Embryology Bill and the Moral Failure of Secular Humanism

There is some irony in the latest developments regarding the Fertilisation and Embryology Bill going through the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament.

The most controversial idea is to place human DNA within the female gamete of an animal, such as a cow, having removed the animal’s DNA, and create human-animal hybrid embryos for the sake of stem-cell experimentation. The reason this is considered necessary is to increase the number of embryos available for research, as human embryos are apparently in short supply for stem cell research. It is argued that it is important for medical research to find cures for various genetic diseases, although such claims ignore the fact that the ends cannot be used to justify the means. It totally ignores the evidence that human stem cells can be just as effective in research of this nature, and considers the ethical disgust felt by many as simply a ‘yuk’ factor that will be overcome when the process is underway. Leading science institutions such as the Royal Society, and well-known secularists such as Lord Robert Winston, Polly Toynbee and David Aaronovitch support the measures.

Those opposed include the Catholic leader in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who said the Bill was a ‘monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life,’[5] and the Anglican Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright who commented that ‘This secular utopianism is based on a belief in an unstoppable human ability to make a better world, while at the same time it believes that we have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people...’ Both Winston and Aaronovitch have accused the leading clerics of ‘lying’ for objecting to this Bill in their Easter messages.

It also reveals that the philosophy of secular humanism in fact suffers from a fatal paradox. The more humanists seek to remove limits to scientific research, so as for instance to experiment on human-animal hybrids, the less human 'humanism' becomes.

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Embryology Bill and the Moral Failure of Secular Humanism

Why Pigs don't have wings

Philosopher of science Jerry Fodor (writing an article in the London Review of Books 18th October 2007 entitled 'Why Pigs don't have Wings') rejects natural selection as unworkable. He also claims that evolution has left us 'a little crazy' and asks why we are so good at making ourselves misrable, noting that the suffering of the last century was 'terrible,' but holds out little hope for the next. Our present science, he observes, offers little help with its Humean axiom that ought cannot be derived from is.

Fodor continues to believe in evolution, but he says that

"...the classical Darwinist account of evolution as primarily driven by natural selection is in trouble on both conceptual and empirical grounds."

"If it does turn out that natural selection isn’t what drives evolution, a lot of loose speculations will be stranded high, dry and looking a little foolish. Induction over the history of science suggests that the best theories we have today will prove more or less untrue at the latest by tomorrow afternoon. In science, as elsewhere, ‘hedge your bets’ is generally good advice."

Fodor notes that perhaps our minds have not evolved to suit our modern world, but then concludes that he doesn't feel like a hunter gatherer.

"I really would be surprised to find out that I was meant to be a hunter-gatherer since I don’t feel the slightest nostalgia for that sort of life. I loathe the very idea of hunting, and I’m not all that keen on gathering either. Nor can I believe that living like a hunter-gatherer would make me happier or better. In fact, it sounds to me like absolute hell. No opera. And no plumbing. "


Darwinists continue to struggle with the rationality of Darwinism, but believe it true despite the problems, perhaps hoping that one day someone will deal with them adequately. The overall problem is that if the Darwinists could account for everything in purely material terms, then where would non material things like truth and value fit in? Darwinism is ultimately a self refuting exercise.