Scientific Underworld

Those who mistrust the new biotechnology have always argued that if it is technologically possible to do something, sooner or later it will be done. As far as the fundamentals of human existence are concerned, the Promethean bargain is a bad one. It is not necessary to deny the potential benefits to humanity of the new biotechnology to be deeply disturbed by the claim of Brigitte Boisselier to have successfully cloned a human being for the first time. This is not because she is associated with a bizarre sect called the Raelians, which believes that humans were created by extraterrestrial aliens. Scientific genius of the highest order is perfectly compatible with the grossest superstition: Sir Isaac Newton, after all, devoted more of his incomparable intellect to biblical numerology than to physics.

Miss Boisselier’s claim is disturbing even if, as is quite likely, it turns out to be unjustified; for it casts a lurid light on a scientific underworld of competition to do what ought never to be done but which someone almost certainly will do.