The Hindu Business Line : Is science dangerous?

IT'S Professor Lewis Wolpert's question. And before anyone can respond, he says, dangers and ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology.

Science itself is no danger, says the author-academician from the University College of London. "Reliable scientific knowledge is value-free and has no moral or ethical value. Science tells us how the world is," he says, at the Foundation Day lecture at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology here.

Prof. Wolpert, the author of several books, including The Triumph of the Embryo, believes whatever technology is introduced, it is not for scientists to make moral or ethical decisions. "There is, in fact, a grave danger in asking scientists to be more socially responsible if that means that they have the right and power to take such decisions on their own."

But who makes science seem dangerous? "Western literature has not been kind to scientists and is filled with images of scientists meddling with nature with disastrous results," he answers.

The professor reserves his best to scoff at journalists and science-fiction writers. "The very term `genetic engineering' conjures up the image of Frankenstein and his monster. It was the unintentional evil fairy godmother of genetics and her creation has been mythologised by Hollywood with Jurassic Park and Godzilla."

"The press (in the West) is all too aware of this and often publishes, what I regard as, genetic pornography — that is, reports about genetics dressed up to titillate and frighten," he says.

Moralists, too, come under Prof. Wolpert's attack. "It is quite amusing to observe moralists swing from denying that genes have an important effect on behaviour to saying that a cloned individual's behaviour will be entirely determined by the individual's genetic make-up. Like identical twins, clones will be similar but not the same because of upbringing and the influence of the environment in the womb."

A cloned being doesn't come out as an adult, he adds.

He is, however, against cloning. Right now, the risk of human cloning leading to abnormalities in children is high. "So it should not be attempted," he feels.

But who is to decide on the ethical issues posed by the unfolding technological developments? Certainly, not scientists. "They cannot easily predict the social and technological implications of their current research," he points out.

It is people who ultimately have the last laugh. The ethical issues must be put in the public domain, Prof Wolpert says.

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