The problem with science for many religious people is that it is all about doubt. In that sense, science is almost the opposite of faith.
For those of us who are both scientists and Christians this can make life difficult. It is not, as many seem to think, because approaching issues from a scientific or a religious standpoint can lead to different conclusions. We reconcile such different outcomes from different viewpoints and philosophies all the time, throughout our lives—left wing and right wing, adult and teenager, Lions and Blues, Bulldogs and Sharks.
Rather it is because, as a person of faith, many things are held to be certain, not open to question. But as a scientist everything is open to question. Nothing is sacred.
Take one of the great questions of the moment, the morality of research involving embryonic stem cells. Though rarely explicitly stated by either side, the debate really centres around determining or deciding at what point human life begins.
For many people the answer to this question seems simple, evident, and obvious. They believe that human life begins at conception—a distinct, clear, explicit point—end of story. That is what made it easy for President George Bush recently—in vetoing a bill passed by Congress which would have allowed Federal funds to be used for embryonic stem cell research—to equate the destruction of any fertilised human egg with homicide. When asked about the reason for the veto, his press secretary said: 'The simple answer is, he thinks murder is wrong.'
A similar statement accompanied a call by the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, for Catholic stem cell researchers to be excommunicated. 'Destroying human embryos is equivalent to abortion,' he said.
But for many biologists and doctors who are also people of faith, life is not that easy. For starters, if human life begins at conception, what does that make the germ cells that give rise to the fertilised egg? And if every fertilised egg is a human being, why does God allow more than 50 per cent of them to abort spontaneously?
To biologists, conception is only the beginning of a long process which leads to the birth of a baby, but just when that bundle of living cells becomes 'human' is not a question scientists find easy to determine. Is it at conception, after implantation in the mother's womb, when it develops a nervous system, when it begins to feel pain, when it can survive independently, when it becomes conscious?
One thing is clear. Just as a seed needs water, soil, and the right temperature and nutrients to grow into a plant, so a fertilised egg will only develop into a human being if it has the right genetic and biochemical constitution, and finds itself in the right place at the right time.
These are not idle observations. They affect the morality not just of stem cell research and abortion, but also of some methods of contraception and many kinds of medical procedures during pregnancy.
Embryonic stem cell research may provide some of the best chances we have of coming up with effective treatments for degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and possibly even the world's number one killer, heart disease. But is it moral?
One of the most difficult concepts to grasp seems to be the idea of so-called therapeutic cloning—the initiation of the development of an egg in order to produce embryonic stem cells to be used in research or therapy. The name is an unfortunate one, in that therapeutic cloning has absolutely nothing to do with replicating humans.
Researchers undertaking therapeutic cloning would say that the circumstances under which they stimulate human eggs to develop ensure there is no way the result could ever become a human baby. If that is so, they argue, then the embryonic tissue they produce is not a human life, but the equivalent of laboratory-cultured heart tissue or liver tissue. For those who believe that any developing human egg constitutes a human being, however, the procedure is morally wrong.
A recent analysis published in the Journal of Medical Ethics by philosopher Luc Bovens from the London School of Economics suggests the Rhythm Method of birth control significantly increases the chances of spontaneous abortion. If this is so, he argues, and if human life is deemed to begin at conception, then such a method for birth control could lead to more human deaths than would the use of condoms.
Much depends on the point at which human life begins.