Monkey Brains + Human Stem Cells = ????
A growing debate in the world of stem-cell research is whether injecting human stem cells into the brains of monkeys, especially fetal monkeys, could produce a moral monkey. Interesting in a time when many scientists are telling us that we are no more than animals ourselves, they would now debate that animals could become moral with human stem cells. The scientific world has become so very confused – we are all just animals, we are moral beings. Which is it!? The church plant has been conducting a “Questions of the Faith” series and next week we will be discussing how scientists form their hypotheses (are they using pure scientific methods, or is there something else behind it all – a personal belief system).
This kind of debate illustrates just how much our own belief system shapes how we interpret the world around us. Obviously, if there is no God and we are all just animals created from one cell, there is no reason to think that human stem cells would affect the moral values of a monkey. However, if we recognize that human beings do possess some moral values, we have to decide whether or not these values are genetic or if they come from another source (God). If there is a genetic tie to moral values, we should be very concerned about injecting human stems into the brains of monkeys. The human cells could infuse some kind of moral fabric into the monkey genetic code. Who knows where that could take us! On the other hand, if the God of the Bible is real, and “humans are set apart by God as morally speical and are given stewardship over other forms of life” (Genesis I: 26-28), then the debate is over and there is no possible way for the monkey to ever posses the kind of moral values that humans are given by God.