[extropy-chat] Wesley J. Smith on "right to research"

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Wesley J. Smith, the author of "A Consumer's Guide to A Brave New
World", has published an article on the Weekly Standard on
"Constitutional Cloning - Do scientists have a First Amendment right
to do whatever they please?". The article is a reply to Brian
Alexander's New York Times Magazine article "Free to Clone" on the
notion that the First Amendment creates a "right to research". Smith
does not agree: "The text of the First Amendment protects the rights
to free speech, a free press, religious liberty, the ability to
peacefully assemble, and to petition the government for redress of
grievances. What it does not do is guarantee a right to engage in
conduct." Needless to say, I found Alexander's arguments much more
persuading.
To illustrate the "negative attitude" of those who advocate free
research, Smith reports that a recent paper published by the National
Science Foundation entitled "Converging Technologies for Improving
Human Performance," asserted ecstatically that if we but fund and
unleash the power of science, "The twenty-first century could end in
world peace, universal prosperity, and evolution to a higher level of
compassion and accomplishment."

Smith continues: "Advocates of a so-called "right to research" assert
that scientific experiments should be protected by the First Amendment
because, as one bioethicist told Alexander, science "really challenges
or explores cultural or political norms," which, "is an act of
rebellion . . . in the spirit of the First Amendment." In other words,
because the results of some experiments could upset people and/or
change their views about life, scientific experiments are actually
advocacy, and hence, should be stretched into being perceived as a
form of protected speech.
The just gearing-up advocacy campaign to equate research with
political expression arises out of the ongoing clamorous debate over
biotechnology. The Science and Bioethics Establishments are outraged
by legislative attempts at the federal and state levels to outlaw
human cloning and frustrated by the funding restrictions President
Bush placed on embryonic stem cell research. To prohibit any future
"political interference" with science, some scientists and biotech
advocates want to permanently unmoor scientific inquiry from most
societal regulation and control. Having the courts issue a cloning Roe
v. Wade establishing a "right to research" would be just the ticket.
Our political institutions must be allowed to set reasonable
parameters around the depth and scope of scientific inquiry. This
important role of government would be thwarted if the Constitution is
interpreted to include a right to research. Not only would it craft a
narrow constitutional right open only to a very narrow category of
people, e.g., scientists, but it would imbed the amoral beliefs of
scientism into the Constitution, creating the possibility that rather
than serving society, science would come to dominate it."
http://transhumanism.org/index.php/WTA/future/wesley-j-smith-on-right-to-research/