Deepak Chorpa was written a piece called "Diabolical science has to end." I have to admit I was intrigued and with following as an opening I was hopeful that he had hit the nail on the head:It's amazing how far science has gone to destroy life without being blamed. We live in the scientific age, and science's prestige has permitted it to spread far beyond the good it can do.
It continues:
That virus is the amorality of science. Science is unique in that we allow it to have no morality. Destruction and healing are on an equal footing....
Because science is worshipped and scientists have grown used to an ethos of amorality, to protest against diabolical creativity makes you a target of irrational smears. It doesn't seem to bother the defenders of science-at-all-costs that they are acting out of the very irrationality that science is supposed to defeat.
Exactly! I screamed. I really thought he understood. Then, I kept reading. Chorpa has many legitimate grips about how far science has fallen into immoral pursuits, but he also wrote this:
Science deserves to be free, and ideas should never be enclosed in boundaries. No one is talking about the religious-based intolerance and anti-intellectualism that prompted the Bush administration to put a halt to funding of stem-cell research.
Deepak Chopra has clearly failed to connect the dots. He argues that "diabolical science" must end and yet totally dismisses the government funding of the creation, experimentation on, and destruction of nascent human life. The Nuremberg Code was written to prevent "diabolical science" after the atrocities the Nazi's perpetrated in the name of science. The Nuremberg Code states it is unethical to experiment on any "human subject" without informed consent. Embryonic stem cell research disregards the Nuremberg Code by creating, experimenting on, and destroying human subjects who cannot give consent.
Unfortunately Mr. Chopra, "diabolical science" will continue until society protects the smallest of our species against those who want to experiment on them. Until we understand that protecting the human embryo means protecting all human life against scientific exploitation, I am afraid "diabolical science" is here to stay.