A keen and very bitter debate is underway that highlights the dangers of overlapping language games and misinformation and misinterpretation.

A statement by certain scientists has attacked the Catholic Bishops Conference for spreading lies and misinformation in order to promote their opposition to animal-human hybrid experimentation. The controversy centres around an information pack published by the Bishops Conference for use in each parish and includes within it a statement that in some cases has been read from the pulpit decrying the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos.

According to the scientists there are blatant inaccuracies being reported misrepresenting both their position and their intentions. In specific the scientists argue hybrid embryos which have been designed to provide stem cells to treat human diseases are not half-animal half-human hybrids as has been suggested. Nor does it involve the cross fertilisation of a human egg with animal sperm as it is claimed the Bishops statement declared. Rather an animal egg with its nucleus removed and replaced with that from a human cell will create an embryo that possesses 99.9% of human DNA. And of course the embryos once harvested would be terminated and will not be allowed to gestate and develop full-term.

On a superficial investigation of the competing documents it would look to my opinion as though some form of wilful misinformation has been propagated by the Bishops Conference and clearly despite the ethics of the issue (which I am deliberately avoiding discussion of) such misinformation serves no good to anyone.

However if we scratch under the surface it would appear that the scientists reaction has been hasty and perhaps unfair. According to a spokesperson for the Church the documents prepared by the Bishops Conference are intended to highlight along with ethical objections overall to the research also specific problems with the scope of the proposed legislation. Thus talk of half-human half-animal hybrids express the fears of a procedural deterioration – a sort of slippery slope argument (a rhetorical device) that speculates on the extreme scenarios that ambigous legislation can entail. Particular attention is focused on clause 4 of the legislation that allows licenses to be given for the creation of hybrid and “interspecies” embryos which the bill defines as “an embryo created by using human gametes and animal gametes” – this according to the Bishops spokesmen includes half-animal half-human.

Reaction to this controversy has been mixed, with some editorials criticizing the scientists for getting wound up over challenges to their authority “This reflects a growing tendency to demonise anyone who doesn’t buy into their brave new world”. (Daily Mail editorial).

If a genuine and wilful misinterpretation has taken place then it must be condemned as a rhetorical gambit in an ethical debate. If on the contrary the Bishops statement is a more general attack on the idea of embryo research and a speculation as to teleological consequences – including extreme outcomes (which is consistent with their long-term view) then any criticism is misguided.

Is this a free-speech issue as some journalists are proposing? Could scientists say in all honesty that they would not if the legislation permitted at some point in the future push the boundaries of their research and create half-human half-animal hybrids – and thus fulfil the doomsday scenario that the Bishops present?

Clearly it would be unfair to expect those scientists currently engaged in the research – who explicitly claim this is not their intention – that they would not go that far – to commit or restrict their colleagues future research programmes in this way.

In my opinion then the “crime” here then has been twofold. The Bishops have been wilfully ambiguous – whilst expressing a valid range of concerns and objectionable scenarios imlicit in the text of the legislation – they have done so at the cost of directly discussing the current research proposals. Consequently the scientists involved in this research feel that their specific intentions have been ignored and they have been accused of doing something that they are not. A valid self-defence without a doubt but an overly sensitive response to a broader critical review.

This provides an interest insight into the differing ways in which science and religion work. Science is particular and reductionist, whereas Religion is general and holistic. These researchers have a specific aim and method and require legislation to allow them to proceed. The Bishops object not only to the specifics of this research but to all such research and thus refer to any number of potential undesirable outcomes.

It seems to me therefore that this is fast becoming less of an ethics issue and more about rhetoric (for both sides). Which alas if it is the case raises up the spectre of misinformation and false propaganda. And in the long run when we consider the financial and political interests that are closely connected with what we may call ‘institutional science’ the recourse to rhetorical argument and name calling by both sides will only damage the liberty to open debate that allows ethicists of whatever opinion to freely state arguments for and against any given area of research. And that scenario where informed debate becomes wholly stifled is a very worrying one indeed.