Euthanasia: A human right.

If we are born, it is at best the consequence of a desire of our parents. However in many cases it is no more than the result of a sexual assault, as it had been for millions of years during evolution. 

So, we may consider ourselves fortunate if our parents love us and take care of us.

Once alive, we appear to have a package of genes, that we are not able to change. We do not even know the details of our genetic programme.  A few details, mainly related to our external features, may become evident, but the rest, especially related to internal characteristics, remains largely hidden in darkness.

With this genetic programme, we are subsequently subject to numerous influences of our environment. The combination of our genetic programme and the influences of our environment may lead to a tremendous - nearly infinite - variation in the outcome. This outcome may be a lucky one, but it may as well be a bad one.

This can be easily demonstrated if we observe the lower forms of life. A dandelion in a Dutch pasture will grow up to another appearance than a similar dandelion in a pasture on a windy mountain slope in Switzerland. Contrary to a dandelion, a human being can move to another environment under the influence of his/her genetic programme.  A mind inclined to fanaticism can bring someone to become a fanatic Muslim, a fanatic Christian or a fanatic communist, depending on his place on our planet. But contrary to a dandelion, such a fanatic mind may e.g. travel to areas under control of IS (islamic state) and become the mind of a mass murderer there.
Anyone knows that lung cancer is usually caused by smoking. Nevertheless the earlier German federal chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who did smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, reached an age of 96, without getting lung cancer. Contrary to 40 years ago, then at the time I did hear a physician saying over the radio, that cancer had nothing to do with genes, it is now generally accepted that genes may have an important role in determining our susceptibility for various forms of cancer in spite of their final induction by environmental factors.

That most people do not believe in a strong influence of our genes can be explained easily. Our genes are not an open book, whereas the influence of our environment can be seen by anyone. Biologists, who are studying our predecessors in evolution, know that genetic factors are equally important.
There is an old proverb: "Where there's a will, there's a way." Unfortunately, willpower seems to be  determined by our genes earlier than by our environment. According to experimental psychologists, a free will has to be considered utopia.
But irrespective of the role of genes and environmental influence, both of these are together responsible for our own evaluation of our life.

As a consequence, under certain conditions, we should have the right to decide whether or not the balance of our life is overall positive or negative and to take the decision to end our life if we consider it as hopeless
Conditions should be defined e.g:
*Responsibilities with respect to other people, e.g. our children,
*A wish of euthanasia should be a long term wish. After a broken relationship e.g. the situation may gradually improve. A terminal disease on the other hand will only get worse, especially if it is painful.
*So each of us should get the right to decide to end his/her life and others should get the right to help us to fulfil this wish for reasons of charity, if we are not able to fulfil it ourselves. But for similar reasons, nobody (physicians inclusive) can be obliged to give this form of help if it goes against their own feelings and/or believing.
*Of course, in all cases there must be an independent check that help is not coming from those having other interests in the euthanasia than charity.

Politicians, jurists, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, priests, clergymen and all those, who believe that they are the specialists, who are able to judge whether euthanasia is justified in a particular case, should be aware that they are overrating their own capabilities. For each of us there is only one specialist, yourself, irrespective whether you are a plumber or a philosopher.

It is incredible that politicians belonging to political parties, said to be based on the bible, are strong opponents of those who are willing to help friends or relatives having a long term wish to end their life. Charity is an important Christian order. Help by those, who will strongly miss their friend or relative after the euthanasia, may be considered charity as well as self-sacrifice. The reference by Christian politicians to the commandment: "You shall not murder (kill)" can be considered an intentional deception of the meaning of it.

It is also incredible that some politicians pretend that no elderly people would wish to end their life, if
more attention would be paid to them. This might be true for those who have spent their lives mainly by consumption and entertainment, but will certainly not apply to most of those who were creative and productive.  For the latter, e.g. a writer or a painter going blind or a composer going deaf, age might gradually become a larger problem as a consequence of the difference with their previous life. Simple people may be easier to satisfy by arbitrary contacts than intellectual people.

An attendant effect of acknowledgement of euthanasia as a human right, would possibly be that less people, being at their wits' end as a consequence of a lack of attention for their long term wish, will jump before a train or from the roof of an apartment building. This may in turn reduce the number of train drivers and paramedics with psychical problems.

Nico van Rooijen, Haarlem, April 28, 2017

The macrophage: A high-tech micro vacuum cleaner.

Do you have a vacuum cleaner? Maybe you call it a Hoover, after the inventor? And do you use it?
If yes, you might be a woman. Anyway, being a man myself, my first vacuum cleaner entered my life after my marriage. Before that time, I did wait until the dust under my bed had produced a solid carpet there. Once a year, I rolled it up and threw it in the dust-bin.
As you understand, I am a lazy man, so the only suitable profession for me would be scientific research. There are few other possibilities to spend nearly all of your time on thinking. If doing would become an inevitable consequence, many nice students and/or technicians will help you to overcome this barrier.

I have several problems with a vacuum cleaner.
First of all, it produces a lot of noise, disturbing thinking.
Secondly, a vacuum cleaner is nowadays an old-fashioned apparatus. You have to control its activities and to check where it did remove dust and where not. This is especially tiring if you do not see any dust on places where others obviously see a lot of it.
A modern vacuum cleaner, adapted to our time, should have the following characteristics:
1. It should work without your own control. If your string of pearls is broken, the pearls should not be sucked together with the real dust by the apparatus. In other words, it should be able to discriminate. Contrary to a police officer, a vacuum cleaner would be praised for this capability.
2. Before the battery would be dead, the apparatus should be able to charge itself again.
3. The apparatus should be able to recycle the ingested dust in order to reuse it subsequently for a useful purpose.
4. The apparatus should be able to control and regulate several other functions in your house. If it becomes dark, the lights have to be turned on and the curtains have to be closed by the apparatus via remote control.
5. If more activity would be required somewhere, the apparatus should be able to replicate itself and the copies should be able to collaborate in the job.

As you will know, many human inventions are based on observations in nature. In the present case, we should focus on a micro vacuum cleaner, the macrophage, a cell present in nearly all tissues of our body.
From an evolutionary point of view, macrophages are ancient cells. They form the core of the natural immune system and did appear long before the cells forming together the complex immune system of the higher vertebrates to which we belong.
Macrophages are involved in "homeostasis" of the body by ingesting and digesting microorganisms or other non-self particles as well as products of inflammation or immune reactions, such as macromolecules or antibody-complexed antigens.
Intracellular digestion is mediated by their panels of lysosomal enzymes. As a consequence large concentrations of materials such as amino-acids for the building of new proteins are available.
During evolution, macrophages did acquire functions in the regulation of several other cells in the body. Differentiation, maturation, migration and/or functioning of these non-phagocytic cells could be stimulated or inhibited by soluble mediator molecules, such as cytokines and chemokines, produced and released by macrophages in the circulation and/or body fluids. They will act as a remote control system.

Their functions could be studied with the help of an approach to deplete macrophages selectively from tissues and/or organs in the body. By this approach, i.e. by creating an animal with macrophage-depleted tissues or organs - dependent on the administration route of the liposomes - functional aspects of macrophages could be studied "in vivo".
Liposomes - artificially prepared inert vesicles, consisting of concentric phospholipid bilayers, separated by aqueous compartments - will be eagerly swallowed by macrophages and will be subsequently digested with the help of their phospholipase enzymes.
Liposomes as structures were discovered by Alec Bangham (UK, died on March 9, 2010). He found that amphipathic phospholipid molecules, dispersed in water, became organised in vesicles, consisting of concentric phospholipid bilayers, separated by aqueous compartments. The hydrophobic fatty acid chains of each part of the bilayers were opposed to each other, whereas the hydrophilic head groups of the fatty acids were exposed to the water compartments separating the individual bilayers.
Hydrophilic molecules solved in the aqueous solution, used for preparation of the liposomes, could be entrapped into the aqueous compartments between the phospholipid bilayers and it was Gregory Gregoriadis (Greece/UK), who proposed and formulated liposomes as carriers of drugs in biology and medicine, i.e. the liposomal drug carrier concept.
Clodronate (dichloromethylene bisphosphonate) is a member of the family of bisphosphonate molecules developed for the treatment of osteolytic bone diseases. It shows high affinity for calcium and - as a consequence - adheres to bone if administered to vertebrates such as men. Osteoclasts play a role in the physiology of bone by breaking it down, opposed to osteoblasts who are involved in its reconstruction. It appeared that the activity of osteoclasts could be inhibited by bisphosphonate molecules sticked to bone.
Given that both osteoclasts and macrophages belong to the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS), we decided to try clodronate as one of the first effector molecules in our planned "liposome mediated
macrophage suicide" approach.
Freely solved clodronate will not easily cross phospholipid bilayers such as liposome membranes and cell membranes. After injection, liposomes with encapsulated clodronate - used as Trojan horses - will be ingested and digested by macrophages. The encapsulated clodronate molecules are released within the cells and will accumulate there, since they are not able to leave the cell again. At a certain intracellular concentration, the clodronate molecules will induce apoptosis of the macrophage.
A lot of functional activities of macrophages have been discovered with the help of this approach since these activities were no longer performed or at least strongly reduced in macrophage-depleted animals.

The next step will be to produce a high-tech macro vacuum cleaner to make our own lives more pleasant!

Politics in the Netherlands: How to translate the results of the elections.

Compared to the situation in the rest of the world, elections in the Netherlands resemble a TV-show.

In some of the most influential countries of the world, the USA, Great-Britain and Germany, only few political parties determine the future. They are alternately winning the elections.  As a result, change of power - implicating undoing of many decisions of the previous government - did sometimes induce a repercussion in the economy of the country, since stability is a crucial factor.
In other countries, only one party has been admitted. Given that the name "party" does imply a "contradictio in terminis" in such countries, elections are a joke. Unfortunately, the population is not permitted to laugh at the joke and is actually suffering under a dictatorship of those saying to represent it.
Communist countries were typical examples, but communism has proven to be a plague for the prosperity in a country and communism became nearly extinct on our planet. Comparable to the dinosaurs but happily in a shorter period of time.
China is a good example. The rapid increase in its prosperity, since the country became a typical capitalist country, shows that clever people can speed up the economy of their country if they get the chance to do that. The condition is that people live in relative liberty, even if they stick to the name people's republic as in China. The Chinese are not only clever, but also practical people.
The difference between communist North-Korea and South-Korea as a typical capitalist country, also speaks volumes. The first country as the last communist country on earth, can be considered as a typical inefficacious communist museum with prisoners inside, but no visitors from abroad allowed to look at them. The last country taking advance of freedom and commercial activities all over the world is comparatively prosperous.

In the Netherlands, we have many political parties. From ultra left to ultra right, various parties based on religion and even a party for the animals, though animals were never invited to participate in the elections. Sooner or later we will also see a party for hooligans and criminals.
Also new political parties usually split up after a short time and it is no exception that individual members form a new party but nevertheless remain in the parliament.
This is a typical Dutch hobby, in earlier centuries mainly visible in the many religious schisms, but since God did emigrate out of the Netherlands, mainly practised by politicians.
Nevertheless, many votes end up somewhere in the middle, because Dutchmen are rationally thinking.

However, given that the ballot papers resemble newspapers as a result of the many political parties,
a majority allowing the rapid formation of a government is not always easily to find.
This is still more difficult, since several parties exclude collaboration with other parties.
The only solution might be to form a government by parties in the middle, no longer based on a majority but on a minority. Alternately, the government should seek support in the parliaments on the right or on the left side of the political spectrum, depending on the positions taken by these parties at earlier moments.
Parties changing their earlier position in a specific case, only as an attempt to bring the government down, should be forbidden and discontinued by law. This seems to be the only possibility to rule the Netherlands in the near future.
Nico van Rooijen, Haarlem, May 5, 2017

The philosopher & her admiring student:

The student is eager to learn the ideas of the philosopher

His admiration for the philosopher is obvious

After the lessons, they go for a ride in the Land Rover of the philosopher.

The student is still enthusiastic, but the philosopher seems to prefer a ride with a colleague.

Questions for Mr. Trump by an unreliable biologist.

Hi Donald, given your reactions on research of scientists with respect to the effects of global warming and their warnings regarding probable climate changes, I understand that you distrust scientists if their conclusions and resulting predictions do not agree with your own conviction.
You never gave us the impression that you are doubting your own words or their significance.
You might know that scientists in turn distrust politicians. To be fair, I think they have more reason to do so, than you have for the opposite.
If a scientist makes a statement, he will add his arguments and/or evidence and will always search to test his hypothesis.
I 'm afraid that, in spite of your name, you did not succeed in your attempts to trump your opponents, simply by blowing your own trumpet.
Trumpets remind me of elephants. In the Netherlands we have a proverb, literally translated: "He behaves as an elephant in a china cabinet". Given that - in this case - the china cabinet is our planet and the elephant was chosen to remain there for at least four years, I can only hope that the elephant will be tamed in the meantime.

Accidentally, you might have heard of a statement of one of the most important scientists of all times, Newton, about scientists: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Another interesting statement of Newton was as follows: “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” 

Anyone of us, using a car or a plane to travel over the earth, meanwhile talking with others via a smart-phone or listening to the radio, has to trust on the achievements of countless scientists, standing on the shoulders of countless other scientists. So, if you are twittering on the back seat of your car after listening to the lies told about you via the radio or reading the lies written about you in the newspapers, while your driver looks at the route planner based on GPS, both of you are trusting on a lot of scientists at the same time.
With so many unreliable scientists standing on the shoulders of so may other unreliable scientists, the result would be extremely dangerous. It is like a "Tower of Babel" on wheels. Continuously, you should be afraid that it will collapse.
You must really fear that you will never survive the four years of your presidency with so many scientists on which you have to rely.

May, 8,  2017, Nico van Rooijen (un unreliable biologist)  Haarlem, The Netherlands.

From doing to thinking: 

The evolution of mankind     

Doing can only be important if it is a consequence of thinking.
Doing without thinking has characterised life on earth for millions of years.

You see it e.g. if you look at cattle in a pasture.  All animals there are doing the same at the same time, since they are programmed to do so and are only reacting on incentives from their environment.  Though some animals show traces of specialisation and collaboration, e.g. hunting lions and wolves, bees and ants collecting food or elephants protecting female and young ones in the herd, also this seems mainly to be the result of their genetic programme.
If the animals would have developed the capability to communicate, they could also have agreed who is doing what. As a consequence of such a communication, specialisation would thus become meaningful. As a consequence of communication and specialisation, they could have collaborated to improve the quality of their living, each according to its own specialisation. But this had to wait, because their brains were not yet designed for intensive and detailed communication.

During the evolution of mankind, brains developed and thinking became gradually more important than doing. Although power and the ability to react and defend, had been the main factors of success in evolution for a long time, emphasis on the brains did mean a real breakthrough. Finally the evolution did back the right horse.

Especially as a result of the progress of natural sciences and its consequence, i.e. the worldwide technical revolution, life of men has been changed exponentially in the last centuries and especially in the last decades of the last hundred years. Not only many more men are involved in science and technics, but also their results are rapidly distributed as a result of internet and email.
Communication and specialisation did allow efficacious research centres, but also hospitals, airports, logistics, space flights,  etc. It allowed men to visit the moon and to look under the arctic ice caps.

Nevertheless, if men are thinking, this is not always seen by other men. In contrast, if men are doing, this can be seen by anyone. As a result doing people are generally more appreciated than thinking people, in spite of the fact that robots, which are mainly the result of thinking, can do a lot more than men in the same time and during 24 hours a day.
Of course, natural sciences are not only a question of thinking, since the hypotheses resulting from thinking, should be tested by performing the right experiments. In universities such experiments are often performed by PhD students as part of their training.
That thinking is less popular than doing because it is less visible for the majority of other men, may be explained by the same mechanism which explains why it is generally accepted that environmental factors influence our behaviour and health, whereas genetical programming is usually not considered to play a significant role. Also in the latter case, environmental factors can be seen by anyone, but genetical factors are not clear to most of us. For that reason, biology and especially evolution biology should become one of the main disciplines in every form of education.
Nevertheless, thinking by the right man or woman, at the right moment on the right place, can add much more to the progress of mankind, than work done by hundreds of men working hard together during hundreds of years. Although doing men will have generally more fans than thinking men, as shown by the new president Trump and his supporters in the USA, this is no problem for thinking men, since they might prefer thinking fans.

Gradually the capabilities of robots - as a creation of men - will increase and they will take over the work of men. Initially only that of men without any specialisation, but later also that of those who did specialise.  Robots will become self-learning. If one looks e.g. at agriculture and industrial factories, one can only reach the conclusion that robots rapidly take over the work of men and it is obvious that this process will be accelerated in the decades to come. A question that haunts some science-philosophers is this: Would it be possible that robots, created by men, will ever be able to get rid of their creators? Some of them, also described as "future-watchers" are afraid that robots may become able to surpass their creators, at any time in the future and take over their position in evolution.
Given that men are the result of a gradual process of evolution of life on earth, long ago started as the coagulation of molecules, in volcanic areas as thought by scientists, one might wonder whether  planning as a consequence of thinking, would not be able to surpass the time consuming process of evolution, based  on accidental changes and survival of the fittest. If such changes are planned in stead of being a result of accidents, the process could be accelerated considerably.

Another question could be: Would it be possible to avoid a scenario in which only few people are working whereas the majority of men feels bored?  The provisional answer could be: "Probably not!" An alternative answer would be: "Unless we have destroyed our liveability on earth meanwhile, e.g. as a result of decisions of politicians such as Trump, who distrust scientists if their conclusions are not in agreement with their own believing!"
A more positive answer could be given on the question: "What could we do to prevent such a scenario?"
At first, education of children and adults should be improved. Not as a non-committal possibility to prevent boredom and to keep them from the street, but to use all of our possible human capabilities.
In general people will be happy if they can do work, best fitting with their interests and capabilities.
All forms of education, as well theoretical as practical, should be accessible to all children and also to adults who have to retrain, since their jobs are taken over by robots. Costs of all education should be paid from taxes. As a result no people are right if they say that they did not get a fair chance.
Of course we should avoid that trends are determining the choices of education. That all students want to become psychologists - as we have seen in the past - of which predictably only very few can find a job after finishing their study, should be avoided. Especially, if at the same time e.g. not enough physicists and chemists are available. Students who cannot find a job will be dissatisfied too. We should do everything to avoid that people are right if they say: "My life did happen to me, but I could do little to influence it".
Of course, support should be given to all who are willing, but are not able to participate. 

Human dignity, law and evolution-biology:

Why judges and lawyers should be taught biology

Human dignity is a name for a quality, characteristic for human life, according to the United Nations and the European court of human rights. Judges and lawyers use to refer to it when they state that each criminal person, sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, should get an outlook on release.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch Supreme Court recently forced the government to make it clear to a criminal person, sentenced to lifelong imprisonment for robbery with murder of a whole family (two adults and two children), when and under what conditions he could be released.
The Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik, a fascist, who killed 77 young people, did not show any sign of regret, but did in contrast bring the Nazi salute at court. Nevertheless he was condemned to 21 years in prison only, which was by the way a few months for each of his murdered young ones. Should we now reconsider our ideas about Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, because of their human dignity? Should all present murderers of IS get an outlook on release from prison as a consequence of human dignity? What about the many millions of their murdered victims, their families and friends?

Regarding to this, each of us should be aware of four totally different problems when lawyers, mostly not familiar with evolution-biology, natural sciences and sometimes not even with rational thinking in general, are confronted with such a problem:
1. What exactly is the definition of human dignity: This problem is clearly not solved as yet. So far, no definition has been produced at all. In scientific terms, this would mean that it could not have any consequence, since it is no more than a chimera.
2. What exactly means human, given the gradual evolution of species. Is walking on two legs enough, or should there be more?
3. If we should consider human in a way as many people in the Western world would do at the moment: How about the past and the future? How about the place on earth, e.g. Africa or Syria?
4. The most strange aspect of the empty slogan "human dignity" is this. How is it possible that it is mainly used in favour of just those, who seem to be exceptionally unsuited for an association with any future definition of "human dignity", when it might be produced and whatever it might be?

1. As already mentioned: There is no definition at all. So, there should not be any consequence as yet.
2. & 3. However, the absence of a definition is logical, because it is practically impossible.  Felipe Fernandez-Armesto explained in his book: "So You think You 're Human? A brief history of Humankind", that it is rather difficult to define what exactly is human and what not. At exactly what time during the evolution (See e.g. Charles Darwin: "The descent of man") human dignity became applicable?
Of course we could rely on the similarity in DNA. But  is it fair to distinguish between a Chimpanzee and ourselves, since there is 98% similarity in our DNA?  If we look at our body, another vertebrate, the mouse for instance. It has nearly all organs and tissues as well as the composing cells and in turn the molecules composing the cells in common with men, but needs only 20 grams for that, where we need at least 2000 times as much, unless we are close to dying. Is our weight playing a role in human dignity? And if yes, why does that not apply to an elephant or a whale?
And how to look at the past, when black men, women and children were not considered human and were sold as slaves by our ancestors, who were in turn considered themselves to be good Christians by their environment?
If we consider empathy as a typical human characteristic, how about apes, whales, elephants, some of them showing more empathy than a lot of human beings (see e.g. Frans de Waal: "A time for empathy.")
4. Many good people in the world, women and children, are raped and/or killed by others, during the many wars, as a consequence of the law of the jungle or as a consequence of other reasons which are usually man-related.
Why should we focus exactly on those, who seem to deserve it least? Would it not be better to focus on those who deserve it most?

If we decide that lifelong imprisonment is inhuman, there is only one other possibility to protect the human society against the most extreme and violent criminals, who did never regret their actions or did it only after advice of a lawyer, hoping to reduce jail sentence.
That possibility is capital punishment.
There are several reasons to have strong objections against capital punishment:
1. Capital punishment is irrevocable, whereas one's guilt has not always been proven unequivocally.
2. Ethnicity appeared often to influence infliction of capital punishment.
3. Last but not least: Capital punishment is often used to get rid of opponents, whose only crime was to have another opinion than the rulers of the moment.
To summarise the present situation in the world: Most human beings condemned to capital punishment did not deserve it, but most of them that did deserve it, did not get it.

I  can agree with lawyers that nobody can be made responsible for his acts given that these are the final consequence of genes and environment and especially of the tremendous interaction of these factors mutually influencing their effect on human behaviour. However, I cannot agree with the idea that innocent citizens should be exposed to such acts of violence, because of the human dignity of  criminals.
If a possible definition of human dignity would be given, it should anyway be based on empathy with other men and even with other forms of life, and only allow aggression in order to protect oneself or other men against violent robbery, violent sexual passion or other forms of violence.
Given this, human society should be protected against criminals, especially if repetition might be expected. Lifelong imprisonment should remain a necessary possibility for that reason.
However, criminals condemned to lifelong imprisonment should be offered euthanasia, if they would prefer that option.
So, lawyers and politicians could better focus on a general human right: Euthanasia, a right for anyone who is considering his or her life as ready to be finished, because he or she is considering prolongation of that life as unbearable. Euthanasia will be the subject of one of the next blogs.
Nico van Rooijen, April 18, 2017, Haarlem NL