Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Francis Collins, the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. This appointment may raise a few eyebrows because Collins is in favour of using left-over IVF embryos for embryonic stem cell research. Collins also believes that an embryo made by somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning is fundamentally different from an embryo made from egg and sperm even though animal embryos created with cloning grow into adult animals all the time. Collins argues that because cloned embryos are different, it is morally permissible to create and destroy them for research.The Catholic Church rejects both of these views. So why would the Pope appoint Collins to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences? Does this foreshadow a change in the Church's teaching on cloning and embryonic stem cell research? Should Catholics be troubled by this appointment?
Absolutely not. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is a body that is charged with giving the Vatican the most up to date, most scientifically accurate information regardless of religious (or non-religious) affiliation. It was established by Pope Pius XI in 1936 to promote the sciences and its members are some of the most heavy-hitting, Nobel-prize winning scientists of the 20th century, many of whom probably disagree with the Church on a great many things. From The Pontifical Academy of Sciences: A Historical Profile by Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo:
The Academy is an independent body within the Holy See and enjoys freedom of research. Although its rebirth was the result of an initiative promoted by the Roman Pontiff and it is under the direct protection of the ruling Pope, it organises its own activities in an autonomous way in line with the goals which are set out in its statutes:
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has as its goal the promotion of the progress of the mathematical, physical and natural sciences, and the study of related epistemological questions and issues.1
Its deliberations and the studies it engages in, like the membership of its Academicians, are not influenced by factors of a national, political or religious character. For this reason, the Academy is a valuable source of objective scientific information which is made available to the Holy See and to the international scientific community....
The new members of the Academy are elected by the body of Academicians and are chosen from men and women of every race and religion on the basis of the high scientific value of their activities and their high moral profile. They are then officially appointed by the Roman Pontiff.
Francis Collins certainly has the scientific credentials to be appointed to such an academic body. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences focuses on 6 major areas:
a) fundamental science; b) the science and technology of global questions and issues; c) science in favour of the problems of the ThirdWorld; d) the ethics and politics of science; e) bioethics; and f) epistemology. The disciplines involved are sub-divided into nine fields: the disciplines of physics and related disciplines; astronomy; chemistry; the earth and environment sciences; the life sciences (botany, agronomy, zoology, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, the neurosciences, surgery); mathematics; the applied sciences; and the philosophy and history of sciences.
Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences include Stephen Hawking, (an agnostic who also supports ESC research), and many Nobel Prize winners including Werner Arber, who discovered restriction endonucleases, David Baltimore, who discovered reverse transcriptase, and and Paul Berg who shared his Nobel with Gilbert and Sanger for work on nucleic acids. You bio-geeks out there know what I am talking about.
The Academy also tackles some of the most difficult scientific and moral discussions we face today. They convene "study weeks" in which they address topics most people would rather run away from. Recently, study weeks have addressed signs of death, evolution, genetic engineering of plants, climate change and the cultural values of science.
Even though Francis Collins differs from Church teaching on sanctity of the beginnings of human life, that certainly does not disqualify him from giving the Church his scientific knowledge on genetics. Benedict has appointed a first-rate geneticist to his heavy hitting Academy of Sciences.
Hat Tip: Reflections of a Paralytic
