Has Silver Ever Responded to This?

Funny that you ask. National Review Online (which is where my debate with Professor George took place) had no interest in promoting a "fair and balanced" discussion. My first response to George's first attack article was held up for weeks by NRO until George's response was ready for the publication the following day. The same tactic was used on my second response to George -- clearly NRO wanted to make sure that George's position got lots of playtime in the absence of any rebuttal, while my response was rebutted immediately. Finally, NRO refused to publish my last rebuttal to George's last attack on the accuracy of my science. Is it any wonder that real biologists have no interest in debating those who cling to an absolutist Catholic-inspired position on these issues?

With all due respect to George's prowess as a Constitutional scholar, he has no scientific training, he has never published a scientific article, and he doesn't understand the current state of molecular biology or developmental biology. His degrees in Divinity, philosophy, and law don't work in this field. Below are some paragraphs from my two rebuttals. To read them in full, go here [www.leemsilver.net] and here[www.leemsilver.net]. For a much longer critique of George's position, you can read my book: [www.amazon.com]

2ND LETTER: it is pointless to debate scientific details when even simple words like "life" and "death" are interpreted by you in ways that are foreign to most practicing biologists. So instead, I would like to put to the test your 'argument from authority' claim, which holds that the embryo-is-a-human-being proposition "is a fact confirmed by contemporary embryology and attested to by the standard works in the field." In fact, none of the standard texts you've quoted -- or any other prominent biology textbook used at major nonsectarian universities -- actually states that an "embryo" is a "human being?" (It won't do to pretend that biologists use the term "human life" as a standard synonym for "human being." Human cells growing and dividing indefinitely in petri dishes are fully alive -- in biological terms -- and fully human in their constituent parts, and yet you yourselves do not consider them to be human beings.) Furthermore, if the embryo-is-a-human-being proposition really is "confirmed by contemporary embryology," you might expect at least one of the 52 active professors in the two biology departments at the esteemed university where Professor George and I teach to acknowledge this supposedly confirmed "fact." I challenge Professor George to identify one -- just one -- Princeton biology professor who shares this viewpoint. (As an incentive, if you can come up with one name, I will buy you both a case of wine from the same vineyard that produced the delightful bottle I shared with Professor George at a pleasant dinner some years ago.)
If your search for like-minded Princeton biologists comes up empty-handed, you might argue that the liberal or libertarian milieu of Ivy League science faculties discourages professors from expressing any truly-held conservative views. But, in fact, many unabashed, culturally conservative academics simply don't agree with you either. One who takes exception is University of Chicago professor Leon Kass, the former chairman of President Bush's Council on Bioethics, on which Professor George also sits. Kass has written, "I myself would agree that a blastocyst [an embryo that is 4 to 9 days post-fertilization] is not, in a full sense, a human being." (Toward a More Natural Science, p.104). Not only is Professor Kass an accomplished scholar in the area of bioethics, he also holds both a medical degree and a Harvard Ph.D. in biochemistry. I assume, Professor George, that you've had many chances to persuade Professor Kass with your "careful argumentation and the presentation of the relevant biological facts," and (as far as I can tell), you haven't succeeded. Indeed, from my admittedly subjective point of view, it seems that most academic biologists, most nonsectarian bioethicists, most physicians, and most university-educated conservatives (forget about liberals and libertarians) don't agree with you. So what gives. Are they all stupid, ignorant, or disingenuous?
As I stated in my previous letter, there is nothing -- no fact or concept -- that will ever make you budge from your belief in the unassailable truth of the view that an embryo is a human being. It is this form of absolutism that led me to brand you as fundamentalists, mocked in the title of your original book review. However, since I was not raised or educated in a strictly religious tradition, you could argue that I don't really understand the difference between fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists. But there's no need to take my word for it because the self-described practicing-Catholic and conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan reaches exactly the same conclusion about Professor George in his hard-hitting new book, "The Conservative Soul." According to Sullivan, George and others who hold his extreme views are fundamentalists. Sullivan explains that "the fundamentalist does not tolerate a diversity of views. There is one truth; and all other pretenders are threats to it, or contradict it . . . Fundamentalists assert a central core idea and then contort or distort reality in order to make it fit their model." In a world where life and death become entirely divorced from any connection to modern biological understanding, only faith remains. It is faith of a particular type, not science, that drives the belief that the embryo shown in one of the pictures above is a human being, while the other object is not. This sort of faith is not amenable to debate, which is why this will be my final word on the subject.

THIRD LETTER (previously unpublished): Here are some indisputable facts concerning the writings and views of other scientists. (1) It is nowhere written in any current, standard textbook of embryology or developmental biology (including the one authored by Bruce Carlson) that a human embryo is a human "being." (2) Among the 52 professors of biology at Princeton University, not a single one agrees with your view that a human embryo is a human "being" and "radically different" from a bunch of embryonic stem cells in biological terms. (My offer of a case of Bordeaux to each of you still stands if you can convince just one of these professors to recant.) Now you can spin these facts any which way you want (and I am sure you will); you can present examples of token non-Princeton biologists who agree with you; but the consensus of the biomedical community is contrary to your claim.
So why should anyone trust your supposed understanding of scientific truth? In contrast to all Princeton biology professors, neither of you has a degree in science or medicine, and neither of you has ever published a single scientific research paper. To support your belief in the uniqueness of human embryos, you invent scientific-sounding phrases like "epigenetic primordia" and "internal active disposition" that have never been used by actual scientists in scientific publications. I would like to suggest that you may find it useful to sit-in on my Princeton course WWS320/MOL320, "Human Genetics, Reproduction, and Public Policy" to gain an appreciation for the difference between rhetoric and scientific analysis.
. . . I would be glad to debate these issues with either or both of you before a live audience at a place and time of your choosing. But as far as comments "in print" go, I promise that this really is my final word.

POSTSCRIPT: Professor George refuses to debate me or any other molecular biologist on the issues of molecular embryology and theology.