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Splices: When Science Catches Up with Science Fiction

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Abstract

This paper examines human-nonhuman splices from a multidisciplinary approach, involving bioengineering and literary studies. Splices are hybrid beings, created through gene-splicing—a process which combines the DNA of the two species, resulting in a hybrid or chimeric being. A current trend in biotechnological research is the use of spliced pigs for xenotransplantation. Hiromitsu Nakauchi’s pancreas study that splices pigs with human iPS [induced pluripotent stem] cells in order to grow human organs inside pigs is being compared to a highly similar case of porcine hybrids: the pigoon from Margaret Atwood’s fictional MaddAddam trilogy. Atwood’s pigoons are pigs, genetically modified with human stem cells to facilitate the growth of various human organs for use in organ transplants with no risk of rejection. The case studies from science and science fiction overlap significantly and thus allow for a critical reading of the two highly different sources with a focus on ethical and moral questions regarding the use and abuse of nonhuman animals for human purposes. Furthermore, the context of the fictional works adds new layers of knowledge and new perspectives to the problematic issue of animal “enhancement.” Through the dynamic agency that can be detected within Atwood’s novels and that encompasses human, animal, and hybrid agency, the reader can develop empathy for other-than-human experiences and use this new perspective for a critical reflection of actual technoscientific developments that affect both human and nonhuman animal life. The combination of the two discourses reveals a value of science fiction for both the scientific community and society at large, demonstrating how its critical reception can result in enhanced ethical standards.

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Notes

  1. In this context, enhancement has to be regarded as a euphemism used to disguise the act of manipulating nonhuman animals’ bodies for different reasons, such as making “dairy cows” more efficient for the production of milk or reducing feed costs and phosphorus pollution of factory farmed pigs, as is the case with the Enviropig™. For a critical discussion of animal enhancement in relation to bioethics and the species boundary, see for example Richard Twine’s chapter “Thinking Across Species in the Ethics of ‘Enhancement’” in Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies [28]. German speakers should take a look at the extensive study on animal and human enhancement and ethical questions surrounding such practices by Arianna Ferrari et al.: Animal Enhancement: Neue technische Möglichkeiten und ethische Fragen [9]. There is also a recent symposium on animal disenhancement published in Nanoethics 6 (1) in 2012. The debate that triggered the symposium started with the publication of the paper “The Opposite of Human Enhancement: Nanotechnology and the Blind Chicken Problem” by P. Thompson in 2008 [27], followed by C. Palmer’s “Animal Disenhancement and the Non-Identity Problem: A Response to Thompson“ in 2011 [21], and includes a variety of critical essays.

  2. “What I mean by “science fiction” is those books that descend from H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, which treats of an invasion by tentacled blood-sucking Martians shot to Earth in metal canisters–things that could not possibly happen–whereas, for me, “speculative fiction” means plots that descend from Jules Verne's books about submarines and balloon travel and such–things that really could happen but just hadn't completely happened when the authors wrote the books. I would place my own books in this second category.” Atwood [4: 6]

  3. Hayles [11: 24]

  4. Atwood [2: 323]

  5. Other splices, some of which I refer back to in the course of this paper, are as follows: rabbits that glow in the dark; liobams—a cross between lion and lamb; rakunks—a cross between skunk and raccoon; Mo’hairs—sheep that grow human hair from human DNA in all possible colors; ChickieNobs—headless chicken used as food source and without brains in order to make farming and eating them “cruelty-free”; or wolvogs—canines that look like harmless dogs but will attack when approached.

  6. Rozelle [22: 64]

  7. Atwood [5: 393]

  8. Vint [31: 211]

  9. Atwood [1: 25–26]

  10. The BlissPluss Pill promises its consumers prolonged youth, protection against sexually transmitted diseases, and “an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess, coupled with a generalized sense of energy and well-being.” Atwood [1: 346] The pill also contains a secret ingredient that Crake uses to wipe out the human population: a genetically modified virulent pathogen that is the cause for the deaths of all users of the pill, and those infected by them.

  11. Atwood [1: 313–314]

  12. Squier [25: 4–5]

  13. McHugh [18: 208]

  14. Atwood [5: 19]

  15. Atwood [1: 27]

  16. Squier [25: 23]

  17. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services [29]

  18. Donate Life America [8]

  19. Schmidt & Noel [24]

  20. Schmidt & Noel [24]

  21. HumanXenoTransplant [14]

  22. Vaughan [30]

  23. Nakauchi [19]

  24. Vaughan [30]

  25. Wingfield-Hayes [32]

  26. Nosowitz [20]

  27. Nosowitz [20]

  28. The Asahi Shimbun [26]

  29. Grey [10]

  30. Kobayashi et al. [15: 797]

  31. Ryall [23]

  32. The Asahi Shimbun

  33. Atwood [1: 29]

  34. Wingfield-Hayes [32 ]

  35. Squier [25: 17]

  36. This similarity to pigeon is a pun that has the same intention as the illustration on the cover of the last novel (the 2013 hardcover edition by Bloomsbury Publishing), where the image of a pig is superimposed on the image of a bird that spreads its wings: both hints refer to the idiom “Pigs can fly” that is used for a situation one finds highly unlikely to become reality. In this case, Atwood’s trilogy works as a suggestion that “pigs might fly one day,” and that her dystopia is not as unlikely as science fiction usually appears to be.

  37. Haraway [12: 8]

  38. Oxford Dictionaries Online, s.v. “bacon,” accessed August 10, 2014, http://www.oed.com

  39. Atwood [3: 384]

  40. Atwood [5: 348]

  41. Atwood [5: 346]

  42. Haraway [13: 164]

  43. Haraway [13: 93]

  44. Atwood [1: 358–359]

  45. Atwood [5: 19]

  46. Atwood [5: 99]

  47. Rozelle [22: 69]

  48. Atwood [1: 238]

  49. McHugh [18: 203]

  50. Atwood [1: 242]

  51. McHugh [18: 203]

  52. Churchill [7]

  53. Maastricht University [16]

  54. Maastricht University [17]

  55. Atwood [3: 37]

  56. Atwood [3: 37]

  57. Atwood [3: 40]

  58. Atwood [3: 40]

  59. Brockes & Atwood [6]

  60. Atwood [4: 209–210]

  61. Atwood [4: 210]

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  1. Anglistisches Seminar, Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Anne Franciska Pusch

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Correspondence to Anne Franciska Pusch.

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Pusch, A.F. Splices: When Science Catches Up with Science Fiction. Nanoethics 9, 55–73 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-014-0216-8

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