Literary Lunch

Michael Hilsenrath: My name is Michael Hilsenrath. I'm the President of the Anglo-Jewish Association and it is a privilege and it's a pleasure to welcome you as host to this afternoon's Literary Lunch with a lecture given by Lord Robert Winston.

It is very appropriate that the AJA is hosting this event and, by extension, taking part in Jewish Book Week and the Jewish Arts Festival. We are an education trust. We give grants to Jewish graduates and undergraduates, studying in the UK. We are also a cross-communal organisation and I think that is very important, not only for the AJA, but indeed because of what Jewish Book Week represents and the Arts Festival as a whole. It's the idea of bridging right across the entire community and again it's quite appropriate that Lord Winston is with us today.

Lord Winston - Robert Winston - is an incredibly accomplished individual. You don't need me to tell you that. His interests vary from theatre direction to, obviously fertility studies, speaking in the House of Lords on various topics, advising the United Synagogue on scientific and medical matters, presenting TV programmes and writing books. Faced with the task of introducing someone like that, you can imagine the difficulty I had to overcome in trying to encapsulate the accomplishments of someone like Lord Winston for today's event.

The following is a brief summary of his accomplishments, and I'll refer directly to my notes on this. He is Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College. He is the Director of NHS Research and Development for Hammersmith Hospital. He's held numerous grants from the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome and many other charitable trusts. As I mentioned, he writes and hosts science programmes for the BBC, Discovery and other channels. He and his team have established various improvements in reproductive medicine. His group has pioneered pre-implementation genetic diagnoses, and this enables families with a particular gene defect to have children free of the fatal diseases. He has received many awards. He is a visiting professor at a number of overseas universities. He holds an honorary doctorate from six universities. He is the President-elect of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He has over 300 publications, writes regularly for the lay press, gives seminars in schools and, indeed, at literary lunches, when he has the time. He is a member of the board of the Lyric Theatre. He is the Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University and he is a member of the Athenaeum.

I need to remind everyone that this is a summary of his accomplishments. The list was far greater, which I had to cut down. But I think as important, or more importantly than all of that, Robert Winston is someone who demonstrates that it's possible, more than possible, to live a very full Jewish life, an Orthodox Jewish life, as well as have a very successful professional life. This is something that the AJA has a great deal of empathy with. His success in the medical world, combined with his knowledge of and relationship with the Orthodox Jewish world, has enabled and ensured that everyone benefits from the various scientific achievements, not just of him and his team, but other achievements taking place all around the world. It is the relationship between scientific advances and halacha, Jewish law, that he will be talking about this afternoon.

Lastly, he is also known in some quarters as 'the baby-maker' and many of you here may, I certainly have some very close friends who have benefited from the work of Lord Winston and his team, and have two lovely daughters to show for it. We are told, I believe it is the Gemara, the Talmud, that 'He who saves a single life is as if he has saved the entire world'. We have witnessed over the last years, the last decades, we have lived through times of great destruction of human life. During this period, Robert Winston and his team have worked very hard at creating and preserving life. Perhaps he will be credited with saving many of the world's.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Lord Winston.

Robert Winston: This isn't an advertisement but [Holds up his book Human Instinct] it suddenly occurred to me, if I can find the page - I can't find it now! I'm sure it's in there. Quite ridiculous how some authors can write a book without a proper index. Absolutely extraordinary! Here we are, page 304.

Any of you glancing through this book, which has sold now about 12 copies, may be able to see this picture of a sperm which is reproduced by the publishers. It shows a human sperm crouched in the foetal position, head first with the anterior fontanelle clearly depicted. A little homunculus, a complete human being inside the sperm head. This picture was drawn in a woodcut by Hartsoeker in Holland and published in his book Essay de Dioptrique in 1694. Essentially at this time they had used the optics of Galileo which had been ground a hundred years earlier in Padua and, having initially made of course telescopes, using the same principle, made microscopes.

The first really famous anatomical microscopist was van Leeuwenhoek, also a Dutchman, and Hartsoeker follows with this drawing. It is a very interesting drawing because it comes essentially from an Aristotelian idea. There was a notion in Aristotle's time that the male put his sperm, the seed, inside the uterus where it grew into a baby, that the female actually played no part in reproduction, that the female was a mere incubator. It is a view that I rather share and rather like!

It is true that the egg had been described a few years earlier by the Englishman William Harvey, published in de Generatione Animalium in 1651. It was rather an obscure work at the time because of the civil war, partly because he was a royalist. Certainly Harvey's work at that time was not in great repute. But, in any case, Harvey didn't have a microscope and couldn't see a mammalian egg. So he could not have seen a human egg. He could only see eggs from birds, for example. But he did formulate the notion that all female animals would produce eggs, and he was right in that. But it wasn't a view that was really held in the 1600s. The 'spermists' held way.

So you can understand how, with the imperfect optics of the time, Nicolas Hartsoeker and his colleagues could lead themselves to believe that what they saw down the microscope was actually the case. This is a wonderful example of scientists being blinded by their own knowledge perception bias of the natural world. It happens all the time, and this is a very, very good example of it.

Indeed, Leibnitz, who was an extremely distinguished German mathematician, wrote to the Royal Society shortly after Essay de Dioptrique was published and said: 'Here's this remarkable work by Hartsoeker. Here's this little man inside the sperm and, think about it (he says). This little man is complete. He's got all his organs and therefore he must have also testicles and if he has testicles inside those testicles will be sperm. And of course, if the sperm are there, they too will have a little man inside them and inside those little men will be more testicles, and inside those testicles will be more sperm and so on and so on back to creation.' It is an interesting view.

Leibnitz was no fool. He was an extremely distinguished man who was feted when he came to London and spoke to the Royal Society.

Now why this is interesting' and I think, as far as I remember, I devote a little bit of time to explaining this in Human Instinct, why this is interesting is that Rabbi Pinhas Elijah ben Meir, writing in a very obscure book about a hundred years later in about 1790, says of Hartsoeker, that now you can see, he says, how right the sages were, that here inside the sperm, using the viewing instrument called a microscope, the viewing instrument that magnifies, we can see that inside the sperm are little people made in man's image. And therefore, the sages were right all the time because destruction of the seed is therefore like murder. He uses the classical phrase hash-hatat zera, destruction of the seed.

So he derives an absolutely correct ethical principle. What he is saying of course is this: that our view of the natural world leads us to believe we can see perfectly well that there are little people inside the sperm. Therefore the sperm must be absolutely protected, because that is human life. And it is impeccable, morally. Absolutely impeccable. Clearly, masturbation is wrong. Clearly, any use of the semen which is not for procreation is wrong. And there is no argument.

Of course, the problem is that the ethics are completely wrong. The ethics are wrong because they depend on a false perception of the natural world around us. And so the first thing I think I want to emphasise is that our ethics are only as good as our understanding of science. That must be true, because science actually is telling us something, not everything, about the natural world. As I point out in Human Instinct, in my view science can't explain everything. It doesn't explain the whole of humanity. It doesn't explain, for example, how we think. But it is still a very important window, and without that knowledge we are less well off. And, indeed, one of the key aspects of Judaism, I think one of the reasons why I find it very easy to be an Orthodox Jew, is for that very reason, that Judaism above all respects science. It's science literate. It recognises that scientific knowledge is essentially derived as a result of man's intelligence, that man's intelligence is God-given, and therefore that knowledge is meant here for us to use and to help with a whole range of things.

That is why, for example, undertaking the treatment of somebody who is ill is in fact not in any way undesirable in Judaism. Indeed, on the contrary, it is something which is utterly desirable, which comes right back to Torah ideas. And the truth is that people say I'm playing God. Well actually in fact, it's a wonderful thing to play God. That's a positive thing, to play God. Playing God is actually something which we are here to do. Imitatio Dei is a perfectly good ethical principle.

What we don't do is to try and supplant God, and what we don't do actually is to try, if you like, to play against God. But playing God, in medical terms, giving somebody an antibiotic for example, treating their infertility, is something which is totally approved of in Judaism. And again and again, when you start to look at science, you see that science is, at least in Jewish eyes, essentially an exposition of Jewish values. That seems to me to be something which is sometimes forgotten.

So actually, far from there being a conflict with halacha, for a scientist there is actually harmony with halacha, and the question that really comes to light is: How halacha might be viewed in terms of the knowledge we have? I must tell you that in nearly forty years of treating patients, in my estimation halacha has been wholly advantageous to the way I treat both men and women and come to decisions which of course respect their autonomy, which involves them, whether they are Jews or non-Jews, and, surprisingly though it may seem, I don't really think there has ever been a serious conflict. People often ask me: Is there a conflict? There isn't.

Which brings me really to my next point. Somebody raised the issue, when we were outside among the books, about their concern about genetic modification. Now it happens that my work, which is nothing to do with Human Instinct by the way, my laboratory work is heavily involved with genetic modification. Indeed, I would argue that the main thrust of my research at the moment is essentially in that field. What I am trying to do at present is to organise the genetic modification of animals, at present mice, so that we can get them to produce offspring whose tissues will be tolerated by the human.

Now for the mouse it's irrelevant, because the mouse tissues would not be appropriate. But supposing, for example, one was to use those techniques which we are trying out on the mouse first, because the mouse is a small animal and inexpensive, supposing we turn in time, when this is successful (as it is being successful), to the pig. You think of the human advantages. They are actually colossal. Something like $2 billion of the American budget is spent annually in keeping people on kidney support machines. It's about £400-500 million in Britain on renal dialysis annually. Every 18 minutes somebody is put on a transplant list. But in Britain probably only about one in five or one in six people who would actually justify a transplant actually even get on a list, let alone have their transplant. In spite of the huge incidence of heart disease in Britain, less than a thousand heart transplants, an effective operation, are done annually. Why? Of course because people are waiting for dead humans to give their hearts. That's a very difficult problem and, actually, will be an insoluble problem. But if we could use an animal's heart, and the pig happens to be just the right size, why shouldn't we do it?

Well of course there is every reason why we should do it, providing those pigs are treated with scrupulous humanity. That would be an important Jewish principle as well. Certainly there is no question that we are not allowed to cause unnecessary suffering to animals. It is something which Judaism recognised long before any other major religion actually. But that is a side issue.

But the notion that we could actually have a transplanted kidney or a transplanted heart in that sort of way would solve huge medical problems. Now that can only come about by understanding genetic modification. It will require the insertion of genes, or the modification of genes, in those animals so that their tissues are tolerated when they are transplanted. And my colleague Robert Lechler has worked on the immunology at Hammersmith. I am working on the way of trying to get the genes into the animals. I think that this is not impossible that within the next five or ten years we will achieve that goal.

What's interesting about genetic modification is that it has had an extraordinary press, not only in this country but elsewhere. But in this country, it's been regarded as a sort of Frankenstein approach. Incidentally, just as a piece of advertisement, I am making a film at the moment for BBC television (I don't know when it will be shown) about Mary Shelley, Mary Shelley's writing of Frankenstein. It's a drama documentary in which I'm a sort of presenter who goes back and looks at Mary Shelley who did the most unspeakable things with Percy Shelley that I can't talk about in Jewish company. If there was ever a halachic problem, you should see the sexual relationship between Mary Shelley, Byron, Clare, Percy Shelley and several other people in that coterie in the Villa … in Geneva in 1816. It is an extraordinary story - but I'm afraid I'm getting off the subject!

But what I find worrying is the extraordinarily hostile response that has come, quite illogically, from this notion of genetic modification. When the first idea that we might modify crops was taken on board, the public reaction was so powerful, the press reaction was so powerful, that virtually all research in the country which was leading in it, i.e. the United Kingdom, stopped. And it is really still largely halted. That really is quite shocking in Jewish terms, because as Jews we recognise that we have actually a fundamental responsibility for the whole world around us.

It might impress you to know this lunchtime, having eaten your DNA every one of you and not suffered in consequence even though it's entirely foreign DNA, that of the six billion people in the world today, about one-third of them won't have lunch, won't actually have enough to be above a starvation diet. They will be below 1500 calories today, as they are every day of the year. One-third of this planet!

And in the next 25 years, at the most conservative estimate, there are going to be nine billion people, and if we are actually to feed the planet, which we could do, we will need to double our food supplies at the very least. The problem is that at the present time we have a huge water shortage in the world, which is actually growing. That water shortage is becoming more and more important. The water shortage is the problem because of course we rely on mostly foods which are grown. One of the interesting issues is that something like 40 per cent of crops are destroyed by parasites, viruses or drought. In the case of foods attacked by parasites, most of those occur when the crops are fully grown, when they have used their full complement of water.

Yet in this country we have a technology which can do two things: it can make plants resistant to organisms which might destroy them or eat them; and it can make plants resistant to drought by putting in genes which would require that plant to use less water. That technology has been halted totally by a completely illogical response, largely as a result of a campaign led by the wonderful editor of the Daily Mail. That is quite shocking and it is totally irresponsible, and it has led people to become completely unnecessarily suspicious. Yes of course there may be problems with the environment. Of course there are with any of these technologies. But we have to understand our technology. As Jews, actually, we don't see that except as something to be overcome and dealt with. That is actually what we do. In a sense, that is what the Talmud always did. It argued through these issues to arrive at what would be a (if you like) a consensus situation.

Actually, we thought about genetic modification before anybody else. If you go back to Torah, we were just talking about Kedoshim. If you look at that sedra, there is the issue of kilayim, the issue of mixing of animals and seeds in the clothing that you wear. It is very clear that we do not approve of breeding between animals. You don't yoke the ox with a different species in case it might mate, for example. You don't sow your seed in the same field with two different varieties of a seed from different species, and even to the extent that we don't actually mix different natural fibres in the same garment. There is a whole mishnah on kilayim. There is a whole book looking at where kilayim is and what it means.

What is very interesting to me about kilayim and that mishnah is that the mishnah argues that the problem is mixing natural organisms that are intact together so that you don't blur the organism. But mixing something which is artificial, in the mishnah, in Jewish terms, is permitted. Of course DNA is actually a substance like the table salt that you've got on your table. It is something which is not a living or, in any way, if you like, part of a person. The DNA, the molecules in the DNA, are consistent right through evolution. They appear again and again in all different species. So if you take, let's say, an antifreeze DNA from a fish and put it into another totally different species like a plant, it doesn't fundamentally alter that plant. That isn't something which in any way would be regarded as being forbidden under Jewish law. There is no interdiction on that because the problem we have at the moment is that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of DNA, largely because of the scientists, because the scientists kept on saying: Here we've got the beginning of life!

Fifty years almost to the day after that publication in Nature, we are still talking in the wrong terms about what DNA is. DNA is just a simple salt actually, effectively. It is a simple chemical which can be made entirely artificially, without any reference to any aspect of life.

Nonetheless, there is a problem in Jewish terms, and it is probably summed up rather well by Nachmanides, the mediaeval Jewish philosopher, the Ramban, who says that we are given the world to look after, and we have to maintain the environment, and we have to ensure ourselves that that environment is protected, and that is part of our requirement to do.

So there is undoubtedly a serious issue that we are not to subvert that, because to do so would actually not be imitation of God, but supplanting God, because we would be making (if you like) strange species. Indeed, there are even aggadic stories in the talmud about what happens when strange species are made which, certainly in talmudic terms, always invariably seem to be evil. There is one wonderful story about the crossing of a snake with a tortoise. But I won't go into that.

One of the things I think I want to say is that this tension between science and society is artificial and it is one that has been engendered, I think, very largely mischievously. In my view, this tension is more perceived than real. If we are honest and we ask ourselves whether we would rather live now or in the time of Hillel, I suspect most of us would say: We'd rather live now because actually technology, the fruits of science, have been of more benefit than against us. But clearly we have to watch this, and clearly we have to keep educated. So one of the main thrusts of much of my work is to try to explain the problems that science raises, and it is very much geared to trying to help, if we can, in the understanding and in the dialogue of science.

I think it is very important that science is not for the scientists. It is for society. And society has to control that, and society can only control it if it has the knowledge. But condemning a science out of hand, like 'Frankenstein foods' for example, is frankly a nonsense. It's irresponsible and it's evil, because one of the things I think I want to say about this is that humans invariably, in Jewish terms, have a choice. Ultimately we have a choice with all our technology for good or for ill and, on the whole I think, history has shown that by and large we have chosen for good. May we continue to do so.

[Announcements that Lord Winston will take questions for a few minutes, preferably short to give him time to respond.]

Questioner 1 [female]: From some research that I have accidentally come across myself, I believe we are genetically modifying the British race by not using iodised salt and we are becoming a nation of cretins. In 1948 the BMA recommended using iodised salt in this country. They do in Switzerland. In France they even iodise the sea salt. We do not do it here. The iodised salt is more expensive and, frankly, I believe it is affecting people's thyroids. Their whole metabolism is not working properly and that accounts for a lot of the health problems we have. As I said, we are turning into a nation of cretins because that is the disease of lack of iodine.

Robert Winston: Well it's a very interesting point of view. It's not widely shared by the medical profession, and as there are a number of medics in the audience who I think might feel that the evidence for lack of iodine is rather missing, it would actually probably be more dangerous to put more iodine in the water, and I think one will run much greater risks.

It seems to me that that would be a very good example of where we want to preserve our environment, and the best way of preserving our environment is not to add salts to it unnecessarily, and I don't think sodium iodide or any other iodine salt would be a particularly useful thing. But it is an interesting view. I don't think many members of the 'British race', as you call it, would regard themselves as being cretins. I think actually, if you look at the statistics over the last 80 years, what is stunning is that actually in Britain IQ has increased year on year with each decade. It has actually increased and there are very good statistics to show that.

Now it is not fully understood what that mechanism is, whether it's the way we measure intelligence or whether it's because we are actually improving in our intellectual capacity. But it's a pity that Darwin isn't alive, maybe he could answer that question. But thank you for it.

Questioner 2 [female]: Lord Winston, the pig has a very poor press halachically in Judaism, certainly for eating. I wonder if you could say something about how you and halacha think about the pig being used for transplanting organs?

Robert Winston: There would be no problem, of course, because there are many very Orthodox Jews that already have a pig valve, for example, in their heart. Perfectly acceptable. The halacha is simply that you may not eat pigs. But you can certainly use the pig. You can use pigskin for your shoes if you choose to. That's not halachically objectionable.

The range of foods that we may eat is very narrow and that is a particular interdiction. But there's no problem about saving life. Actually, what of course is something which is perhaps worth putting up, there are, under Jewish law, perfect reasons occasionally even for eating pigs. You may eat a pig, for example, if you are dying and the pig is there, you may eat the pig. So Jewish law takes the view of pikuach nefesh, and fundamentally this ability to try and save life, if you are using a transplanted organ, would be completely in accord with the Jewish law.

So, yes, it does get a rather bad press but actually, to tell you the truth, the pig generally gets a bad press. I think it's rather unfortunate. Pigs are wonderful creatures actually. They're lovely, lovely animals. Yes, they are. I just don't eat them, that's all!

Questioner 3 [female]: As a true cretin with a severe thyroid problem, I hope that my question won't be too cretinous. I also want to refer to using pigs' hearts for transplants and I appreciate and understand what you said about that. But I have a different kind of question, in the sense that on the one hand you are saying that as long as we treat the pig humanely [it's alright]. The pig does not have a choice. He's running around in his little pigsty with his curly little tail and all the rest of it. Do you not think that by using the pig's heart for transplants, you are using the pig as a means rather than as an end in himself, in the Kantian sense?

Robert Winston: Yes, but then of course we do that with the whole of the natural world. I mean we do it with all animals that we eat, for example. And if we are eating sheep or beef or lamb or fish, as we've just done, we are using those in a way which is equally, if you like, a problem in your argument. But when we kill our animals, like the sheep and the cattle, we do so under the most scrupulous conditions, conditions which have been repeatedly under attack from those people who do not understand the nature of shechting an animal, of kashrut. But there is no question that those regulations are designed to be humane. They are designed not to make us like people who are inhumane.

Now I don't think there is actually any problem, because if you are going to keep a genetically modified pig, or a genetically modified sheep, you are actually going to have to keep it in even better conditions than the conditions in which animals are kept for slaughter. So in practical terms those animals are going to be incredibly valuable. The genetically modified pig that might give organs for human transplantation is going to be of colossal value, much more than a meat animal, for example, would be. So even the market forces would ensure, I think, a degree of constraint and wisdom and humanity about how they were kept. But of course that's one of the reasons why civilised countries, and I think I might argue that Britain is a pretty civilised country,- have such strict regulations.

I just recently applied for an animal licence to do a particular piece of work on mice in an area where the mice cannot possibly suffer actually. They would just simply be anaesthetised, that's all. It has taken us seven months to get the licence. Now if I were working in Belgium, it would take two weeks. Incidentally, my animal licence from the Institute of Biology is quite interesting. They always tell you not to talk about your animal licence because they always say that that means that you'll get pinpointed by the animal rights groups. But I've never actually had that view. It seems to me that if you show that you're treating animals properly…

But I have one licence which reads that: 'Professor Robert Winston is certified and has trained to operate on mice, hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbi'! That's a wonderful misprint. Isn't that great? And do you know what my wife has done? She has framed the certificate.

Questioner 4 [male]: It wasn't mentioned in your talk, but it is one of the things it says on the leaflet here: Should we always seek to prolong life whatever the cost? What I want to ask you is: My mother was in the old Nightingale home for many years and she died recently. When I went there every week for over twenty years, and now that they're prolonging life the average age in the Nightingale home is now 88 years of age, I'm sorry to say that I see the average person over the age of 87-88, they are really existing, not living. They don't know where they are. What I want to ask you is: the extending of long life with medical science, is that a blessing or a curse? Because if you are existing and not actually living, is it life?

Robert Winston: If you want to join me in my car when we have finished here, and we drive down to the House of Lords, you might change your view!

I wasn't responsible for the leaflet and it's not an area of my expertise at all. I have never dealt with the end of life, only the beginning of it really. But just some general points. I think that your concern is a concern that is very widely shared in the population by many people, Jews and non-Jews. The Jewish view, I think, is pretty clear that really euthanasia, as euthanasia, is not something that we can permit, because it is essentially transgressing the single, major ethical principle, the need to protect life because we're made in the image of God, and because, as you quoted, one who saves a life is as if he saved the whole world. But, equally, somebody who kills somebody, it's as if he destroyed the whole world, which is actually the corollary to the posuk.

So there is a hugely important responsibility really. But I think the difficulties in practical terms, which are absolutely understood, are that people who say they want to die, as I've seen, sometimes change their mind and you never know that they are not going to change their mind, and I've watched this happen. And there is the other concern that some people who, as they grow old and infirm and unable to protect themselves, may instead of becoming, if you like, welcoming to their attendants, may actually be frightened of them, which would almost be the worst possible outcome.

There has to be that element of trust between the people around them and the sick person. Once we cross that line there is a very, very real risk to that special relationship. That seems to me to be a fundamental practical objection. There is of course the issue in Judaism about the gosses, somebody who is moribund. There, there are different views. If somebody is moribund, what may you withhold from them? Different rabbonim have different views. Books out there, for example, will give you different views. I have no doubt there will be publications by Rabbi David Bleich, for example, who takes a fairly strong, rather right-wing view. But equally there will be people like Moshe Tendler, who has published in this field, who is much more lenient from a very Orthodox perspective. Then there will be people with a different perspective, perhaps a bit less Orthodox in some cases, who would be more lenient.

But the basic risk is so serious that we have to try and find a way of, if you like, ameliorating symptoms rather than anything else. I think that probably is our responsibility, and it is a very difficult area. It is one in which I am in no way remotely expert.

Questioner 5 [female]: I know it is a sort of related area, in a sense, but Dolly the sheep got dreadful arthritis. There are grotesque experiments with cloning for all sorts of odd reasons in various parts of the world. Do you feel that the idea of genetic manipulation is sufficiently clear in the average person's mind for people to understand what goes on?

Robert Winston: Without any kind of discourtesy to you, and it is not meant discourteously, but ironically I can argue that your question argues, in the way it is phrased, the lack of understanding that society has, because actually you talk about dreadful experiments going on around the world but the truth is that I am not sure where they are. One may listen to Antinori, for example, who claimed last April that he had a patient pregnant with a cloned baby at eight week. Well it is now March 5th so this is now a gestation of getting close to 13 months. That almost answers your question. The Raelians, who claimed to have cloned whatever-her-name-was, this was a wonderful way of getting a nice bit of self-publicity. But these aren't really experiments. They are announcements. They are not true research. I don't think that anybody is doing real research into human cloning. I might be wrong about that. There might be people.

But let's take your question very seriously and say: Supposing cloning was completely safe and there was no risk of arthritis, more importantly no risk of gene problems, because actually the real concern that we all have is that if you clone a human person you might make the baby very abnormal. In fact, I think there is a high likelihood of that happening and that is one of the reasons why I don't believe that people will clone humans for the moment because the risk to them personally, through the courts of law in terms of litigation with that child, human rights for example, would be huge. Massive, massive damages. They would wipe out Antinori completely, rich though he is, living in the centre of Rome. I've been to his pad, so I know what I'm talking about. He would not survive actually that kind of litigation.

But let's look at it seriously. There has been this frantic condemnation of human cloning which is widespread, particularly amongst Catholics. For the Jew, it is a difficult problem to understand, because there are in Britain alone 25,000 human clones already who are walking around, who are healthy adults and children. They are called 'identical twins' and they are much more identical than any cloned human would be because they actually have identical mitochondrial DNA and they have been brought up in the same environment, in the same uterus, at the same time, with the same influences. I am not clear actually what the objection to human cloning really is if it could be made completely safe. Now I don't think it could be. I don't think it will be, at least not in my lifetime. But if it were, I don't know why there's a problem with it, unless it was that it might devalue somebody or be shown to, if you like, convey the wrong expectations to a child from what a parent might properly have of a child.

So, not surprisingly, you may understand, seeing as I said there is no conflict between science and halacha, halacha has no obvious objection to cloning. Indeed, the general rabbinical view, I think you will find, is that cloning is not actually much of an issue and there isn't really anything particularly wrong in it. But I am not here to paskin on behalf of rabbonim. You should ask rabbis, but I think you'll find that most rabbinical opinion would not find an obvious religious objection to cloning, providing that it was totally safe and providing that the child was treated properly. That is not a view that is readily acceptable, but I think to some extent the main reason for not trying to do human cloning safely, completely safely, is because I don't think our society is ready to fully understand the implications of it. But that would be a different issue. It's a social issue then.

Questioner 6 [female]: There are always new developments in science, for example egg freezing within infertility. Do you think that science sometimes promises too much, for example to these women? And also, how do you think egg freezing will affect the role of Jewish single women?

Robert Winston? Well, I think you are muddling the difference between science and technology. Science does not have an ethical dimension. Science actually is ethically neutral because science is simply gathering knowledge. Knowledge doesn't have an ethical dimension. Knowledge is something which we gain and then use. The ethical dimension comes in how we gain it. So, for example, to do experiments in a concentration camp, freezing people, is not acceptable. That is highly unethical because it is done without consent and they hurt people. How you use that information, for example making a bomb which might blow up lots and lots of people, or perhaps, in your case you mention egg donation to, let's say, 90-year old women, that's technology.

Technology is not actually in the hands of the scientists and that is what people tend to forget. Technology is in the hands of society. Society uses technology. The Manhattan Project wasn't primarily run by the scientists. It was a secret, run by politicians, and they represented us and perhaps, in a democracy, they didn't necessarily represent us as well as they should have done. But that is arguable.

But we have to trust our politicians, as we do at the moment, this very crucial time now with Tony Blair. We have to assume that he has knowledge that perhaps we don't have and cannot have access to. And we have to assume that he is an honourable, God-fearing man, and that actually he is not going to lead us into disaster.

I think that that is a problem in our society, that very often when it comes to how these things are used we have lost trust. Now, with technology we shouldn't allow ourselves to be in that position anyway because we should be controlling it. We should be there because society needs to be involved, and in general those issues of trust don't need to arise. They are really rather exceptional. The Manhattan Project was an exceptional case because of the nature of the war, the nature of the threats to the western world, and so on.

And perhaps we are in their situation now. But in general, I think, it seems to me that scientific knowledge is for everybody. It is not only for the scientists. But the scientific knowledge has to be derived. And, you see, it's all very well saying: Well, there may be parts of science that you may not want to do. Let's take radiation. Very good example. You may say: Well, we should have banned that sort of research. We shouldn't be involving ourselves with gamma irradiation research. Every single one of you in this room, I suspect, has had an x-ray and most of you will know of friends, families or others who have actually benefited from x-rays, and probably had a life saved as a result of x-rays. I can guarantee that for every one person that might have been killed by an atom bomb or maimed by an atom blast anywhere in the world, there will be literally tens of thousands of people who will have benefited from the same technology.

And that is the problem. So this is a question for society.