LIFE:Conflicts between science, politics, ethics and religion

Discussion in Science and Public Policy, March17, 2005

Copernicus, Galileo and Bruno challenged the (Biblical) belief that Earth is the center of the universe

• In the early 17th century, Galileo and Bruno, embraced the Copernican theory that Earth spins on its axis and travels around the sun once every year. As a result, they suffered much personal injury at the hands of the powerful church inquisitors.

• Giordano Bruno had the audacity to even go beyond Copernicus, and, dared to suggest, that space was boundless and that the sun was and its planets were but one of any number of similar systems: Why! -- there even might be other inhabited worlds with rational beings equal or possibly superior to ourselves. For such blasphemy, Bruno was tried before the Inquisition, condemned and burned at the stake in 1600.

• Galileo was brought forward in 1633, and, there, in front of his "betters," he was, under the threat of torture and death, forced to his knees to renounce all belief in Copernican theories, and was thereafter sentenced to imprisonment for the remainder of his days.

The Scopes Trial in 1925 dealt with whether or not the theory of evolution could be taught in the classroom.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm

• A jury in Tennessee was to decide the fate of John Scopes, a high school biology teacher charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution. The guilt or innocence of John Scopes, and even the constitutionality of Tennessee's anti-evolution statute, mattered little. The meaning of the trial emerged through its interpretation as a conflict of social and intellectual values.

• Opening statements pictured the trial as a titanic struggle between good and evil or truth and ignorance. Bryan claimed that "if evolution wins, Christianity goes." Darrow argued, "Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial." The prosecution, Darrow contended, was "opening the doors for a reign of bigotry equal to anything in the Middle Ages." Darrow said that the anti-evolution law made the Bible "the yardstick to measure every man's intellect, to measure every man's intelligence, to measure every man's learning." It was classic Darrow, and the press--mostly sympathetic to the defense--loved it.

Clarence Darrow and WilliamJennings Bryan during the trial.Modernism vs. Fundamentalism

What are embryonic stem cell research, gene therapy and cloning?

• Gene therapy http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml

• Cloning http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#whatis

• Stem cell research http://stemcells.nih.gov/

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Embryonic stem cells

Questions• Is the sacredness of LIFE about to

be questioned by science as was the sacredness of Earth as the center of the universe in 1600 and the sacredness of man's creation by God from the beginning of the 20th century to the present?

• When does human life "begin"?• We can now create new life forms.

How far will this go?

Some ethical questions• How do we decide ethical questions when there is a conflict?

Greatest good? What if people disagree?

• Who should be saved, a terminally ill 5 year old girl or an embryonic stem cell which can save her?– Suppose the terminally ill person is 90 year old?

– Suppose there is no particular candidate for treatment. Should embryonic stem cells be cultivated for future medical benefit unknown at present?

• Does this change your mind? – MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish clinic that allows women to adopt frozen embryos to save

them from scientific research said Monday 14 women were pregnant with adopted embryos. The Barcelona clinic launched a scheme last year to allow embryos left over from fertility treatment and destined for stem cell research to be implanted into women.

• Who should be saved, a pregnant mother whose delivery would be fatal to her, or her early-stage fetus? – What if the mother's life is not in danger and she can afford to have the

baby?

More ethical questions• Do people have the right to have themselves (or their pets)

cloned?

• If an entire person can be cloned from a single hair cell is a human hair as sacred as an early embryo?

• If a human can be created by assembling DNA in the laboratory without the use of embryos or existing human cells should this be done? (Frankenstein scenario)

• Do parents have the right to change (improve) the genetic composition of their unborn child?– To cure a genetic disease the child is certain to have?

– To cure mongoloidism

– To make the child smarter or more beautiful?

Polling questions• Stem cell research is being used by scientists trying to

find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or diabetes. It involves using destroyed embryos discarded from fertility clinics that no longer need them. Do you favor or oppose using discarded embryos to conduct stem cell research to try to find cures for these diseases?"

• In general, do you think that it is morally acceptable or morally wrong to use human cloning technology in developing new treatments for disease?

• What's had the most influence on your opinion on the issue of cloning: the views of your family and friends, things you've seen or read in the news, your education, your personal experience, your religious beliefs, your personal non-religious beliefs, or something else?

What does the American public think?

• Poll results

Blastocyte

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3-5 days old with around 4-50 cells

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