Jonah Goldberg on the danger of confusing moral questions with scientific ones:
[T]he frost beneath them, making abortion seem like a 20th-century argument about feminism whereas the argument in the 21st century will be about humanity itself — and whether science is the source of human values....
Simply because science can do something is in no way an argument that it should (or shouldn’t) do it. Science is morally neutral. Science kills and science cures. Which is why it’s so disturbing that both left and right have bought into the rhetoric of science as a source of morality. Scientists themselves tend to understand the moral ambiguity of science, which is why they spend so much time arguing about professional ethics....
First, the determination that embryos have no moral worth is not a scientific conclusion but a moral one. Second, rejecting the comparison doesn’t answer the question: Is it anti-science to bar certain procedures on moral grounds?...
This is the beauty and curse of science: It tends to undermine the cherished positions and assumptions of everyone, even those who claim to be its champions. Perhaps that’s one reason we shouldn’t derive our values from such a moving target in the first place.
And the second part of Greg's piece on ESCR is up at Townhall.com.
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