Calum MacKellar Quotes

This is a matter far too important to be left solely in the hands of the scientific and medical communities. The belief that surrogate mothers and clonal babies are inevitable because science always moves forward, an attitude expressed to me recently by a scientific colleague, represents a form of laissez-faire nonsense dismally reminiscent of the creed that American business, if left to itself, will solve everybody's problems. Just as the success of a corporate body in making money need not set the human condition ahead, neither does every scientific advance automatically make our lives more 'meaningful.' No doubt the person whose experimental skill will eventually bring forth a clonal baby will be given wide notoriety. But the child who grows up knowing that the world wants another Picasso may view his creator in a different light.

Technological advances have brought our nation to a point where momentous public choices are inescapable.

I fear … that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences.

Biological science is a tool, and like all tools, it can be used for good or bad. It’s like a knife blade with three edges: The edge that cuts, the dull edge that does not cut well and the edge that cuts what you do not want it to.

Cloning represents a very clear, powerful, and immediate example in which we are in danger of turning procreation into manufacture.

Bio-technology is the science of the future.

But while doing that I'd been following a variety of fields in science and technology, including the work in molecular biology, genetic engineering, and so forth.

A technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality.

We have discovered over 95 percent of all the genes that have been discovered by science off the deck of my sailboat.

It’s clear that cracking the genetic code would be of significantly less benefit if we allow our moral code to become cracked as well.

Science and technology are what we can do; morality is what we agree we should or should not do.

What intrigued me most was not the technology as such but the questions about the human goods, the fundamental human values and virtues that are raised by debates over biotechnology.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.

'V-Wars' is a head-on collision of real-world science, terrorism, special forces action, ethics, politics and an exploration of what defines us as human.

You can't legislate morality.

Novel technologies and ideas that impinge on human biology and their perceived impact on human values have renewed strains in the relationship between science and society.

Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all, we have to figure out what they are.

Genetic engineering is a result of science advancement, so I don't think that in itself is bad. If used wisely, genetics can be beneficial, but they can be abused, too.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century.

April 25th is DNA Day. I know, you probably had no idea.

If we we were to intentionally set out to cause the extinction of a species, we should think about that. I would want there to be some consideration and reflection of a social consensus before we take that step.

The ability to make gametes from skin cells might have some undesirable consequences. For example, someone could take a paper coffee cup that you casually tossed in the trash and turn you into a parent without your knowledge or consent. We probably need some laws to deal with that; unconsenting parenthood seems like a bad idea.

we need to work harder if we're going to continue what Carl Sagan saw as a new Renaissance of discovery. One way is by explaining to the Congress and the public why it is in our national interest to get this work funded. We can win this – and do what is right by the American people – if we can get the public to understand what's at stake.