Jurassic Park is, in my opinion, a Spielberg classic. Honestly, who wouldn’t think it ridiculously cool and fun if scientists were able to find a way to genetically engineer and clone a dinosaur? The answer should, unfortunately, be me. Well, me and you. And I only say unfortunately because I would love to see a real dinosaur. The problem arises when we look at the means of actually producing the dinosaur, cloning. Now I am not a moral theologian, so I had to go around and do some digging in my efforts to find out what the official church teaching is on animal cloning. The end result was, to be honest, a bit confusing. Human cloning is, of course, completely against the dignity of human life. But animal life does not have the same amount of dignity that a human person does, otherwise it would be morally wrong to kill a cow and enjoy a big juicy stake. This is not to say that animals don’t have any intrinsic dignity, only that humans have more. I think that the whole process can be summed up by one of Jeff Goldblum’s lines in the movie “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.” Jurassic Park is a great movie because it really takes a look at critical look at science from a non religious perspective. Our modern society tends to view faith and religion as the enemies of science, which has never been true. Well, almost never. There was that whole Galileo thing, but that was almost 400 years ago so I say it is high time we just let it go. Anyway, the point is, the Church doesn’t hate science. It just thinks we need to be careful about what we are doing and what the methods are that we use to achieve our ends. For example, many people question why the Church is against embryonic stem cell research. The answer is quite simple, because it is wrong to kill a baby just so you can run scientific experiments. The Church instead supports the use of adult stem cells for research, that way no one has to die. But back to cloning dinosaurs. I am still not sure what the official teaching is on the subject, but from a purely realistic point of view I just don’t know if I want to share the modern world with a velociraptor. Still though, it made for a great late night movie.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Summer Movie Review: Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park is, in my opinion, a Spielberg classic. Honestly, who wouldn’t think it ridiculously cool and fun if scientists were able to find a way to genetically engineer and clone a dinosaur? The answer should, unfortunately, be me. Well, me and you. And I only say unfortunately because I would love to see a real dinosaur. The problem arises when we look at the means of actually producing the dinosaur, cloning. Now I am not a moral theologian, so I had to go around and do some digging in my efforts to find out what the official church teaching is on animal cloning. The end result was, to be honest, a bit confusing. Human cloning is, of course, completely against the dignity of human life. But animal life does not have the same amount of dignity that a human person does, otherwise it would be morally wrong to kill a cow and enjoy a big juicy stake. This is not to say that animals don’t have any intrinsic dignity, only that humans have more. I think that the whole process can be summed up by one of Jeff Goldblum’s lines in the movie “Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.” Jurassic Park is a great movie because it really takes a look at critical look at science from a non religious perspective. Our modern society tends to view faith and religion as the enemies of science, which has never been true. Well, almost never. There was that whole Galileo thing, but that was almost 400 years ago so I say it is high time we just let it go. Anyway, the point is, the Church doesn’t hate science. It just thinks we need to be careful about what we are doing and what the methods are that we use to achieve our ends. For example, many people question why the Church is against embryonic stem cell research. The answer is quite simple, because it is wrong to kill a baby just so you can run scientific experiments. The Church instead supports the use of adult stem cells for research, that way no one has to die. But back to cloning dinosaurs. I am still not sure what the official teaching is on the subject, but from a purely realistic point of view I just don’t know if I want to share the modern world with a velociraptor. Still though, it made for a great late night movie.
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