Freedom and limits

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, January 13, 2010

Maybe gay marriages are, as stated by that arbiter of morals, catholic bishop Onésimo Cepeda, "a stupidity" (Milenio Diario, December 23). But if it is so, it's a stupidity homosexuals, as any other citizen, have a right to commit.

And maybe, as stated by journalist Carlos Marín (Milenio Diario, January 8), this guy Esteban Arce "has the right to express his homophobia"… but to do so in public, as main host to a popular TV show and "leader of opinion" (this shows the current sad cultural level of the average Mexican TV watcher) is wrong, because it violates other people's rights.

Yes, free speech (from which free press is derived) is vital in every true democracy. But it's not more important than other rights. It has, necessarily, limits: teaching people how to commit suicide or to make Molotov bombs, or to promote the use of drugs, violence, killing black people… or to discriminate is not allowed. If a TV host's expressed the opinion that blacks or indians are inferior, he or she would commit the same mistake and would deserve to be criticized. First of all, because it's false, but also because it's discriminatory.

Esteban Arce misinforms his audience: he expresses as true opinions contrary to current scientific knowledge, which shows that homosexual behavior is natural (it is clearly shown by Luis González de Alba in his column from last Sunday; Milenio Diario, January 10), and "normal", in the sense that it is not "sick", and that children raised by same-sex couples are also normal (i.e. not. "sick").

Why should we prefer criteria based on scientific knowledge to criteria based on religious dogma? Among other things, because they are verifiable, and have been verified: they work. Besides, they can be corrected if errors are found, in sharp contrast to the church's "truths". That's why the Mexican Constitution (third article) makes it mandatory that education be based "in the results of scientific progress", and demands that teaching be kept "completely separated from any religious doctrine".

What is sought is not to give "privileges" to certain minorities, but to guarantee that all and every citizen has the same rights. And for good reasons. The church can tear its garments on it, but religious freedom also has its limits (also, for good reasons, in this case historical ones): it cannot interfere in politics, since the Constitution prohibits it (article 130). The government obligation is to secure the rights of everyone, and to maintain the required separation of church and state. People will need to keep a watchful eye to make sure this happens.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Against scientific illiteracy

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, January 6, 2010

Every time that I go out on vacations I take with me something good to read. This year's end was no exception: I chose the most recent work of my friend Marcelino Cereijido, Mexican-argentine researcher at Cinvestav: Science as calamity, an assay about science illiteracy and its effects (Gedisa, 2009).

This is not the first time I enjoy his excellent prose and even better ideas. Several trips to the beach have been made more enjoyable thanks to other little jewels from him: Brainless science, double craziness (Siglo XXI, 1994, where he advices a young person about the challenges, difficulties and disappointments that awaits her if he or she decides to be a scientist in a third world country), Why we don't have science, (Siglo XXI, 1997, where he presents the well-sustained hypothesis that the culture of Latin-American countries, with their Hispanic-Portuguese catholic influence, is one of the fundamental causes that our countries do not understand, support, nor, most importantly, develop or take advantage of modern science), and Houssay's nape (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990, an intimate and penetrating autobiographic account that tells his experience when becoming a scientist –he even studied with Nobel awarded professors– to later be persecuted, imprisoned and exiled by the catholic obscurantism of the Argentine military dictatorship.

The book can, in my opinion, be divided in two sections. The first presents a view of science, its history and the current situation of scientific illiteracy. The second part –which I considered more convincing and stimulating- raises the grave problem that such illiteracy imposes the third world, placing it at disadvantage in front of the first world, and dares to make some proposal outlines for its solution.

Cereijido states that scientific illiteracy in non-developed countries consists not only in not having science of their own, but in lacking a culture that would allow them to even realize this, and to value the heavy problem of this lack. But the really alarming thing is to realize, as demonstrated in the book, that there has always been a strategy of the first world to guarantee that the third world keeps being underdeveloped. This asymmetry is what today is really threatening global equilibrium, so drastic measures need to be taken to fight it… Only we'll have to do it ourselves. This is the base for his stimulating proposals. Now the task will be to spread them, discuss them and put them in practice… Count me in.

One complaint, though: the book, unfortunately, like many books from Ibero-American editorials, is very badly edited. Commas before verbs, or incorrectly added into phrases, which change their meaning; numerous references that do not appear in the bibliography, repetitions and, even, some sloppyness in the way the text is organized; not author's mistakes, but the editor's, from whom we would expect a more profound and professional work (because is the editorial house's, not the author's, responsibility to take care of all the details, editorial as well as the coherence and clarity of the text).

Summarizing: an enjoyable and intelligent book, but also an important and timely one. Even urgent. I hope every person that has to do with science in Latin American countries (researchers, students, government people, politics… citizens!) reads it.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Science and politics

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, december 23, 2009

Unlike the simplified models of theory, reality is a complex tangle, a web whose conforming elements are connected to one another in complex and multiple ways.

Science is the discipline that helps understand such connections. It produces models that, even though ideal, are reliable, and therefore help us to make appropriate decisions. Politics, on the other hand, is the art of taking advantage of these connections, or building the ones that are lacking, to make that things happen in a society ("the art of the possible", chancellor von Bismarck is said to have called it).

Scientific knowledge is often the impulse and basis for constructing political action. But it is not enough: political ability is needed to make the web strong enough.

Sometimes this can be achieved, sometimes not. In Copenhagen it was not, even though there is solid scientific data and consensus about what to do. The forces opposing the agreement -the economical costs of reconverting the industries of powerful countries; the unavoidable political costs linked to them– prevented it from happening.

On the other hand, in Mexico city, political ability, supported on modern knowledge about human beings and their sexuality, allowed homosexual marriage to be approved, and without the unfair lock –and implicit homophobic argument– that did not allow adoption!

But science and politics are processes: they never stop. Sooner or later, the policies necessary to fight climate change will have to be agreed upon. Unless, of course, we discover something new: an unexpected piece of good news that would also have to be based in science.

In matters of human, sexual and reproductive rights, the advances, though slow, are not stopping. Autopsies were prohibited, by religious reasons, for centuries, until the Renaissance. Blacks and women, considered as inferiors, could not vote until the middle of last century. In vitro fertilisation caused a hot debate, also because of religious prejudice; the fact that the expression "test-tube baby" sounds obsolete nowadays is proof that societies advance and assimilate changes that are beneficial for them.

Until recently, homosexuality was legally punished. Today, the full equality of couples, sexual orientation notwhitstanding, is recognized in the law. In the near future, other items are pending: the right to abortion, euthanasia, research with stem cells. And furthermore, a proposal for "animal rights" for the great apes (gorillas, orangutans, chimps).

In a secular state, decisions must be based in reliable knowledge, and taken to widen, not to suppress, the rights of everybody. Science helps politics build new links so that the necessary changes in the complex social web can be built and sustained. Congratulations…! and Merry Christmas.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Abortion and fallacies

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, december 2nd, 2009

The decriminalization of abortion (or its penalization, in this poor country that, as it takes a step forward, always takes another backwards) is not a scientific issue, but a social and political one.

And also an ethical problem, of course… just like all social and political issues. But unlike what happened in the middle ages, when it was believed that the only valid ethical criteria were those dictated by religion, today, in the 21^st century, we have scientific knowledge as a very important guide to norm the decisions we take as a society.

That's why fallacies such as "life begins at conception" cannot be allowed to pass for arguments when used by political parties, such as PRI, PAN, even PRD, and of course, the catholic hierarchy, have been doing in Mexico, in order to approve laws that will limit women's right to decide over their body, thus violating their human rights.

To refute this is so easy that its embarrassing: life does not begin at conception, because the sperm and ovum, the cells whose union gives origin to the zygote or fertilized egg (which is presented by these people as "potentially" human), are already alive before conception. If we take life as an absolute value, we should consider night ejaculations and menstruation as instances of assassination… "potentially".

A nice try to avoid this objection is to define that which starts with fertilization as human life. Again, false: sperm and ovule are as human as a zygote. The one thing that characterizes a zygote or an embryo as "human" during its first developmental stages is its genetic information… which is also present in the cells that give origin to it. (And even so, if the church wanted to argue that the essence of the human being reduces to its genes, they'd be getting into a conceptual mess worse than the one they started with!.)

A human being does not suddenly appear: it develops. Before the 12th week, it does not have a nerve system that can support functions such as perception and consciousness, without which we cannot speak of a "person". (For the same reason, someone with irreversible brain damage is not considered "alive" anymore, although its heart and lungs may be still functioning.)

As stated yesterday by Roberto Blancarte in Milenio Diario, what the religious hierarchy is achieving, with the complicity of political parties, is to "confessionalize politics, weaken secular State, and introduce catholic norms in legislation and public policies". It is evident: the criminalization of abortion is unjust and dishonest. Science and human rights give us enough arguments to oppose it. Otherwise, the price will still be paid by our women, and our society as a whole.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Inmegen: ¿good or bad news?

By Martín Bonfil Olivera
Published in Milenio Diario, September 9th, 2009

On August 26 mexican newspaper MILENIO Diario reported that the Federal budget for 2010 will feature a 47% cut to the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (Inmegen). 120 million pesos less (from 252 in 2009 to 132 in 2010).

The natural reaction would be anger, sadness or resignation in view of another example of the lack or value our government assigns to scientific research. Inmegen would be an isolated step in the right direction, and this cut is a worrying symptom against which we should protest. This is what Gerardo Jiménez, the Institute's head, did when he declared that the decision "puts several projects of scientific research related to the study of chronic and degenerative diseases at risk".

But there's another side of the coin. Inmegen has been questioned from several fronts. The most serious one is about corruption in the construction of their building, started in 2006 and today still unfinished and abandoned. Several damages to the Federal Treasure were identified, worth 33 million pesos, as well as overexpenses for 78 million (111 million in total). Its administrative director was fined with almost 3 million and incapacitated for 10 years by the recently disappeared Public Function Ministry (the architect responsible of the building was also incapacitated, for 15 years).

And the science being done at Inmegen also has its own problems. Their relatively modest study of "the Mexican genome" was artificially blown up to turn it, according to Mexican president Felipe Calderón, into "our entrance into XXI century medicine". The still distant benefits of genomic medicine have been exaggerated wildly. Its capacity for sequencing (reading) genomes, under-used during the influenza epidemic, has now been exceeded by the National University (UNAM), which –even with its ever-present limitations and its budget problems– has just inaugurated superior installations. And its reductionist approach, patent in talk of "Mexican" or "sonoran" (from the mexican state of Sonora) genomes, is biologically and even ethically questionable.

The traditional image of Mexicans is one of lazyness: a guy with a big "sombrero" and a sarape sleeping against a cactus. I think our real problem is one of perseverance: when necessary, we are able to start taking actions to solve our problems.

But sadly, we do not follow up. We build the road but don't give it maintenance. We created a Federal Elections Institute, but we didn't protect it so it wouldn't fall apart and loose all credibility. We created the Inmegen, but we don't guarantee it an appropriate building, personnel nor budget, and we don't ensure that budget is spent honestly.

What a waste.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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