Religion: noses out of UK science, please.

The church has been trouble for biological sciences ever since Darwin dared suggest Genesis and the Noachian flood were, well fairy stories. When the Origin of Species was reviewed by Richard Owen, Darwin fretted that he would unleash the ‘beasts’ (priests) on him, and in 1860 it was Bishop Sam Wilberforce who led the attack on natural selection in the British Association Oxford meeting. Throughout the development of IVF, embryo research and stem-cell research in this country, churches have kept up a constant campaign to hinder the development of these sciences.

Judging by an interesting article in today’s Observer, they’re at it again. Mary Warnock: Parliament must retain moral authority over science.

Not if the some members of House of Lords have their way on Tuesday: their Lordships (none of whom I ever elected to make laws on my behalf) are proposing a national human bioethics commission which would:

….be a statutory body, consisting of a chairman and not more than eight commissioners, chosen by the Secretary of State, who would examine new developments in the relevant science, the state of the law and ‘the theological, philosophical and ethical dimensions of such law or development’.

Theological. Hmmm. wonder whose behind that, then? Could it be a Catholic opposed to embryo research? I think there are more pressing issues to address in UK science - I recently visited a very damn prestigious national science institution, and behind the impressive scenes it was a sad story. Underpaid academics with no career security facing summary dismissal if they didn’t bring in £70k a year in research grants, no money for a subscription to ‘Science’ (a tool of their trade) and Polymerase Chain Reaction machines in a genetics lab with their lids held on with webbing straps tied in clumsy landlubber’s knots - no money for maintenance. Appointing another quango replete with advisors, under-employed staff and the unevolved descendents of Soapy Sam Wilberforce to consider the sky-fairy’s impact on a science that is growing faster than inflation in Zimbabwe is not even remotely sensible.

Baroness Warnock, whose nail clippings are more intelligent that most of us, says:

‘Do we need such a commission? We do not.’ (snip)

‘I suspect that those who argue in favour of the new commission will do so in the belief that its members will be of a more sensitive conscience, possessing more religious scruples than either MPs or members of existing ethical bodies. There is certainly a feeling among those who will support the amendment that morality and religion were not given a fair hearing in the debates that led to the 1990 act and have not been given a fair hearing since. In some quarters, there has been fury that an amendment to the act allowed embryos to be used in research not directly focused on infertility and that the production of human embryos by replacing a cell’s nucleus, the method famously used to produce Dolly the sheep, was authorised.’

Indeed. The forces of reaction have been getting steadily more bloodied as this battle for scientific progress over Roman-period superstition has gone on. Not long ago scientists in London and Newcastle forced a government backdown on the use of hybrid embryos. The zealots called Frankenstein, and the Government, replete with ministers who pander to ‘faith communities’ showed their bellies until some pretty frosty and incisive messages about what this would mean for British science landed in Whitehall. Politicians were, once again, made to look like a bunch of ill-advised rock-bangers and changed their minds.

The good Baroness asks:

But we are not a theocratic society: moral authority cannot be said to derive from God or God’s emissaries on earth. We are all, religious believers or not, subject to the rule of law and no one can remove from legislators the necessity of trying to see to it that laws are good laws, that is, for the common good. This is the difference between private morality and public policy. So here is the crux of the matter. Would establishing a national human bioethics commission make this task less formidable, in this particular complicated and contentious field of embryology?

That would be the point. Have endless consultations, call for reports and witness,with a view to slowing progress and ultimately stopping all work on human embryos. The peer moving the amendment to the bill which would establishing this consultative quagmire is one I know and have enormous respect for: she is a member of the same political party as I am, but on this she is wrong.

I hope the amendment is roundly and rationally defeated. And Baroness Warnock? You rock a fat one.