Craig Venter Quotes

Today, it is research with human embryonic stem cells and attempts to prepare cloned stem cells for research and medical therapies that are being disavowed as being ethically unacceptable.

Bioethics is a very, very important field. As we get more and more in the arena of understanding science and getting better opportunities, the fact that you can do things with biological sciences that have an impact on a human being means you must have ethical standards.

We slow the progress of science today for all sorts of ethical reasons. Biomedicine could advance much faster if we abolished our rules on human experimentation in clinical trials, as Nazi researchers did.

When gene therapy was believed to harbor latent risks, research was largely put on hold until the risks were better understood. Sometimes, the theoretical risks have led to a principle of absolutist precaution that impedes progress.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.

Scientists surely have a special responsibility. It is their ideas that form the basis of new technology. They should not be indifferent to the fruits of their ideas. They should forgo experiments that are risky or unethical.

I don't believe in technological determinism, especially not in biology and medicine. We have strong laws to keep doctors from monkeying around with humans that will remain in place. It's simply not true that everything that is technologically possible gets done.

What we think is ethical today, we may not have thought ethical five or 10 years ago. Cloning, stem cell research? However we feel about those things today, we may feel differently 10 years from now.

We've made science experiments of ourselves and our children.

An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable.

Stem cell research must be carried out in an ethical manner in a way that respects the sanctity of human life.

The history of using mice to stand in for humans in medical experiments is replete with failures.

It is time my colleagues got real. All British universities doing worthwhile research use animals, and, instead of hiding, they should be boasting of their achievements.

The legal and ethical issues are just beginning.

There are lots of things that science will enable us to do that we shouldn’t do.

Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.

Human cloning and attempts at creating animal-human hybrids are immoral and unethical practices that devalue human life and have questionable, if any, scientific merit. These practices are a direct affront to the sanctity of human life in this state, and have no place in our society.

We want government to control business and industry enough to protect us as consumers from being cheated, but we oppose government interference in private enterprise. We want government to ensure standards and equality in education, but many of us balk at the idea of a government-imposed curriculum.

… work on synthetic biology, or synbio, had become so cheap that its practitioners were no longer classically trained biologists. This meant that there were no shared assumptions regarding the new field’s ethics, professional standards, or safety.

As the scientific community has started debating “human-directed evolution” the biosecurity establishment remains behind the curve.

New technologies are often met with skepticism. But if the world is to continue the remarkable progress of the past few decades, it is vital that scientists, subject to safety and ethics guidelines, be encouraged to continue taking advantage of such promising tools as CRISPR.

There's nothing within science per se that says medical researchers must not experiment on human subjects; it is the imposition of ethical dogma that constrains the scientist.

Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action.

Vivisection is wrong because it is an abuse of man's power over the helpless, involving pain and suffering. The name for this is cruelty, and cruelty is immoral, no matter what the reason for its introduction.

You know, there's a right and wrong way to do everything.