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 […]