I have drifted away from Taoism in recent weeks.  A trip to an election in another country will do that to you… But I saw a story in today’s NYT that had my Taoist antenna tingling: Scientists Take New Step Toward Man-Made Life.  Here are the first couple of grafs:

Taking a significant step toward the creation of man-made forms of
life, researchers reported Thursday that they had manufactured the
entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its
chemical components.

While scientists had previously synthesized the complete DNA of
viruses, this is the first time it has been done for bacteria, which
are much more complex. The genome is more than 10 times as long as the
longest piece of DNA ever previously synthesized.

The feat is a
watershed for the emerging field called synthetic biology, which
involves the design of organisms to perform particular tasks, such as
making biofuels. Synthetic biologists envision being able one day to
design an organism on a computer, press the “print” button to have the
necessary DNA made, and then put that DNA into a cell to produce a
custom-made creature.

 So, right away passage 29 of the Tao Te Ching rushes through my mind:

Longing to take hold of all beneath heaven and improve it…
I’ve seen such dreams invariably fail.
All beneath heaven is a sacred vessel,
something beyond all improvement.
Try to improve it and you ruin it.
Try to hold it and you lose it.

For things sometimes lead and sometimes follow,
sometimes sigh and sometimes storm,
sometimes strengthen and sometimes weaken,
sometimes kill and sometimes die.

And so the sage steers clear of extremes,
clear of extravagance,
clear of exaltation.

     I don’t think that this necessitates an absolutist anti-science fundamentalism but, rather, simply a certain skepticism about the most grandiose claims of scientific progress and truth.  A Taoist would ask: why are we doing this?  And what unanticipated results might emerge (I know, we cannot know ahead of time what will be unanticipated…)?  And, indeed, further on in the story the possibility of ruin emerging from improvement is to be found:

But there are concerns that synthetic biology could be used to make
pathogens, or that errors by well-intended scientists could produce
organisms that run amok. The genome of the smallpox
virus can in theory now be synthesized using the techniques reported on
Thursday, since it is only about one-third the size of the genome
manufactured by Dr. Venter’s group.

…

Some activist groups say Dr. Venter is going too far, too fast, this
time, and that the entire field of synthetic biology needs outside
regulation to prevent the introduction of dangerous organisms, created
either by evil intent or by innocent error.

     How can we control the long-term effects of human invention?  We can’t it would seem.  All of our prosperity and economic growth and modern conveniences are, quite literally, melting the planet beneath us.  I am not as pessimistic as John Gray, whose book Straw Dogs I have now read, but it is hard to see how the horrible possibilities of man-made pathogens can be completely avoided.

     Interestingly enough, I do not associate Taoism with pessimism. Chuang Tzu, especially, always seems to be happy and care-free.  The world may be going to hell in a hand basket all around him, but he laughs.  C’est la vie, or c’est la Tao, he might say.  Human arrogance might well brings its own extinction but, for now, enjoy the scenery and don’t worry about what the synthetic biologists are cooking up.   Steer clear of their extravagance…