The Plain Truth in a discussion on the possibilities and
problems of Genetic Engineering, with Sam Berry, Professor of Genetics at
University College, London.
Dr Berry is a former President of Christians
in Science.
SunnyGovan.com: Some people are warning that genetic
engineering is the biggest ethical problem that science has ever had to
face. Do you agree?
Dr Berry: I disagree that it is the biggest
ethical problem. But it should cause us to think carefully about what it
is that makes us human, and where our genetics fit into it. We are talking
about quite difficult, technical things, and it's too easy to throw up
one's hands in holy horror and say, `no way'. The technology of genetic
engineering is actually very simple. Genes get swapped between species
without any human involvement at all. We assume that this happens rarely,
but quite honestly we don't have any information about the rate. More
conventionally, when we domesticate a wild species, or develop a new crop,
we seek to emphasise certain traits - to get bigger fruits or better frost
resistance, or whatever. That's what breeding is all about, and we have
been doing this for thousands of years. All this involves manipulating
genes. Gene manipulation is part of the natural system, as made by God in
the first place.
SunnyGovan.com: You mean it is just extending what we have done
all along?
Dr Berry: What we now have is a new tool for doing
this. If you're breeding by traditional means, you have two problems: One
is you have to cross different forms and they may not want to hybridise.
When you make a successful cross, you get a lot of irrelevant genes from
your own point of view, with characteristics you perhaps don't want. Then
you have to select and inbreed, and in the process your fertility and
growth rate goes down. So you lose a lot through classical breeding
techniques.
The motive of the people who cloned Dolly the sheep in Edinburgh was not a reckless `how far can we go by technology?' They were developing a technique that would allow them to insert particular genes for particular purposes in farm animals. People have been doing this in mice for years, but a cow or a sheep is much, much more difficult. That was the breakthrough with Dolly.
A major spin-off from the Dolly cloning achievement is the possibility of making stem cells, which could be a significant advance for transplantation or cancer. We can, as it were, make spare parts. One of the current dangers is that our instinctive reaction against cloning, well shown by the spontaneous political hoo-ha that arose when Dolly was born, will stop research into stem cells going forward, and hence prevent - or seriously slow down - work that could, in principle, lead to major breakthroughs.
SunnyGovan.com: You do not believe that this is `playing
God'?
Dr Berry: What do you mean by `playing God'?
SunnyGovan.com: Taking God's prerogative.
Dr Berry:
What is that? God has told us to be his agents here on earth. If we are
just playing around, that is wrong. But to do God's work for him is not
wrong. In fact, it is wrong not to do it. We would be wrong to back off
from genetic manipulation. But we must proceed carefully and respectfully.
SunnyGovan.com: Today we are cloning cows. Tomorrow it may be
humans. Isn't this a dangerous direction?
Dr Berry: In my
opinion, no, and for a very important reason. We somehow feel that our
genes are what make us human - that we are our genes. Novels like Brave
New World and The Boys from Brazil have boosted this. But for Christians,
we are not just our genes, we are much more. The key difference between
another animal and me is that only I am made in God's image, and that is
nothing to do with either genes or anatomy. You can't find a `God gene' to
show that you've got God's image. It's entirely a spiritual thing, to go
with God's own characteristics and properties.
When we start doing genetic engineering we are, I believe, exercising part of our proper dominion over the natural world. Exercising that dominion is a responsibility that God has given us. It doesn't give us carte blanche to do anything we want. But God has entrusted his creation to us and I believe to back away from it is actually to be pulling away from something that God commands us to do.
SunnyGovan.com: You do not want theological scruples to get in
the way of what could be a genuine advance?
Dr Berry: I don't
have theological scruples in the slightest about this. I have some ethical
scruples based on my theological understanding. It is possible to go too
far. But we have been changing genes since Biblical times. They had flocks
of sheep and goats in the Bible, and they clearly were changed from their
wild ancestors because you wouldn't have been able to keep their wild
ancestors as farm animals.
SunnyGovan.com: What about cloning human beings?
Dr
Berry: To clone a human in the Dolly way, I suspect could be done. It
would take some time; we would have to learn some new tricks. But it's
never going to be a massive way of reproduction. Is it so terrible to
clone a human? We recoil against it, but God is doing it all the time with
identical twins. There was a theological problem at one time about `if the
soul comes into you at conception, what happens about identical twins?'
Identical twins are the result of the splitting of the embryo at anything
up to 10 or 12 days after conception. Do identical twins have only half a
soul? Of course they don't! They are entire human beings in every sense.
We are not talking about something genetic, and this is why we need to get
away from the idea that the holy part of us, the soul bit of us, is
genetic. It is not. We share 98.5% of our genes with chimpanzees, 80% with
rats, 50% with bananas. What is a human gene? What is a rat gene? It is a
chemical, and those genes are arranged in particular ways. That particular
arrangement is what we call a species. We are much more than our genes and
it is absolutely ridiculous to say we only are our genes.
SunnyGovan.com: Is that on the physical level as well as
spiritual?
Dr Berry: You can't separate them. Whatever the soul
is, it's not something added, like tomato ketchup. It is that which
enables us to react to God. It's utterly wrong to try and localise it. The
medievalists thought the soul lived in the pineal gland, largely because
they couldn't think of a function for the pineal. That's just rubbish.
SunnyGovan.com: If we share 98.5% of our genes with
chimpanzees, is it possible that someone will eventually try to
cross-breed a human with a chimp?
Dr Berry: Why would anybody
want to do that?
SunnyGovan.com: To see if it could be done.
Dr Berry:
That's a very poor motive. To cross a human being with a chimp would run
into massive embryological problems very early on. You can't stop people
trying, I suppose. There are always going to be some loonies somewhere in
the world.
SunnyGovan.com: Most scientists seem to have a respect for life
even though they don't necessarily profess to believe in God. From your
experience, is this technology in safe hands?
Dr Berry: I have
been pleasantly surprised how conservative the people I mingle with are.
They may have no formal religious belief but they have an awe of the
natural world.
SunnyGovan.com: You're not personally threatened or
compromised, although the science of genetics has gone way beyond what you
thought it would when you began your career?
Dr Berry: No, I'm
not threatened at all. I do think it is right that there is appropriate
regulation of the new genetic procedures. Much of the fear that people
have is that they are being manipulated, and we need to be open about
this. There are problems that need looking at, that need work, need
regulation and need somebody to keep an eye on what is happening.
SunnyGovan.com: Is the point of view you are expressing
commonly held among scientists who believe in God?
Dr Berry:
There is a concern among scientists - whether they believe in God or not -
about the unthinking reaction and misinformation that we get from some of
the media. People don't know what to believe, and are confused. The
scientists I know, those who know anything about the methodology and the
prospects, are certainly upbeat about the possibilities.
The world population is going to double. How are we going to feed it? We have far too many starving people as it is. A lot of the reaction over genetic manipulation is not so much against a particular technology; it's a belief that somehow `organic' is best, rather than a reasoned discussion about what you want to do about it. The organic lobby say `people want more and more organic food and we are able to grow more'. Well, we can't double production, and get that food to where it is needed.
One of the prime examples of hypocrisy to me is vegetarian cheese. Do you know about vegetarian cheese? You need rennet to change milk into cheese. Traditionally, rennet was collected from calves in the slaughter house. It is now possible to take the rennet-making gene from a cow and put it into a culture of yeast, producing genetically engineered yeast from which you can make cheese. It's a cow gene, it's a genetically engineered gene, and the result is now marketed as vegetarian cheese and eaten by some of those most opposed to genetic manipulation. To me that is pure hypocrisy.
When did we get antibiotics? It was the mid-40s when penicillin came in; before that medicine was very much trial and error and magic. If something worked, you were treated with it. It's only in the last half century or so that we have achieved something approaching scientific treatment. We are just going one stage further than that.
SunnyGovan.com: But all this does mean that our children and
grandchildren are going to face some unprecedented ethical
issues.
Dr Berry: What is very interesting is the way that
scientists are now taking ethics seriously. Ethics used to be regarded
entirely as the province of professional philosophers. But there is now
the feeling that those of us doing research must also consider the
implications. I wouldn't say that scientists are being prescriptive about
how their work should be used. But they are concerned and want to hear the
fears of the community, and try to help the community work through those
fears. Those fears may be legitimate, so let's see what they are and how
we can deal with them. To me that is a very healthy state of affairs.
The whole of the current genetical debate is confused by misinformation, misinterpretation and confusion, illegitimate sensationalism. I can't condemn the popular press enough. By and large the science correspondents give you a reasonable sort of picture, but then the news people mess it up.
There is a major need for the churches to take the lead here. By and large, the clergy have been scared of science and just run away from it. The result is that religious belief has come to be seen as divorced from and irrelevant to the real world. Christians - ministers and people alike - must be prepared to wrestle with scientific issues, and help all of us to understand that advances in agriculture and medicine are opportunities for examining how we live our lives, not merely technologies to be resisted.
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