Nobel Scientist: When Did We Start to Value Killing Over Living?

[acri1]

SCIENCE
Nobel Scientist: When Did We Start to Value Killing Over Living?
Elizabeth Blackburn
Apr 13, 2017

Dr. Blackburn, a winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

As human beings, we’re hardwired to stay alive. Neuroscientists explain that evolution has installed survival instincts into our brains, equipping us with a strong will to live. Thus, when pummeled by capricious catastrophes, stripped of possessions, metaphorically sent back to “GO,” we nevertheless emerge saying, “At least I’m alive.” And we forge on. Because above all else, we value life.

So when I review the proposed federal budget, I’m moved to wonder: When did we start to value killing over living? This budget, which increases defense spending by $54 billion, enabling us to fire more guns, drop bigger bombs and shoot deadlier missiles, at the same time decimates funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the organization actively helping us live longer and healthier lives. If approved, the proposed cuts of $5.8 billion — a roughly 20% decrease from 2017 spending — will drastically and illogically throttle the very accomplishments that are extending our lives. In recent years, NIH funding has led to medical breakthroughs that include cholesterol-lowering drugs, molecular targets for halting cancer’s spread and early diagnostics for neurological diseases. Every day, because of NIH’s monetary support, scientific researchers at America’s top institutions continue to announce new insights that are pointing the way to more effective medical treatments and longer lives.

And the pace of discovery is accelerating. Thanks to a rise in interdisciplinary collaboration — physicists working with biologists who consult with medical doctors and meet with sociologists — truly novel strategies for confronting disease are well under way. Mind-boggling technological advances such as CRISPR are allowing us to repair genetic mutations before they can cause devastating ailments. And access to big data — providing the ability to analyze hundreds of comprehensive studies, compare subject details and identify threads of commonality — is ultimately equipping physicians with the knowledge to match an individual patient with an ideal, newly discovered therapy. The breadth of this data is beyond the scope of any one medical professional.

We find ourselves, after decades of scientific research, in a position to move from battling a disease only after it’s been diagnosed, to effectively intercepting it before it spreads. We can now predict disease with ever greater accuracy and we can take steps to prevent it from taking hold in the first place. This places us on the threshold of an amazing era of scientific discovery. We can’t pull back now.

Because gutting NIH funding won’t simply suspend scientific research. It will kill it. Long-term studies will be shelved; laboratory teams with deep expertise that takes years to acquire will rapidly disintegrate. All of that incisive work and accumulated insight will have been for nothing. We’ll lose all of the gains we’ve made and, further, we’ll fall so far behind the disease curve that we’ll lose our ability to respond to the next national catastrophe. What if, as many military experts predict, the next terrorist attack is a biological one? Only a few years ago, a senior FBI official put the probability of a biological attack on the U.S. at 100%. Better than an expanded military defense budget, then, is an expanded health defense budget.

And speaking of terrorists, are we sure we’re defending ourselves against the real ones? Hasn’t cancer, for example, hurt more of our family members than any radicalized individual? Surely this wily disease is one of society’s biggest enemies. Yet guns and missiles won’t stop it. The best weapon we have for fighting cancer, as well as other enemies of modern society (diabetes, Alzheimer’s, obesity, Parkinson’s), is scientific research. I assure you that when your doctor says, “You have Stage 3 cancer,” you don’t battle it with a shiny new tank. You cripple its cellular mechanisms with knowledge born of NIH-supported research and you develop novel strategies to impede its spread.

That’s exactly what America’s most brilliant scientific minds are doing. Backed by NIH funding, our scientists are demonstrating how to use cellular signaling systems to break the impenetrable shells of pancreatic tumors. They’re engineering synthetic viruses that selectively target breast cancer cells. The immunotherapy treatment that former President Jimmy Carter received after a diagnosis of metastatic melanoma, a diagnosis that a short time ago would have been deemed fatal, was the result of 40 years of incremental successes in understanding how to harness the body’s immune system. All of this long-term scientific research, much of it funded by the NIH, bestows life.

If the Administration proceeds to recklessly grab all that funding from science and put it, instead, into guns aimed across our borders, we will unwittingly allow an unseen enemy to infiltrate: the next and inevitable viral disease pandemic. It will have free rein to surge through our communities, with disastrous consequences, because in addition to slashing support for the NIH, this administration is proposing a $314 million cut to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Robbed of the ability to forearm ourselves with knowledge and medical tools, scientists will be relegated to watching helplessly as countless people die.

Real threats do exist in today’s world. And scientific research presents both a good offense and a good defense. Surely we value human lives enough to continue support.

Nobel Scientist: When Did We Start to Value Killing Over Living?





This is one of the most scary and understated things about this administration. Aside from general antagonism towards non-whites and anyone outside of the US, the disdain for science is some disturbing shyt. Scientific research might get thrown back decades.

 

[JahFocus CS]

Killing is profitable and we live under capitalism.

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

Abortion debate in 5......4.......3.......2......​

 

[DjBhaled]

people just have a fascination with the idea of death

 

[hashmander]

i'd rather the NHS and CDC waste a billion dollars than the military waste a billion.

 

[Camile.Bidan]

It's amazing how so many smart people have no clue about how human beings operate.

Violence for gain been going on for millions of years. It's evident from how chimpanzees behave.




in the paleolithic era 80% of all males died from violence. 80%. I mean get real people.

The greatest people in history, got what they want by smashing their enemies and using force. Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth. These people built the great empires of all time.

I mean the Aryans spread their genetics from deep in Central Asia to all over the world not by being nice, but by a trail of bloodshed and enslavement. 10% of the world are descendants of Ghengis Khan!

Go to any prison yard dominated by lifers where social constraints no longer apply... the most violent and ruthless men control 100s if not 1000s of other men on the yard.

I don't see how any smart person can simple ignore the facts of history. Nice people lose.

 

[DonKnock]

It's amazing how so many smart people have no clue about how human beings operate.

Violence for gain been going on for millions of years. It's evident from how chimpanzees behave.




in the paleolithic era 80% of all males died from violence. 80%. I mean get real people.

The greatest people in history, got what they want by smashing their enemies and using force. Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar, Queen Elizabeth. These people built the great empires of all time.

I mean the Aryans spread their genetics from deep in Central Asia to all over the world not by being nice, but by a trail of bloodshed and enslavement. 10% of the world are descendants of Ghengis Khan!

Go to any prison yard dominated by lifers where social constraints no longer apply... the most violent and ruthless men control 100s if not 1000s of other men on the yard.

I don't see how any smart person can simple ignore the facts of history. Nice people lose.

This is a premodern mentality.


We live in a postmodern world now.

There are other ways of exercising power that weren't available in those times.

Financial, digital, medical.

None of these were available to Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, QE.

Continuing to carry this mindset going forward shows a failure to adapt, not testament to history.

Nuclear bombs and M.A.D. Theory neutralize much of the global threat of violence as geopolitical power.

We have nukes, how much more violent would you like us to get?

Would you, championing this mentality, say we should just go ahead and nuke anyone that crosses us? Because that is the logical end that it would be taken to using your argument.

 

[thekingsmen]

The PR campaign for death and destruction increased after the civil war with the push that sacrifice of others is valued to society. The Elite created this viewpoint and pushed full throttle from the 20 century til now.

 

[Camile.Bidan]

This is a premodern mentality.


We live in a postmodern world now.

There are other ways of exercising power that weren't available in those times.

Financial, digital, medical.

None of these were available to Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, QE.

Continuing to carry this mindset going forward shows a failure to adapt, not testament to history.

Nuclear bombs and M.A.D. Theory neutralize much of the global threat of violence as geopolitical power.

We have nukes, how much more violent would you like us to get?

Would you, championing this mentality, say we should just go ahead and nuke anyone that crosses us? Because that is the logical end that it would be taken to using your argument.

Really?

Despite facing the financial and digital consequences that you mentioned, Russia has continues to operate in territory that the international community does not recognize.

China built a military installation in disputed territory, and continues to operate this military installation despite the ruling of internal courts and internal law.

What you don't seem to understand is that the fear of death or injury is more powerful than any other ramification or punishment. In the post modern era, China and Russia get what they want by taking it, and they use guns and steel to re-enforce their positions. Because of their tactics, they have been able to unlawfully take and hold territories for extended periods. Nothing, other than a complete counter-position using equal amounts of force, is going to show the world, that their behavior will not be tolerated.

Mutual Assured Destruction led to a long period of relative peace. If that ever gets taken away, frequent wars between major powers, that existed before MAD, will return.

Are nukes necessary? I don't know, but if the USA takes out North Korea, then the international community will understand that their little nuke piles won't stop the wraith of the United States, and if they gotta fukking problem, we will solve it.

 

[Eddy Gordo]

I like how the author tries to make the case for continuing research funding by bringing up bio weapons. But this is America education and research have never been priorities. Even less so now apparently.

 

[DonKnock]

Really?

Despite facing the financial and digital consequences that you mentioned, Russia has continues to operate in territory that the international community does not recognize.

China built a military installation in disputed territory, and continues to operate this military installation despite the ruling of internal courts and internal law.

What you don't seem to understand is that the fear of death or injury is more powerful than any other ramification or punishment. In the post modern era, China and Russia get what they want by taking it, and they use guns and steel to re-enforce their positions. Because of their tactics, they have been able to unlawfully take and hold territories for extended periods. Nothing, other than a complete counter-position using equal amounts of force, is going to show the world, that their behavior will not be tolerated.

Mutual Assured Destruction led to a long period of relative peace. If that ever gets taken away, frequent wars between major powers, that existed before MAD, will return.

Are nukes necessary? I don't know, but if the USA takes out North Korea, then the international community will understand that their little nuke piles won't stop the wraith of the United States, and if they gotta fukking problem, we will solve it.

If Russia's military efforts were so effective on their own, why did they go to great lengths to try and get a puppet president installed in our country to lift the ECONOMIC sacntions we're holding over them

 

[Eddy Gordo]

Really?

Despite facing the financial and digital consequences that you mentioned, Russia has continues to operate in territory that the international community does not recognize.

China built a military installation in disputed territory, and continues to operate this military installation despite the ruling of internal courts and internal law.

What you don't seem to understand is that the fear of death or injury is more powerful than any other ramification or punishment. In the post modern era, China and Russia get what they want by taking it, and they use guns and steel to re-enforce their positions. Because of their tactics, they have been able to unlawfully take and hold territories for extended periods. Nothing, other than a complete counter-position using equal amounts of force, is going to show the world, that their behavior will not be tolerated.

Mutual Assured Destruction led to a long period of relative peace. If that ever gets taken away, frequent wars between major powers, that existed before MAD, will return.

Are nukes necessary? I don't know, but if the USA takes out North Korea, then the international community will understand that their little nuke piles won't stop the wraith of the United States, and if they gotta fukking problem, we will solve it.

And when someone finally gets enough pull and takes the major W on the US in war?

 

[ORDER_66]

Human beings and White people have always lived their lives for War... They don't give a fukk... human history war and death and has always been the onus. armed conflict has always been the end all be all of conflict they never seek to solve conflict through peace, always aggression...

 

[DonKnock]

And when someone finally gets enough pull and takes the major W on the US in war?

By his logic Korea should already have us shook as hell because their leader is more violent than ours

 

[Eddy Gordo]

By his logic Korea should already have us shook as hell because their leader is more violent than ours

I don't think so. I think he got that American white people perspective. That we always gonna be on top so we can do what we want to everybody else worldview. Not realizing that time is undefeated and all empires fall. When some major power does finally hand America a L and they come over here raping and pillaging he gonna be the same dude
"WHAT DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS?"