Faith, science coexist for biochemist
In an era when some accuse the Bush administration of limiting federal money for stem cell research on inappropriate religious grounds, some might shudder at a scientist admitting to religious beliefs. But when South Korean researcher Hwang Woo Suk admits to fabricating what was billed as groundbreaking research on cloning human cells, we're reminded that science always needs some ethical referee, religious or otherwise.
Biochemist Geoffrey Grove, 37, of Brighton, combines degrees from Haverford College and Yale University with a lifelong Catholicism. He is a communican of St. Paul Church in Cambridge -- where his parents were married, Grove and his wife were wed (the same organist performed at both ceremonies), and where he plans to baptize his newborn son. He recently gave a talk at St. Paul about science, ethics, and private industry, drawn in part from his experience working for Caliper Life Sciences in Hopkinton, which makes research tools for pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, and universities. Excerpts from an interview follow.
Q: What is the biggest ethical problem in science today?
A: One of the biggest challenges is the unknown. Some people have brought this up in light of genetically modifying crops to grow better. Usually, people say that's a wonderful boon to the world, and maybe it is.
Monsanto is working on a vaccine [with] human antibody grown in corn and then extracted, perhaps to fight off bird flu. This may be the thing that stops the bird flu if it becomes a pandemic. On the other hand, we don't know, when those crops are grown in the wild, whether that will be acted on by other agents that create new diseases. It's a complicated ethical issue. You're trading a current gain for a future risk.
Q: You work for a private company whose clients are private companies. Is the profit motive a pitfall for ethical behavior in science?
A: I think it's a significant problem. But equally weighty is prestige. Dr. [Hwang], I think, was seeking more than money -- the prestige of being the first to break ground in this field.
Q: Does science have adequate safeguards against such breaches?
A: I think that people will always get caught. It surprises me that people think they can get away with this kind of thing, because someone's going to try to reproduce your results at some point. I compared it to the Catholic Church sex scandal. It's true of any large organization: You're going to have good people [and] bad people. That's true of science, religion, whatever field it may be. I've found wonderful people in private industry who are incorruptible.
Q: What role should religion play in ethics in science, and what role does your religion play in your work?
A: There are scientists who are religious and will guide the choices they make along those lines. For example, animal testing is something that I see as being very valuable, but not something that I have the heart or constitution to do.
Q: As a Catholic, what's your view about embryonic stem cell research?
A: I wouldn't participate in it myself. It's a field that has great potential. We need to figure out a way to take advantage of stem cells, but we need to respect humanity. Just this past year, there were two new techniques for deriving embryonic stem cells in mice. And one of them avoids the destruction of the embryo.
Q: There have been allegations that religion is trespassing on science. I was thinking of intelligent design. The judge in Pennsylvania just said this is religion masquerading as science.
A: I agree with that wholeheartedly. One of the priests at St. Paul's gave a sermon where he was talking about intelligent design and how the Catholic Church doesn't agree with it. He was saying that science and religion are not at odds. The church admitted that Galileo was right. We went through the Crusades; the church has made mistakes in the past. But it progresses.
Q: As a scientist, why are you a religious believer?
A: I think it struck me when I was an undergraduate and was taking a philosophy course while doing a core curriculum in physics. When we looked at the nature of matter, in one way we saw that it behaves like a solid object. In another way, it acts like a wave pattern, like light rays streaming. Matter has these two qualities that were very different, in the same entity.
There are solid objects all around us, and they're mostly composed of space, and they behave like two different categories of being. My religion is showing me the same thing. Christ is described biblically as being both wholly man and wholly God.
I think that what happens there is we are breaking down categorical thinking. My wife is Chinese, and Eastern philosophies get very comfortable with contradiction, the idea of yin yang. There are things that are beyond our understanding and explanation, even in science.
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