Transcript of Thought For the World's thought for the day

Clare Marsh

26th February 2008

A butterfly alighting on a leaf, an orchid blooming on the forest floor, a golden eagle soaring high above Cairngorm; all exquisitely designed for their habitat - not the work of an intelligent person but rather the unthinking, unseeing environment .It was Darwin's great gift to us to explain how it worked. Random mutations produce every conceivable variety of form but only those which improve the organism's chances of survival persist allowing that individual to live longer and produce more offspring which all inherit the altered gene. Such a fine precision tool; there is nothing random about natural selection .Leaving God out of the equation however has serious implications. When making decisions about ethics and morality it is no longer necessary to fret about what He might think; being for the greater good of mankind will suffice .At the moment, church leaders are concerning themselves greatly about the ethics of creating cells which contain elements of both human and animal. The most plenipotentiary stem cells are derived from an embryo but human eggs are in very short supply. Animal eggs, on the other hand are plentiful and when the nucleus of an animal egg is replaced by that of a skin cell from a patient the resulting embryo will produce stem cells from which new organs can be grown. These will be fully compatible with the patient so will not be rejected by the immune system. We are told by theists that humans are distinct from all other animals but this is not supported by the evidence. Sequencing the human genome has shown that more than 98% is the same as that of the chimpanzee. Clearly we shared a common ancestor some time ago and since we know the rate at which mutations occur we can calculate that the divergence occurred approximately 6 million years ago and just one million years before that we both were the same species as the mountain gorilla. These facts may be unpalatable to some but they are incontrovertible and when you look into the eyes of those magnificent creatures you have to wonder why some people are so keen to decry our kinship.

Scientists have just recently announced the creation of a synthetic bacterium. This brings us a large step nearer to solving our dual problems of increasing green house gas emissions and depleting fossil fuels. Micro-organisms will one day produce all the hydrocarbons we need for fuel while absorbing carbon dioxide to do so. The threat of global warming will be over without the need to carpet our countryside with wind turbines or have giant pylons marching through the heart of Scotland. Great news you might think but was it greeted with universal acclaim? Not so. Many commentators were still wondering "What will god think?"

We no longer have an omnipotent father to call on when we have messed things up so we will have to assume responsibility for looking after the planet ourselves.

Unlike the dinosaurs we can see the catastrophe approaching and we have the knowledge and the technical capability to prevent it. We just seem to be lacking the will. We have a duty to future generations to pass on the planet in as good a shape if not better than we inherited it. Our grandchildren and our grandchildrens' grandchildren will bless us or curse us depending on the decisions we make and the actions we take in the next few months and years

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