Final Report (all chapters)

this argument implies that there is a causal connection between today’s research protocols and
tomorrow’s cures, i.e., a virtuous slope that connects the current research to future beneficial
outcomes, or at least a very strong presumption that today’s research will produce tomorrow’s
cures. But if a virtuous slope exists, why should we assume that a slippery one does not?
Technological optimism denies the relevance of the slippery slope – the view that a technology
could move in a detrimental direction in a fairly predictable way – but does so by assuming that
science and technology indeed move in a predictably beneficial fashion, developing along a
virtuous slope. To put it in cruder terms, it is simply incoherent to argue that science and
technology are riding a virtuous trajectory and therefore should be protected from governmental
intervention, but to deny that science and technology could actually find themselves on a
trajectory to societal harm. Why should harm presumptively be proved if benefits cannot
presumptively be demonstrated?
We are not suggesting that the slippery slope concept necessarily implies early and
aggressive regulatory interventions. What it does suggest is that scientific research should be
monitored much more systematically. We shouldn’t regulate research lightly, but we don’t want
to be surprised by problematic and perhaps irreversible scientific developments. A system of
monitoring serves not only as an early warning system – it may also help identify unanticipated
interactions among seemingly independent lines of research. Considered in isolation, many of the
experiments discussed in this section may not raise significant concerns. Their significance
changes dramatically if examined in the context of other scientific experiments. 61
A few
experiments on mice demonstrating that it is possible to derive sperm cell precursors from stem
cells may not mean much. If we learn that it is also possible to derive oocytes from stem cells,
and that it has been demonstrated that sperm cells can be genetically manipulated, the original
research results begin to appear in an entirely new light.
Much of the information used in the remainder of this section was gleaned from science
magazines and news reports and through extensive online research. Efforts to obtain first-hand
information about these experiments have produced very modest results – another indication,
perhaps, of the need to more closely monitor research involving reproductive tissues.
4.5.1 Cloning Technologies
Cloning (or somatic cell nuclear transfer, as some leading scientists would like the rest of
the world to call this process) 62 provides a good illustration of a procedure that is of considerable
import both to assisted reproduction and to medical research: Whether one contemplates
reproductive or research cloning, the actual process is identical. In essence, it consists of
removing the genetic material (the nucleus) from a donated oocyte and replacing it with the
61
62
Not coincidentally, unanticipated interactions among the components of a technical system are one key attribute
of technological complexity. Cf. Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (New
York: Basic Books, 1984). See also Nathan Rosenberg, "Why Technology Forecasts Often Fail," The Futurist
July 1 (1995).
Bert Vogelstein, Bruce Alberts, and Kenneth Shine, "Please Don't Call It Cloning," Science 295 (2002).
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