[ExI] The imams and advanced bioscience in Iran

[Damien Broderick]

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/31/genetics.ethicsofscience>While 
Our Scientists Struggle with Ethics, the Islamic World Forges Ahead
JIM AL-KHALILI, PHD - The Guardian (U.K.)

Dr. Jim Al-Khalili is a professor of physics at the University of 
Surrey, in the U.K.

While our scientists struggle with ethics, the Islamic world forges ahead
Stem cell researchers are branded by the Catholic church as playing 
God, but Iran's geneticists are unhindered by doctrine

In recent days I have been asked on three separate occasions whether 
I think physicists are going to destroy the world the moment they 
switch on the Large Hadron Collider - the huge underground particle 
accelerator in Geneva - later this year. They ask if, as has been 
reported, the energies it will produce when beams of near light-speed 
subatomic particles are smashed together will create mini black holes 
that will swallow up the whole planet.

Add to this the more rational worries many people have about the 
global catastrophe of climate change if we don't act fast enough to 
curb our reliance on fossil fuels, or about GM crops producing 
Frankenstein food, hybrid embryo research producing Frankenstein 
babies, and nuclear power leaving future generations a legacy of 
toxic radioactive waste, and one is left with the impression that the 
average person is pretty scared about the rate of current scientific advances.

Of the above doom-laden list, the only issue I am unable to provide 
any sort of reassurance on is climate change, where I am just as 
worried as everyone else. The rest, I would argue, are based on 
unfounded fears arising from a misunderstanding of the science involved.

It is of course quite right that the implications - ethical or 
otherwise - of all manner of scientific research are high on the 
agenda of government decision-making and research funding. Science 
ethics is even being taught as part of new science curriculums in UK 
schools. While the issue of ethics in medical research has always 
been around, it can only be healthy that we are beginning to apply 
the same standards to other areas of science, not just so that 
scientists themselves think more responsibly, but to encourage them 
to explain what they do to the rest of society, particularly if they 
work in academia and are funded by public money.

For many, concerns with some scientific research are linked with the 
unease about living in a nanny state that they feel often passes 
through legislation and enacts policies without real consensual 
debate. So I would like to share with you what was, for me, a quite 
surprising example of the ultimate nanny state making some remarkably 
sensible decisions.

On a recent visit to Iran, I was allowed unrestricted access to the 
Royan Institute in Tehran where, by all accounts, world-class work in 
genetics, infertility treatment, stem cell research and animal 
cloning is carried out in an atmosphere of openness quite 
dramatically at odds with my expectations. Much of the work at the 
Royan is therapeutic and centred on infertility treatment. But their 
basic research in genetics was remarkably advanced, despite the 
restrictions on many of the researchers' travel to international 
meetings and the difficulties in publishing their work in the leading 
international journals.

What struck me most was the way the authorities overseeing the 
research seem to have dealt with the ethical minefields of parts of 
the work, in stark contrast with the howls of protest from some 
quarters in the UK in the run-up to the human embryo research bill 
that went through parliament recently.

At the Royan I spoke to one of the imams who sits on their ethics 
committee. He explained that every research project proposed must be 
justified to his committee to ensure that it does not conflict with 
Islamic teaching. Thus, while issues such as abortion are still 
restricted (it is allowed only when the mother's life is in danger), 
research on human embryos is allowed.

In this country the Catholic church has branded research on human 
embryonic stem cells immoral and says tinkering with life in this way 
is tantamount to playing God. So I was taken aback by the Iranian 
imam who pointed out, quite rightly, that all that is produced in 
this research is just a clump of cells and not a foetus, and so what 
was all the fuss about?

It is these stem cells that then differentiate into the specialist 
cells that are used to grow healthy tissue to replace that either 
damaged by trauma, or compromised by disease. Among the conditions 
that scientists believe may eventually be treated by stem cell 
therapy are Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease, 
strokes, arthritis, diabetes, burns and spinal cord damage.

The fundamental question is whether the original single zygote (the 
fertilised egg) is defined as a human being. If so, then it can be 
argued that it is morally wrong to destroy the embryo, as is done of 
course once the stem cells are harvested. Many in the Catholic church 
do indeed believe that the moment of fertilisation is also the 
beginning of human life - a notion not shared in Islam.

The embryo-is-a-human argument is based on the idea that the 
fertilised egg contains everything that is needed to replicate and 
that this is sufficient. But is this "potential" of becoming a human 
being really enough? I mean why stop there? Surely the unfertilised 
egg also has the potential of becoming a human, as indeed does each 
and every sperm cell (a notion immortalised in Monty Python's The 
Meaning of Life).

But I would argue that this is more than just a metaphysical issue. 
An embryo just a few days old is no more than a bundle of homogeneous 
cells in the same membrane, which do not form a human organism 
because they do not function in a coordinated way to regulate and 
preserve a single life. So while each individual cell is "alive", it 
only becomes part of a human organism when there is substantial cell 
differentiation and coordination, which occurs around two weeks after 
fertilisation. Until that time, for instance, there is still the 
chance that the embryo can split into two, to form identical twins. 
If each embryo develops into an individual person, how can the 
undivided embryo be said to have a separate existence?

A sensible definition of the beginning of human life is that it takes 
place sometime during the foetus's development. For many, both 
religious and non-religious, this is defined as when consciousness 
switches on. This crucial stage lies long after that of the embryonic 
stem cells with their "potential", rather it is when that potential 
is fulfilled. But too strong a link with consciousness can lead to 
the absurd situation of questioning the rights to life of a newborn 
baby if one subscribes to the view, held by some neuroscientists, 
that it is not really conscious.

According to Islamic teaching, I discovered, the foetus becomes a 
full human being only when it is "ensouled" at 120 days from the 
moment of conception, and so the research at Royan on human embryonic 
stem cells is not seen as playing God, as it takes place at a much 
earlier stage. Thus, while there is much that the west finds 
unpalatable about life under Islamic rule, when it comes to genetics 
they are not held back by their religious doctrine.

Like a number of other developing Islamic countries, such as 
Malaysia, Iran's scientific research is moving forward in leaps and 
bounds. I had hoped to visit one of its nuclear research facilities, 
but given the current political climate and Israel's threats of 
military action, it was no big surprise that my film crew and I were 
denied access at the last minute. Nevertheless, whatever criticisms 
we may have of the regime in Iran, I was left in no doubt that its 
researchers can hold their heads high. And we in the UK might learn a 
lesson or two from them before we complain too quickly about our own 
nanny state.