Does biology have an ethic? a poem for discussion

Faith & Science Conversation
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Bio Ethic

Lightward the green sapling shoved,

Beckoned by Sun’s unfailing love.

Did the sprig tell the next of kin,

Of times of drought and thunders din?

Did wanting untouchable fruit above,

And its lifeward gift of love.

Cause necks to grow to such a state,

To ever an increasing rate?

Was every cell’s lifeward striving,

Responsible for nature’s very thriving?

Was the doe’s choice to mate,

A good selection or random fate?

For placed within the strong buck’s lure,

Her posterties future is secure.

Can memories of ancestral consternation,

Be seeded in newborn contemplation?

Can embodied experience somehow brand,

The coded helix’s double strand?

Mutation resists the lifeward call,

But goodness draws progression all.

Why do immune cells onward fight,

To see me rise after the night?

It seems so strange they battle on,

To provide my soul, another dawn.

Though tiny they be with every strength of might,

To see me live is their delight.

A seed must die for life to spring,

The gospel chant for all to sing.

And when in virgin the Seed was sown,

He also lifeward leaned and groaned.

But in self sacrifice from the cross did call,

To break death’s cycle once for all.

“It is finished” was his cry,

And thus He brought life’s full supply.

So as each cell still lifeward yearns,

With all the memories past have learned.

Provides humanity with the choice,

To heed Jesus now calling voice.

For life eternal is on offer,

The coin was placed within the coffer.

So now this day like green sapling shoved,

Bend arms upward toward the Son’s pure love.

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live”

God

Deuteronomy 30:19

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Is the question about Bioethicists? As in the ethics biologists need when studying and applying it? Or do you mean something like so all living things have ethics?

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I think the latter. the Idea that desiring to live is an ethic in itself, displayed by all living creatures. The higher order of creature the greater good is possible. Humanity displaying the highest from of ethic in the preservation of life. The desire for eternal life is the ultimate seeking of good. The poem also asks if that ethic or striving lifeward is the cause of changes in DNA not random mutation. So why does a creature adapt to environments? because it is seeking the highest good for itself as are each cell in its being.

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Biology is a science and therefore it has the ethics of science: the honesty to test hypotheses rather than trying to prove them, and the objectivity of written procedures which anyone can follow to get the same results.

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I don’t see the connection personally to “striving for immortality as good or bad”.

As for the rest, I just don’t get it. It’s a bit incoherent to me.

Epigenetic within the great new modern synthesis is the science you are looking for. That is what best seems to overlap with the bit I think you are wanting to ask.

Often adaptations are accidental. Most mimicry , as in physical mimicry, seems to be the byproduct of coevolution. It’s not even the animal doing anything itself but rather the actions of the rest.

A caterpillar that looks more like a leaf gets eaten less often than a caterpillar that stands out on a leaf. So all the caterpillars looking like leaves survive because less birds and wasps see them. Overtime the ones that look even more leaf like, does even better. The ones that happen to be still do better than the ones constantly moving around. So that genetic drive to be still begins to dominate.
( hmmm… I think I just slightly pushed myself more towards free will not existing a bit).

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The question raised is, does the Caterpillar desire to live, Green is of more self good in a certain environment so the animal changes to achieve the most good. The highest Creature would be able to seek after eternal Life as that would be the highest self good? so the highest evolved creature would be a religious creature.

Is striving to live, the desire for good? self good? So the notion is that the desire to live and the experience of life is somehow passed onto the next generation in the form of DNA memory which causes the subsequent generations to alter lifeward.
So the lived experience of an organism influences DNA. Which is passed onto the subsequent generation.

So goodness or the Striving Lifeward is what causes changes in biology not random fate.

So could changes be determined By goodness or Lifeward desire

This hypothesis sounds reasonable and possibly testible. Any suggestions for experimental parameters ?

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Since the Caterpillar obviously doesn’t have language, answering this question requires us to first ask the question of whether we can extend the meaning of the question beyond language. The caterpillar has no concept or symbolization of the meaning of either desire or survival, but the fact is that practically everything the caterpillar does is about survival and a product of what the species has been learning for billions of years to improve the individual’s chances of survival to the time the individual is capable of reproduction. So make no mistake, there is no voice like we project on things (“the engine that could” animation comes to mind) saying “I want to live.” And yet any attempt by us to understand the caterpillar requires us to see everything it is and does in terms of a drive for survival. Perhaps we can say we project a desire for survival on the caterpillar, but any attempt to excise the notion from our study of the caterpillar is to annihilate any possibility of understanding it.

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Movement is a language of desire. An animal moves toward what it desires and away from what it does not desire. In most circumstances that movement is lifeward. So I would say the movement lifeward is the nonverbal desire of Good. I would agree the level of consciousness varies in all life but everything living seems to be rowing in the same direction, even if that means eating each other.

Jesus dies so we can Live. He says we need to eat God to live… bread and wine, true body and blood of Jesus. All very fascinating.

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I am not so sure about that. Target seeking is a more advance development than movement. I can think of many examples of movement without this. Sure the acquisition of more resources (food) is one of its advantages. But it can simply because movement increases the chances of finding resources and not because it has any capacity to identify food and make that the direction of its movement.

If necessary. Jesus chose to do what was required. But I don’t think it was absolute or that God required it. It was the people who shouted “crucify him!” It is people who required it – our general refusal to change until seeing the innocent die for our sin (and stubbornness) shocks us enough that we want to change. That is why it was still a crime – murder, and Judas is not praised. And I think it is the reason Jesus prayed the way He did in the garden – not because of weakness or uncertainty, but because Jesus could hope that we were better than that.

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There is a feedback loop in biology. Those who desire to both live and reproduce quickly take over after a few generations, assuming those desires are heritable.

Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TEI) is a real thing, but it is usually limited in its effect and is limited to a certain set of species. From a quick scan of the literature, it does appear that it is a real thing in some insect species, as it is for some nematode and plant species. However, I haven’t seen any strong evidence for TEI in vertebrates.

I would also think that the desire to live and reproduce is a function of the DNA sequence in the genome, not epigenetics. This is because TEI is not present in all species, and yet the desire to live and reproduce is found throughout life.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9368798/

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thanks for that info. Would you say the desire to live and reproduce is good? or good seeking.

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This starts to run into the naturalistic fallacy.

Is it good that methicillin resistant S. aureus tries to survive in your body? Is it good that falciparum parasites try to survive in human blood cells causing malaria, one of the leading causes of child mortality in the world?

I tend to think we judge morality separately from those things, or we at least bring in other conditions in addition to desiring to live and reproduce. We also judge different species in different ways, usually based on how similar they are to humans. For example, we don’t afford plants the same ethical protections that we afford chimps. At the same time, we do use empathy as a baseline for ethics, and that would certainly include the right to live and reproduce.

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So it could be established two forms of good, ontological and moral. Life itself in any form seeks the ontological good as ultimate goal is life seeking. Moral good is the application of human intuition in judging the workings of bio-ontological reality. Meaning some forms of life seeking contrast with our sence of morality. For example living peacefully with other beings is the right way to seek life, vs seeking to harm others as a way to seek life. We then apply this judgment downward onto the lower animals. Carnivores,scavengers,poisonous plants, parasites, are worse than herbivores and plants.

I have been looking at clean vs unclean animals/ plants in the Scriptures (Deut 14), the categories seem to generally fall into this division. The Herbivores (ruminate, split hoof) are models of animal goodness, these obey the command in Genesis 1:29,30 to eat the grass and vine. The unclean animals eat things not commanded (pigs are worst is seems). Also the things closer to the ground are unclean, the ground was cursed in Gen 3, satan banished onto the ground. Ground is associated with death which is the juxtaposition of life. Again we see a ontological goodness and human morality underpinning these religious motifs.

Interesting Jesus identifies as the bread and wine which is made of the grass and vine, and tells his followers to eat his body and drink his blood in order to receive eternal life…

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As mentioned in the link in my previous post, we do have the Is-Ought problem. Seeking to live and reproduce just is. It is nearly impossible, or perhaps impossible, to derive Ought from Is.

There are plenty of examples of intraspecies competition. Is it unethical for two ant colonies of the same species to attack one another?

I am of the opinion that any ethical rule that goes against eating pork has to be wrong. :wink:

I always thought it had more to do with the color and texture of bread and wine.

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