The dust settles.....

So onwards and forwards to "saviour siblings", "hybrid" embryos and the rest. The forces of reaction and obscurantism routed and driven from the field. And I bet you're all expecting cures for everything from Alzheimer's to fragile-X syndrome if not next week then a couple of years from now. Don't get me wrong. Preventing or curing Alzheimer's, motor neurone disease, and a whole host of other neurological disorders would be great news indeed. And the research that can now go forward may play a role in such advances. But at a price. That price is that human life becomes just a little bit more like a tool or a commodity. And while many commodity prices are currently soaring, the price of this commodity is gently heading south. We're a little bit less than what we were, or are or should be.

Was there an alternative? Probably. A lot of research resources will now be ploughed into some of the new avenues that will now open up. But there were less costly avenues that might have reaped the same dividends. Work on adult stem cells has quietly been delivering real insights and possible therapeutic clues. Work using cells from cord blood has also shown promise. Both of these may now be hampered because resources will now be directed in new ways.

What the debate illustrated for me was that politicians and others seem peculiarly unwilling to stand up to scientists. As I scientist I can speak with authority on what can be done. I can speculate in an educated way about what it might lead to. I suppose in my own area of expertise it's fair enough to expect that I should be heard with a degree of respect. But when it comes to the trickier question not of what can be done, but what should be done, my opinions should carry no more weight than yours simply because I'm a scientist. "Is" should not lightly be simply turned into "ought" with no further comment. And it seemed to me there's been a lot of that going on over the last week.