Playing God on 'The Colbert Report'

It's a story as old as science itself: Researchers develop a revolutionary new technology that promises to vastly improve the human condition. Then the critics swoop in and let loose their standard clarion call: "The scientists are playing God! This research must be stopped!" Fortunately for us all, these close-minded complainers have been wrong just about every time that accusation has been made.

The latest scientist to arouse the ire of religious leaders and reactionary ethicists is J. Craig Venter. Dr. Venter, fresh off his success in sequencing the human genome, is now trying to create artificial life. As he explained during a recent appearance on "The Colbert Report," he hopes to engineer microorganisms that can turn sugar into gasoline or convert biological waste into electricity.

Is Venter "playing God?" Maybe — but it's quite interesting to consider what else has been deemed to be "off-limits" to human scientists over the course of history.

Take vaccination. Thanks to the ingenuity of brilliant men from Edward Jenner to Adel Mahmoud, most of us go through life happily immune to diseases like smallpox, measles, and polio. But, if you were to step into a 19th century church, you'd hear a very different story. Many prominent religious leaders condemned vaccination, claiming that artificial immunity was contrary to the will of God. Rev. Timothy Dwight, then-President of Yale, proclaimed, "If God had decreed from all eternity that a certain person should die of smallpox, it would be a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination." Thankfully, we ignored Dwight and his ilk, and smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the Earth, while polio is a fading memory in the developed world.

The "playing God" canard reared its ugly head again during the controversy over recombinant DNA. As scientists in the 1960s and 70s developed tools to cut genes apart, stitch them back together and even move them between organisms, they saw a potential revolution in biomedical technology. Others saw it differently. Human genes, expressed in a mouse or in bacteria, many believed was "an abomination in the eyes of God!" In Cambridge, Mass., the conservative mayor compared recombinant DNA experimentation at Harvard with efforts to create Frankenstein's monster. He rode a wave of popular and religious indignation to place a moratorium on Harvard's "dangerous" research.

Months later, when the dust had settled, scientists at Genentech had used recombinant DNA technology to create a "human-bacterial hybrid." Whether it was an abomination in the eyes of God, I can't say for certain. Something I do know, however, is that it saved the life of my brother. This "man-bacterial hybrid" was in fact a single-celled organism that produced human insulin, thereby providing a safe and abundant supply of the hormone to treat millions of diabetics worldwide.

What was once considered to be "playing God" is now standard fare in modern biology. Of course, scientists should not rush impulsively into every new field of research. A cautious calculation of the risks and benefits is always warranted. Instead, I believe that the charge of "playing God" is ubiquitous in the history of science. Every new advance is supposedly Frankenstein's monster come to life, from recombinant DNA to genetically modified food, but the apocalypse hasn't hit us yet. We should never limit the scope of human understanding simply because something is asserted to be "in God's domain."

So, is Dr. Venter "playing God"? If so, he's in very good company. I can only hope that his inventions will improve the world as much as those of his scientific predecessors, who were also once excoriated for interfering with "God's domain." Jason Sheltzer is a molecular biology major from St. Davids, Pa. He can be reached at sheltzer@princeton.edu.