The New York Times’ New Hitman

John Tierney has been writing for the New York Times for quite a while. But his most recent beat has entailed covering science and technology, where he has drunken the biohype kool-aid that's apparently on tap at the Times' watercooler.

Tierney's most recent example of reporting while intoxicated can be seen in his article on religion and cloning, where he not so subtly suggests that only Western religious zealots find fault with the idea of cloning human beings. His proof? The Far East. If people in Asia (who are largely non-Christian) don't have a problem with reproductive or research cloning, then, as Tierney's shoddy armchair sociology leads him to conclude, religion must be the key variable. And, the argument goes, since religion is by definition irrational, so too is any opposition to cloning a human. Tierney lays out his full manifesto in a blog post on the Times' website entitled "Who's Afraid of Soulless Scientism?"

This strawman argument pitting religion and science as irredeemably feuding entities both overestimates religion's role in how people think about reproductive cloning and underestimates the very real social harms that may come from it. One need not resort to a belief in God to think that human cloning is a bad idea.

First, any effort to clone a person is nothing short of unethical human experimentation. Reproductive cloning in animals typically leads to scores of stillborn and deformed clones before a viable one is born. And their surrogates often don't fare much better. Subjecting humans to this would be barbaric. Second, like research cloning, reproductive cloning relies heavily upon women's eggs and endangers those who undergo egg extraction - a painful and dangerous endeavor that has lead to serious complications and even some deaths. Third, reproductive cloning doesn't serve any reasonable medical purpose. Cloning a dead or living person might intrigue some, but this twisted fantasy is certainly outweighed by other dangers.

Thus, the problem isn't necessarily that science might lack a soul. It's that advocates like Tierney often lead it to lack decency.