The lessons of Frankenstein

...In his view, avoiding "social dissension" is more than a policy desiderT Commonweal 9 August 13, 2004...

...Richard W. Garnett KEEP IT TO YOURSELF The Supreme Court on religious freedom he Supreme Court term ended in late June with an avalanche of headline-grabbing decisions...

...The Court declined even to review potentially explosive disputes involving a Ten Commandments monumentin Alabama's Supreme Court building and the Virginia Military Institute's traditional mess hall prayers...

...The project, which I'm directing, involves more than forty scholars from various disciplines, and addresses questions aboutthe ways religious values shape, and are shaped by, new biotechnical developments...

...In-stead, as noted, we grapple with subtler questions...

...Instead, this year's much-anticipated religion clause cases fizzled, revealing an uncharacteristic determination to avoid attention and sweeping, controversial conclusions...

...The cur-rent consensus against' reproductive cloning is a case in point...

...Many today, though, regard faith's purported capacity and tendency to "divide" as its most salient and near-defining feature...

...I admit that recent data showing the safety of GMs are encouraging, and I am open to proceeding cautiously...

...Still, critics who wonder whether splicing genes from different species—say, from salmon into tomatoes—presents a "qualitative" alteration that differs from earlier genetic mixing within species or across closely related species are hardly Luddites...

...Thoughtful observers of scientific progress, it turns out, are often chastened believers: they acknowledge the mixed blessings of many technological "advances...

...Still, the Court's recent work in the church-state arena provides more than a case study in reticence, or evidence of newfound judicial humility...

...Mapping the human genome, for example, was often described in the popular press as "searching for the grail" or decoding the "book of life...

...Two features of recent religious engagement with developments in biotechnology have emerged as particularly noteworthy...

...One side seemingly asks us to preserve nature against human tampering—as if nature "red in tooth and claw" could provide an unambiguous norm...

...For example, would the parents of cloned children tend to view their progeny as "products" rather than unique persons in their own right...

...Frankenstein while scientists too easily dismiss it...

...www.commonwealmagazine.org Commonweal 8 August 13, 2004 point to deeper concerns...

...Technophobes readily embrace the cautionary tale about Dr...

...What are the implications of recent theological em-phases on human beings as "created co-creators" with God, especially on efforts to improve or transform "natural" conditions that were once seen as providential (or fated) "givens...

...Click...

...That policy shift, though, is unlikely to end the de-bate...

...Victor Frankenstein's greatest failure may not have been his ambitious desire for knowledge or his self-absorbed quest for creating life, serious as these sins might have been...

...What about possible ill effects that not only harm children physically but could disadvantage them in other ways...

...Proponents of GM foods see such worries as irrational, the reaction of Luddites...

...Shelley's monster, save for physical ugliness, was quite refined in his other initial capacities...

...As stewards of God's good creation, what are our responsibilities...

...Where should the burden of proof lie in making judgments in the face of such uncertainty...

...Second, the matters under discussion are quite complex...

...Terms such as "Frankenfood" may be hyperbole, but they do Point...

...You'll find more stories, more features, and coming soon, exclusive Web-only content...

...Scientific enthusiasts, on the other hand, em-brace claims of unproblematic progress, thereby denying the mixed blessings of many technologies...

...Nevertheless, the claim that policies thought to cause "political divisiveness along religious lines" are for that reason constitution-ally suspect appears to be making a comeback...

...People of faith clearly have a stake in repairing and improving the world, in responding to and eradicating disease, and in curing as well as in giving care...

...First, the supposed "warfare" between science and religion is overblown...

...They argue that recombinant techniques merely "accelerate" selective breeding practices that have been around for centuries...

...For one, we need to temper the Promethean impulse referenced in Shelley's subtitle...

...Several months before, in Locke v. Davey, Chief Justice William Rehnquist had crafted a narrow, similarly cautious opinion reaffirming that publicly funded scholarship programs may include religious schools, but rejecting the far-reaching argument that, under the First Amendment's Free Exercise clause, they must...

...In May, the European Union ended a six-year moratorium on the introduction of GM foods, although stricter standards for the labeling of such products will now be required...

...I think we should resist both extremes...

...Neither approach survives deeper scrutiny, and Shelley's novel can pro-vide us with several "morals...

...These are the sort of questions being asked in a multiyear study funded by the Ford Foundation called, "Altering Nature: How Religious Traditions Assess the New Biotechnologies...

...Blockbuster church-state rulings, though, were surprisingly and unusually absent from the term's dramatic conclusion...

...In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), for example, Justice Stephen Breyer dissented from the Court's pro-schoolchoice ruling, emphasizing "the risk that publicly financed voucher programs pose in terms of religiously based social conflict" and highlighting the need to "protect the nation's social fabric from religious conflict...

...And, we will not learn until the fall whether the justices will take up the California Supreme Court's Catholic Charities decision, which upheld a state law requiring most religious employers to include contraception coverage in health-benefit plans...

...Hubris is always a danger in pursuing scientific mastery...

...Like "controversial" and "partisan," the term seems to do little more than signal the speaker's disapproval...

...Most of the issues the "Altering Nature" project is researching have pro-vided little evidence of a general conflict between science and religion...

...As the "noble savage," he turned to murderous rage only after Viktor Frankenstein, his creator, rejected himbecause of his physical flaws...

...To start with, we've learned that religious views on biotechnology vary widely...

...German "Greens" have labeled GM products "Frankenfood," an obvious reference to Mary Shelley's nineteenth-century classic, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus...

...It was an enjoyable reunion, al-though I was struck by the differences between Shelley's "monster" and the bolt-necked ogre Boris Karloff immortalized on screen...

...Smallpox is a judgment of God, [and] vaccination is a challenge toward heaven...

...Dictionaries tell us that the word "religion" comes from ligare, which means to tie or bind together...

...Stop by often and tell us what you think of the new site, or anything else, at editors@commonwealmagazine.org...

...But there are other concerns as well...

...The justices announced important, even land-mark, rulings in cases involving police inter-rogation tactics, criminal-sentencing procedures, Internet pornography, public access to the decision-making process-es of high-level executive branch officials, and—of course—the rights of suspected enemy combatants detained in the course of the current wars...

...The opinions in these cases and the premises they reflect provoke challenging questions about religious commitment, pluralism, democracy, and "division...

...Second, we must un-derstand that our efforts to alter nature require not only humility, but openness and compassion...

...We need humility in making judgments amid uncertainty, especially when competing values prove difficult to compare...

...It is based on the likelihood that there will be physical harms to the cloned child...

...he was emotionally sensitive and had a quick mind...

...In light of tangible or plausible benefits, for example, how do we fairly assess concerns about future risks—individually or collectively—that may be more difficult to quantify...

...His worst crime was his refusal to show compassion and humanity to his flawed creation...

...In our culture and in our courts, difference, diversity, and dissent are accepted—even celebrated—but the division allegedly fomented by religiously grounded claims is widely seen as cause for alarm...

...A perfection-ism that rejects or abandons what we cannot fully control (or what thwarts our expectations) is a flaw far deeper than a monster's ugliness...

...Such mythopoeic ambitions are also echoed in ongoing cultural debates about the acceptability of genetically modified (GM) foods...

...True, few contemporary epithets are as wounding, yet so tedious and vacuous, as the charge that a claim, proposal, or belief is "divisive...

...Commonweal's new Web site has just undergone its first redesign since 1997...

...Similarly, scientists are not just cheerleaders for "progress," " and their judgments can differ significantly about the application of various technologies...

...If the long-term consequences of "tampering" across species are unclear, should we take the risk...

...In Elk Grove v. Newdow, the hot-button Pledge of Allegiance case, a bare majority employed the technical (but important) doctrine of "standing" to escape the delicate, politically charged task of confronting squarely an atheist's objections to the words "under God...

...But the particulars of the ongoing GM food debate did send me back to Shelley's novel...

...A second interesting discovery of our study has involved the appropriation of religious or quasi-religious categories by science...

...For an egregious example of the latter perspective, consider Leo XII's opinion in 1829: "Who-ever allows himself to be vaccinated ceases to be a child of God...

...Criticize...

...And if we do proceed, we need to be open to-ward the always "imperfect" results of our own best intentions...