Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Best You'll See in the Cincinnati Enquirer

Friend of SWNID and now-and-then adjunct instructor at CCU Keith Crutcher has about as fine an opinion column as one could imagine in yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer.

Keith is a brain researcher. That's right. He's that smart. He's also as thoughtful, serious and informed a Christian as one will meet.

His column takes on the utilitarian assumptions of the advocates of embryonic stem-cell research. It rocks.

We won't gild the lilly by commenting on the column. But we want gentle readers to understand the price that Keith will pay for expressing this view.

Biomedical research is a totalitarian society. Its subjects must subjugate individual rights for the good of "research," which means boosting any and every opportunity to get public money to keep the lab going. So there can be no moral objections to any potential line of research. Morals get in the way of grant applications.

Keith is a dissident. He thinks that there's no moral justification for embryonic stem cell research. And now he's said it.

He will certainly be subject to criticism and perhaps be shunned by his scientist peers. He can expect labels like "religious fanatic" or "right-wing nut job" in return for articulating honest reservations about the party line.

The next time you hear someone say that there are no Christian biologists, just remember that there are plenty. They just dare not open their mouths.

So much for open inquiry.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

While at cbc/ccu, having Dr. Crutcher for biology was a great experience. I would complain to him that I hadn't seen a science textbook in about 7 years and I liked theology. He would reply that theology and biology are very much intertwined. He was a very good teacher and very kind.

Mandy Reed