GENETICS
AND EVOLUTION
Comments
by Prince Charles
|
ENVIRONMENTALISTS
HAIL PRINCE'S WARNING OVER SCIENCE 2:52pm 17 May 2000
GMT
Environmental campaigners have welcomed the
Prince of Wales's warning about the perils of tampering with
nature - but medical researchers criticised his message. Charles
says in a Reith lecture to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 that a
world which ignores the "essential unity" of the
living and spiritual universes is doomed. He also argues that
humanity's "inability or refusal to accept the existence of
a guiding hand" means that "nature has come to be
regarded as a system that can be engineered for our own
convenience and in which anything that happens can be fixed by
technology and human ingenuity". The forthright tone of his
lecture, which also takes a swipe at biotechnology, may also
prompt a further rift between St James's Palace and the
Government, which continues to support genetically-modified
food. Friends of the Earth policy and campaigns director Tony
Juniper said it was an important speech. "While most
mainstream commentators have lost the plot, the Prince of Wales
has hit the nail firmly on the head," he said. Professor of
medical genetics at Cambridge University Martin Bobrow said:
"I think it is extremely unhelpful to convey a general
attitude of being antagonistic to a scientific process. "I
believe there could be great benefits. I believe there are
potential dangers and I think it is important that we should
concentrate on both."