From Quentin de la Bedoyere, Science editor, Catholic Herald
As someone charged with communicating science in a Catholic newspaper, I am not helped by Royal Society president Paul Nurse’s attacks on anti-science (17 September, p 5).
The Catholic church is on official record as saying that material human evolution is compatible with religious faith. But science, by definition, has nothing to say about the spiritual aspects of humans.
On “the wholesale destruction of human life” in embryonic stem cell research, leaving aside “wholesale”, which is gratuitous, the destruction of life is a matter of fact. Questions of relative values and rights in this are not scientific issues – although scientists may provide helpful circumstantial evidence.
London, UK
