Royal Society's stance on religion under fire

Yesterday morning was the first time since 3 November 2006 that the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Dellow Centre didn’t hand each homeless a grated-cheese sandwich (“for later”) with their cereal breakfast – the only meal they provide. My only food M-F after 9.00am is two of these sandwiches – Declan makes a two-hour round-trip walk to the Catholic Manna Centre to be guaranteed a bite to eat for lunch – so I was pretty hungry for the day. This morning at the Dellow, as I was gone for my take-away coffee, Declan got manhandled by a homeless: “Ey, mate; I am talking to you,” he says as he repeatedly hits Declan in the arm.

In the last blog “Human Embryonic Stem Cell Secretions Minimize Tissue Injury After Heart Attack” I said that I had compiled the email addresses of medical practitioners from Israel's Hadassah Medical Organization to send Declan’s email to yesterday. Well, they were sent (127 in total, plus 17 Nobel laureates) but I got zero out-of-office autoreplies, and unsurprisingly no signatures. Normally, the majority of emails that I send to scientists and academics inviting them to sign Declan's petition to the UN on research cloning of embryos and stem cells go to spam boxes (or to cyberspace, see blog of 4 September "Obama: Yes to stem cells, funding") – like on Friday for example: I emailed 77 scientists, got only two autoreplies, and not one single signatory despite that 31 went to the Department of Chemistry at Yale University, from which we have two signatories, one of them a Nobel laureate.

No signatories from Hadassah University Hospital is all the more baffling because in the blog of 10 September "Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms" I feature a significant discovery made by scientists from Hadassah Hospital; one of the lead investigators involved in this discovery is a signatory of the petition; and in his email Declan writes that our campaign in support of human embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning will feature the discovery as an application of hESC technology (we are trying to raise £450 to buy a laptop so I can build a website, see blog of 26 August “Fighting for the Right to Clone”).

Faith or fact ... Michelangelo's The Creation Of Adam

Two Nobel prize winners – Sir Harry Kroto (NAC Honorary Associate) and Sir Richard Roberts – have demanded that the Royal Society “sack” its education director, Professor Michael Reiss, writes The Observer science editor Robin McKie in an article of 14 September titled “Creationism call divides Royal Society”. The call, backed by other senior Royal Society fellows, follows Reiss's controversial claim last week that creationism be taught in schools' science classes.

Reiss, an ordained Church of England minister, has since alleged he was misquoted. Nevertheless, several Royal Society fellows say his religious views make him an inappropriate choice for the post. “I warned the president of the Royal Society that his [Reiss] was a dangerous appointment a year ago. I did not realise just how dangerous it would turn out to be,” said Kroto, a Royal Society fellow, and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work on gene-splicing, was equally angry: “I think it is outrageous that this man is suggesting that creationism should be discussed in a science classroom. It is an incredible idea and I am drafting a letter to other Nobel laureates – which would be sent to the Royal Society – to ask that Reiss be made to stand down.”

Zoologist Richard Dawkins, a Royal Society fellow, said: “A clergyman in charge of education for the country's leading scientific organisation – it's a Monty Python sketch.” McKie reports that a spokesman for the Royal Society rejected the principle that it was inappropriate for a clergyman to hold a senior post at the organisation. “Michael Reiss's views are completely in keeping with those of the Royal Society,” he said.

The row over Reiss's remarks is the second recent controversy over the society's stance on religion. Fellows, including cancer expert and Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse (one of the first signatories of Declan’s petition), complained about the financial links that had been established between the society and the Templeton Foundation, a conservative US organisation that seeks to establish links between science and religion. The latter funded a lecture course at the society.

Many fellows fear the society, the world's oldest and most prestigious scientific organisation, is failing to take a sufficiently robust stance against the spread of fundamental religions which oppose scientific teachings about the origins of the Earth and humanity. “The thing the Royal Society does not appreciate is the true nature of the forces arrayed against it and the Enlightenment for which the Royal Society should be the last champion,” Kroto said.

In an article in Observer Comment titled “Our scientists must nail the creationists”, McKie explains that scientists such as Kroto, Roberts and Dawkins look with horror upon the spread of faith schools; the growing influence of bodies such as the Templeton Foundation, a conservative US organisation which constantly seeks to establish links between science and religion; and the prospect of creationism being taught in Britain's science classrooms. They expect the Royal Society to take a tough stand on these issues. McKie comments:

Many of their fears are based on their American experiences, it should be noted. Kroto and Roberts now work there while Dawkins is a frequent visitor on the US lecture circuit. And what they see in America unnerves them: school science teachers who firmly believe the world and humanity are the 6,000-year-old handiwork of God and who cannot accept what DNA tells us about our close relationships with the animal world, what isotope research reveals about the deep antiquity of our planet, what astronomical studies tell us about the size and age of the universe; and what fossils reveal about our own species' multimillion-year lineage. The prospect of such ignorance spreading to Britain quite rightly appals them.

Britain is still a broadly secular society which guarantees freedoms not just to atheists but to all religions, no matter how few its adherents, McKie notes. “If we follow the example of America then all are threatened by the rise of a powerful Christian right.” The Chistian right of course is particularly relevant for embryonic stem cell research (see here for The Boston Globe “GOP wants to close stem cell lab doors”). Accordingly, our campaign will have a section called “Science and Religion” which will carry pieces about the spread of faith schools; the growing influence of bodies such as the Templeton Foundation; and the prospect of creationism being taught in science classrooms.