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Life in the old sheep yet
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LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 AUSTRALIA Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 CONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
God not-botherers In the contest between religion and atheism, apathy is winning RELIGIOUS belief is usually a British adults profess no religious no-go area for British prime affiliation; Christians of all ministers. As Tony Blair’s media denominations are in a minority. advisor Alastair Campbell once That drift away from religion is put it: “we don’t do God”. an interesting phenomenon. The The current occupant of No. 10 UK isn’t becoming a country of seems to have decided otherwise. committed atheists. Most of the In widely reported comments unaffiliated neither accept nor made over Easter, David Cameron reject religion: they simply don’t said that people in the UK should care about it. In that respect, the be “more evangelical” and “more “Most of the unaffiliated confident about our status as a neither accept nor reject Christian country”. religion: they simply don’t That provoked a chorus of care about it” dissent – some of it, rather unexpectedly, from the former UK looks a lot like much of the Archbishop of Canterbury. developed world. Even the US is Describing the UK as a “postheading that way (see page 30). Christian country”, Rowan So inasmuch as there ever was a Williams said that the era of contest between strident religion widespread worship was over. and militant atheism, it seems Williams is right. It is clear that there was no winner. In practice, the UK’s past was dominated by Christianity – with a strong streak however, indifference to religion looks very much like atheism, of paganism – but its present is and even more like secularism. non-religious. Just under half of
That may alarm those who fear that the decline of state-endorsed religion will lead to social decay – a fear Cameron invoked when he said secularists “fail to grasp… the role that faith can play in helping people have a moral code”. But that fear is groundless. As the prime minister said in his next breath: “faith is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality” – a position many biologists would agree with. Morality arises from the workings of our social brains. And our exploration of the world around us helps us frame moral codes that reflect the world as it is, not as we imagine it to be. Personal faith remains a private matter. But those passionate about religion’s role in public life – whether to elevate or expunge it – should recognise they are in the minority. Increasingly, none of us “do God”. ■
Life in the old sheep yet
her has resigned over mistakes in his own publications. Another promising technology that turns adult cells into “induced pluripotent” stem cells has been stalled by concerns that it could lead to cancers and other problems. We will know more when the first human trials start later this year. It is still too early to say whether the latest breakthrough is the real thing or another false start. But signs are promising: two groups have independently shown that it works, reducing the chance of yet another disappointment. The promise of stem cell medicine clearly remains alive and well. That is good news. But if we must revert to the techniques of the late 1990s, ethical concerns will return too: embryos, cloned adults and more. We may see that brave new world yet. ■
“SINCE what works in sheep is likely to be possible in humans, we are suddenly propelled right past the imagined techniques of Brave New World.” That was how New Scientist greeted the news, in March 1997, of the creation of Dolly the cloned sheep. It has taken longer than expected. More than 17 years later, what worked in sheep finally appears to be working in humans (see page 6). This is a potentially major medical breakthrough, but no longer feels as challenging as it once did. In fact, after endless hope, hype and failure, it is hard to feel there is anything brave or new in this line of research. To say stem cell science has a chequered past would be an understatement. Those with long
memories will recall that South Korea’s fallen stem-cell hero Woo Suk Hwang falsely claimed to have replicated the Dolly technique in humans in 2005. Controversy has dogged the field ever since. Because the Dolly technique involves the destruction of human embryos, its ethical dimensions have been fiercely debated. But the search for alternatives is not going well. In January, spirits soared when a Japanese team announced a simple way to create embryonic stem cells with no embryos required. Now, however, the situation is verging on farcical: the results have yet to be verified, the lead author has been accused of misconduct, and the head of the committee that investigated
3 May 2014 | NewScientist | 3
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 AUSTRALIA Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 CONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Colchester)
God not-botherers In the contest between religion and atheism, apathy is winning RELIGIOUS belief is usually a British adults profess no religious no-go area for British prime affiliation; Christians of all ministers. As Tony Blair’s media denominations are in a minority. advisor Alastair Campbell once That drift away from religion is put it: “we don’t do God”. an interesting phenomenon. The The current occupant of No. 10 UK isn’t becoming a country of seems to have decided otherwise. committed atheists. Most of the In widely reported comments unaffiliated neither accept nor made over Easter, David Cameron reject religion: they simply don’t said that people in the UK should care about it. In that respect, the be “more evangelical” and “more “Most of the unaffiliated confident about our status as a neither accept nor reject Christian country”. religion: they simply don’t That provoked a chorus of care about it” dissent – some of it, rather unexpectedly, from the former UK looks a lot like much of the Archbishop of Canterbury. developed world. Even the US is Describing the UK as a “postheading that way (see page 30). Christian country”, Rowan So inasmuch as there ever was a Williams said that the era of contest between strident religion widespread worship was over. and militant atheism, it seems Williams is right. It is clear that there was no winner. In practice, the UK’s past was dominated by Christianity – with a strong streak however, indifference to religion looks very much like atheism, of paganism – but its present is and even more like secularism. non-religious. Just under half of
That may alarm those who fear that the decline of state-endorsed religion will lead to social decay – a fear Cameron invoked when he said secularists “fail to grasp… the role that faith can play in helping people have a moral code”. But that fear is groundless. As the prime minister said in his next breath: “faith is neither necessary nor sufficient for morality” – a position many biologists would agree with. Morality arises from the workings of our social brains. And our exploration of the world around us helps us frame moral codes that reflect the world as it is, not as we imagine it to be. Personal faith remains a private matter. But those passionate about religion’s role in public life – whether to elevate or expunge it – should recognise they are in the minority. Increasingly, none of us “do God”. ■
Life in the old sheep yet
her has resigned over mistakes in his own publications. Another promising technology that turns adult cells into “induced pluripotent” stem cells has been stalled by concerns that it could lead to cancers and other problems. We will know more when the first human trials start later this year. It is still too early to say whether the latest breakthrough is the real thing or another false start. But signs are promising: two groups have independently shown that it works, reducing the chance of yet another disappointment. The promise of stem cell medicine clearly remains alive and well. That is good news. But if we must revert to the techniques of the late 1990s, ethical concerns will return too: embryos, cloned adults and more. We may see that brave new world yet. ■
“SINCE what works in sheep is likely to be possible in humans, we are suddenly propelled right past the imagined techniques of Brave New World.” That was how New Scientist greeted the news, in March 1997, of the creation of Dolly the cloned sheep. It has taken longer than expected. More than 17 years later, what worked in sheep finally appears to be working in humans (see page 6). This is a potentially major medical breakthrough, but no longer feels as challenging as it once did. In fact, after endless hope, hype and failure, it is hard to feel there is anything brave or new in this line of research. To say stem cell science has a chequered past would be an understatement. Those with long
memories will recall that South Korea’s fallen stem-cell hero Woo Suk Hwang falsely claimed to have replicated the Dolly technique in humans in 2005. Controversy has dogged the field ever since. Because the Dolly technique involves the destruction of human embryos, its ethical dimensions have been fiercely debated. But the search for alternatives is not going well. In January, spirits soared when a Japanese team announced a simple way to create embryonic stem cells with no embryos required. Now, however, the situation is verging on farcical: the results have yet to be verified, the lead author has been accused of misconduct, and the head of the committee that investigated
3 May 2014 | NewScientist | 3