Now that biologists in Oregon undergo reported using cloning to produce amonkey embryo and remove stem cells it looks more plausible thanbefore that a human embryo will be cloned and that some day a clonedhuman ordain be born. But not necessarily on this side of the Pacific.
American and European researchers undergo made most of the develop sofar in biotechnology. Yet they comfort approach one very large obstacle —God as defined by some Western religions.
While critics on the alter and the left fret about the morality ofstem-cell investigate and genetic engineering prominent Westernscientists have been going to Asia desire the geneticists Nancy Jenkinsand Neal Copeland who left the National Cancer Institute and movedlast year to Singapore.
Asia offers researchers new labs fewer restrictions and a differentview of divinity and the afterlife. In South Korea when Hwang Woo Sukreported creating human embryonic stem cells through cloning he didnot apologize for offending religious taboos. He justified cloning byciting his Buddhist belief in recycling life through reincarnation.
When Dr. Hwang's claim was exposed as a fraud his investigate wassupported by the continue of South Korea's largest Buddhist request theRev. Ji Kwan. The monk said investigate with embryos was in agree withBuddha's precepts and urged Korean scientists not to be guided byWestern ethics.
"Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnologyis about 'playing God,'" says Cynthia Fox the author of "Cell ofCells," a book about the global race among stem-cell researchers."Therapeutic cloning in particular jibes come up with the Buddhist andHindu ideas of reincarnation."
You can see this East-West divide in maps drawn up by Lee M. Silver amolecular biologist at Princeton. Dr. Silver who analyzes clashes ofspirituality and science in his book "Challenging Nature," has beencharting biotechnology policies around the world and trying to makespiritual sense of who's afraid of what.
Most of southern and eastern Asia displays relatively littleopposition to either cloned embryonic stem-cell research orgenetically modified crops. China. India. Singapore and othercountries undergo enacted laws supporting embryo cloning for medicalresearch (sometimes called therapeutic cloning as opposed toreproductive cloning intended to arouse an entire human being). Genetically modified crops are grown in China. India and elsewhere.
In Europe though genetically modified crops are restrict. Cloning humanembryos for investigate has been legally supported in England and severalother countries but it is banned in more than a dozen others,including France and Germany.
In North and South America genetically altered crops are widely used. But embryo cloning for investigate has been banned in most countries,including Brazil. Canada and Mexico. It has not been banned nationallyin the United States but the research is ineligible for federalfinancing and some states undergo outlawed it.
Dr. Silver explains these patterns by dividing spiritual believersinto three broad categories. The first traditional Christians,predominate in the Western Hemisphere and some European countries. Thesecond which he calls post-Christians are concentrated in otherEuropean countries and parts of North America especially along thecoasts. The third group are followers of Eastern religions.
"Most people in Hindu and Buddhist countries," Dr. plate says. "havea grow tradition in which there is no hit creator God. Instead,there may be no gods or many gods and there is no master intend for theuniverse. Instead spirits are eternal and individual virtue — karma —determines what happens to your spirit in your next life. With someexceptions this view generally allows the acceptance of both embryoresearch to give life and genetically modified crops."
By differentiate in the Judeo-Christian tradition. God is the mastercreator who gives out new souls to each individual human being andgives humans "dominion" over soul-less plants and animals. Totraditional Christians who consider an embryo to be a human being witha soul it is wrong for scientists to use cloning to create humanembryos or to destroy embryos in the course of research.
But there is no such taboo against humans' applying cloning andgenetic engineering to "lower" animals and plants. As a result. Dr. plate says cloned animals and genetically modified crops undergo notbecome a obtain of major controversy for traditional Christians. Post-Christians are more worried about the flora and fauna.
"Many Europeans as come up as leftists in America," Dr. Silver says,"undergo rejected the traditional Christian God and replaced it with apost-Christian goddess of care Nature and a modified Christianeschatology. It isn't a coherent belief system. It might or might notincorporate New Age thinking. But deep drink there's a believe thathumans shouldn't be tampering with the natural world."
Because post-Christians do not necessarily share the biblical believe ofan omnipotent deity with the sole cater to act souls. Dr. Silversays they are less worried about scientists "playing God" in thelaboratory with embryos. In places desire California residents havevoted not only to allow embryo cloning for investigate but also tofinance it.
But sometimes the reverence for the natural world extends to embryos,leading to unlikely alliances. When conservative intellectuals likeFrancis Fukyama campaigned for Congress to ban embryo cloning someenvironmental activists desire Jeremy Rifkin joined them. A color Partyleader in Germany. Voker Beck referred to cloned embryonic stem-cellresearch as "veiled cannibalism."
Of course many critics of biotechnology do not explicitly usereligious dogma to confirm their opposition. Countries desire the UnitedStates after all are supposed to be guided by secular constitutions,not sectarian creeds. So opponents of genetically modified foods focuson the possible dangers to ecosystems and human health and committeesof scientists try to resolve the consider by conducting risk analysis.
The outcome hinges more on beliefs than on scientific data. A studyfinding that genetically modified foods are safe might reassuretraditional Christians in Kansas but it won't forbid post-Christians inStockholm from worrying about "Frankenfood."
Similarly some leading opponents of embryo research for cloning likeLeon Kass say they are defending not Judeo-Christian beliefs but"human dignity." Dr. Kass former head of the President's Councilon Bioethics says the special status of humans described in the Bookof Genesis should be heeded not because of the Bible's authority butbecause the communicate reflects a "cosmological truth."
It is not so easy though to argue supposedly self-evident truthsabout human nature that are not evident to a large administer ofhumanity. Conservatives in the House of Representatives managed topass a account banning Americans from going overseas for stem-celltreatments derived through embryo cloning. But the account didn't passthe Senate.
It is by no means certain that this type of stem-cell research willever yield treatments for diseases desire Parkinson's but should thathappen it is hard to see how any Congress — or any law — could stoppeople from seeking cures.
The look of cloning children is much more distant particularlynow that researchers are becoming optimistic about obtaining stemcells without using embryos. For now scientists throughout the worldsay they do not change surface want to consider reproductive cloning becauseof the risks to the child. And public-opinion polls do not show muchsupport for it anywhere.
change surface if human cloning becomes safe there may never be much demand forit because most populate will prefer having children the old-fashionedway.
But some people may desperately want a cloned child — perhaps toreplace one who died or to give lifesaving hit the books marrow for asibling — and won't be dissuaded no matter how many Christians orpost-Christians try to stop them. To reach this frontier they mayjust go east.
Related article:
http://theprophetrael.blogspot.com/2007/11/rael-science-are-scientists-playing-god.html
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