobel Prizes are awarded. He quickly responded that there are more important things in the balance than prizes. There are cures for human diseases, he said.

Church thinks that one of the ailments he can cure is aging. When I met him early this year, in his laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he is professor of genetics, he expressed confidence that in just five or six years he will be able to reverse the aging process in human beings.

“A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy — not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging,” he said.

He noted that mice die after 2.5 years but bowhead whales can live to be 180 or 200.

“One of our biggest economic disasters right now is our aging population. If we eliminate retirement, then it buys us a couple of decades to straighten out the economies of the world,” he said.

“If all those gray hairs could go back to work and feel healthy and young,” he said, “then we’ve averted one of the greatest economic disasters in history.”

He went on: “Someone younger at heart should replace you, and that should be you. I’m willing to. I’m willing to become younger. I try to reinvent myself every few years anyway.”

So on Tuesday, I asked him if he was still on track to reversing the aging process in the next five years or so. He said yes — and that it’s already happening in mice in the laboratory. The best way to predict the future, he said, is to predict things that have already happened.

For most of us lay people, what’s striking here is not the way that scientists fiddle with the code of life but the mere fact that they do it at all. Awed though we may be by the skills of the experimenters, we naturally question whether this is a good idea.

That’s the whole point of the gene-editing summit: To find a path forward that fosters innovation but avoids crossing into unethical territory. Gene-editing could be a tool for eliminating heritable diseases. But it just as easily could be used for purely cosmetic enhancements, or for something smacking of eugenics. The gravest concern is that CRISPR enables germline edits that get passed on to future generations. You’re permanently changing the human species when you do that.

Intellectual humility requires scientists to go slowly. Editing genes isn’t like renovating your kitchen. As Klaus Rajewsky, of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine, pointed out Tuesday, “We have become masters in the art of manipulating genes, but our understanding of their function and interaction is far more limited.”

Eric Lander, who heads the Broad Institute in Cambridge and was a leader of the effort to sequence the human genome, addressed both the enormous possibilities of the new technologies and the reasons for being extremely cautious. He said there are 4,000 to 5,000 genetic variants associated with human diseases. But these variants don’t necessarily cause those diseases; they just make them slightly more prevalent. Moreover, genes can have multiple purposes — day jobs and night jobs, as Lander put it. These are complex systems, not modules that you can pop out and replace with a better version with zero unintended consequences.

Lander said he could think of only a handful of human diseases that CRISPR could plausibly address at this time, and even then, he said, we should ask whether such genetic manipulation is a good idea. That’s because Nature has had millions of years to do the same experiment and has not done so.

“If it is such a good idea, I want to scratch my head and say why didn’t evolution try to do that, and increase that in the population?” Lander said.

“We largely exist in a state of limited knowledge,” he said. “Before we make permanent changes to the human gene pool, we should exercise considerable caution.”

Which brings us back to aging. Is it a bug, or a feature?

In reporting this item I came across a story I wrote on biotech and Craig Venter, published on Nov. 29, 1998, in the Post magazine. The most surprising line came from Venter:

“Intelligent application of this technology is one to two centuries away.”

A surprising comment from one of the big boosters of synthetic biology.

Perfection may be a dangerous goal. Nature has feedback systems. There are microbes that adapt to our every move. We think of ourselves as the rulers of the planet; the microbes think of us as a useful host. At some level, we’re still just a bunch of meat.

Perfection may not even be a goal worth pursuing. There is something more interesting about a mortal, imperfect life. Here’s a thought: The revolutionaries of the future will be the people who keep their lives natural. They will choose to grow old. They will allow themselves to experience pain and suffering, so that their joys and triumphs will be all the more intense. They will walk in the woods and sing songs and appreciate the bounty of the planet. Two lovers might put down a blanket and have a picnic. They will fall asleep, because they still get sleepy. They will do this instead of going to the lab to be genetically reengineered.

-Does this author think that reverse aging is a good idea? How do you know?

-Do you believe that reverse aging is a good idea or a dangerous one? Why or why not?

- Would you like to go back to a younger age? If so, why and what age? If not, why not?

Period 9/10 Blog #14

Your comment post should be at least 330 words this week due Tuesday by 11:59 pm and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Thursday at 11:59 pm.

Romeo and Juliet' has led us astray

Romantic love, love at first sight -- it's great theater but disastrous dating advice.

February 14, 2010|By Andrew Trees

What if Shakespeare had it wrong about love in "Romeo and Juliet"? In fact, what if all of us have it wrong and our ideals of love and romance are hopeless? Perhaps the time has come to reconsider the concept of romantic love. We need to ask whether, in the pursuit of the perfect romance, we haven't actually declared war on true love. Cupid's arrow does strike often, but with the U.S. divorce rate near 50%, one has to wonder whether the wound is particularly deep or long-lasting.

Our typical romantic beliefs are quite often wrong. For instance, even couples who are blissfully happy together can't count on a happy ending. The PAIR project, a long-term academic study of couples, found that those most in love when they marry are also the most likely to get divorced.

And the chemical attraction that many people rely on to choose a partner has been found to fade "to neutrality" in two to three years. That's right, neutrality, which is deadly for a marriage. In my research, I even discovered that wife murderers tend to be strong believers in the romantic ideal. Take that, Romeo and Juliet.

Love and romance did not always rule. As recently as the 1930s, American men ranked mutual attraction as only the fourth most important quality for a relationship, while women had it even lower, placing it fifth. But in recent decades, love has climbed to No. 1, accompanied by a rise in the importance of looks, which suggests that our romance with romance is long on style and short on substance.

I hate to sound unromantic, but perhaps it's time to place less emphasis on romantic attraction as the key to finding a partner. What can shoulder some of the load? I would suggest that we rely a little more on what science has discovered about human attraction.

For instance, some researchers can now predict whether a couple will stay together with far more accuracy than the couple themselves. And it has less to do with the things we might think, such as fighting, and far more to do with the things we take for granted, such as asking your spouse about his or her day.

According to a 1982 study by two Indian researchers, the level of self-reported love in arranged marriages increased over time. They reported more love than in marriages that were freely chosen. Incredible as it sounds, people with a very limited say in choosing their own spouses eventually became happier with their relationships than people with the freedom to choose anyone they wanted.

Although we almost always read "Romeo and Juliet" as a story of love at first sight, Shakespeare actually offered his own critique of romantic love at the beginning of the play. Romeo is pining away for love -- but not for Juliet. There is another fair damsel who has rejected Romeo's advances, and he declares himself inconsolable. He disdains finding someone else and tells Benvolio, "Thou canst not teach me to forget" -- which is, of course, precisely what happens a few scenes later when Romeo meets Juliet and realizes that he was completely wrong before and only now has discovered true love.

We never remember that part of the story, though, because if we think of "Romeo and Juliet" from that perspective, the whole play starts to contradict our usual romantic notions.

Perhaps the time has come for us to take a skeptical view of romance We should realize that "Romeo and Juliet" has led us astray. Shakespeare's story may be entertaining, but it is disastrous dating advice.

• -          Do you believe Shakespeare believed in love at first site or was criticizing it?
• 
  
• -          Do you believe in love at first site? Why or why not?
• 
  
• -          What do you think about the information the author uncovered about love in arranged marriages vs. love in freely chosen marriages?
• 
  
• -          What is your favorite love story of all time? From a book, television show, movie or real life? Why is it your favorite? 

Period 11 Blog #14

Your comment post should be at least 330 words this week due Tuesday by 11:59 pm and you will be responsible for responding (respectfully) to one of your classmates in at least a one paragraph reply entries by Thursday at 11:59 pm.

A Harvard professor says he can cure aging, but is that a good idea?

By Joel Achenbach

At the gene-editing summit, you can’t miss George Church. He’s the big guy with the bushy beard and wavy hair, someone who looks like he stepped out of an 18th century painting of “natural philosophers.” Church, who is 61, is among several hundred scientists, policymakers and thinkers on hand to discuss the powerful technology known as CRISPR, a new method for editing genes. The technique was invented in the past four years, and Church is among those who can claim at least partial credit for the innovation.

I mentioned to Church that this is the kind of work for which Nobel Prizes are awarded. He quickly responded that there are more important things in the balance than prizes. There are cures for human diseases, he said.

Church thinks that one of the ailments he can cure is aging. When I met him early this year, in his laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he is professor of genetics, he expressed confidence that in just five or six years he will be able to reverse the aging process in human beings.

“A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy — not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging,” he said.

He noted that mice die after 2.5 years but bowhead whales can live to be 180 or 200.

“One of our biggest economic disasters right now is our aging population. If we eliminate retirement, then it buys us a couple of decades to straighten out the economies of the world,” he said.

“If all those gray hairs could go back to work and feel healthy and young,” he said, “then we’ve averted one of the greatest economic disasters in history.”

He went on: “Someone younger at heart should replace you, and that should be you. I’m willing to. I’m willing to become younger. I try to reinvent myself every few years anyway.”

So on Tuesday, I asked him if he was still on track to reversing the aging process in the next five years or so. He said yes — and that it’s already happening in mice in the laboratory. The best way to predict the future, he said, is to predict things that have already happened.

For most of us lay people, what’s striking here is not the way that scientists fiddle with the code of life but the mere fact that they do it at all. Awed though we may be by the skills of the experimenters, we naturally question whether this is a good idea.

That’s the whole point of the gene-editing summit: To find a path forward that fosters innovation but avoids crossing into unethical territory. Gene-editing could be a tool for eliminating heritable diseases. But it just as easily could be used for purely cosmetic enhancements, or for something smacking of eugenics. The gravest concern is that CRISPR enables germline edits that get passed on to future generations. You’re permanently changing the human species when you do that.

Intellectual humility requires scientists to go slowly. Editing genes isn’t like renovating your kitchen. As Klaus Rajewsky, of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine, pointed out Tuesday, “We have become masters in the art of manipulating genes, but our understanding of their function and interaction is far more limited.”

Eric Lander, who heads the Broad Institute in Cambridge and was a leader of the effort to sequence the human genome, addressed both the enormous possibilities of the new technologies and the reasons for being extremely cautious. He said there are 4,000 to 5,000 genetic variants associated with human diseases. But these variants don’t necessarily cause those diseases; they just make them slightly more prevalent. Moreover, genes can have multiple purposes — day jobs and night jobs, as Lander put it. These are complex systems, not modules that you can pop out and replace with a better version with zero unintended consequences.

Lander said he could think of only a handful of human diseases that CRISPR could plausibly address at this time, and even then, he said, we should ask whether such genetic manipulation is a good idea. That’s because Nature has had millions of years to do the same experiment and has not done so.

“If it is such a good idea, I want to scratch my head and say why didn’t evolution try to do that, and increase that in the population?” Lander said.

“We largely exist in a state of limited knowledge,” he said. “Before we make permanent changes to the human gene pool, we should exercise considerable caution.”

Which brings us back to aging. Is it a bug, or a feature?

In reporting this item I came across a story I wrote on biotech and Craig Venter, published on Nov. 29, 1998, in the Post magazine. The most surprising line came from Venter:

“Intelligent application of this technology is one to two centuries away.”

A surprising comment from one of the big boosters of synthetic biology.

Perfection may be a dangerous goal. Nature has feedback systems. There are microbes that adapt to our every move. We think of ourselves as the rulers of the planet; the microbes think of us as a useful host. At some level, we’re still just a bunch of meat.

Perfection may not even be a goal worth pursuing. There is something more interesting about a mortal, imperfect life. Here’s a thought: The revolutionaries of the future will be the people who keep their lives natural. They will choose to grow old. They will allow themselves to experience pain and suffering, so that their joys and triumphs will be all the more intense. They will walk in the woods and sing songs and appreciate the bounty of the planet. Two lovers might put down a blanket and have a picnic. They will fall asleep, because they still get sleepy. They will do this instead of going to the lab to be genetically reengineered.

-Does this author think that reverse aging is a good idea? How do you know?

-Do you believe that reverse aging is a good idea or a dangerous one? Why or why not?

- Would you like to go back to a younger age? If so, why and what age? If not, why not?