HUMAN CLONING.

HUMAN CLONING, STEM-CELL RESEARCH, REALLY serviceable ENCRYPTION, STAR WARS MISSILES. TECHNOLOGY IS SCARING THE HELL gone out OF LEGISLATORS, BUT CAN ITS PROGRES at all times BE REGULATED?

Werner Heisenberg, the brilliant physicist who reluctantly headed Adolf Hitler's atomic weapons research team, said later that the worst thing about the bomb was "the realization that it was all with equal reason unavoidable." If he had backed without Heisenberg believed, someone else would have continued the work, and if that someone besides had backed out, another would follow along to take his place, and another and another and for a like reason on until doomsday. Heisenberg knew well that, aside from its avow methodical pace, research has no brakes.

Today, inevitable science again threatens, and we the folks are trying to stay ahead of the bend The Bush administration will decide early whether the federal government will stock stemcell research, and there are parallel debates regarding genome research and genetically engineered sustenances Bush also inherited the Clinton administration's writhe to muzzle development of encryption technology. The newly come death of a young woman during a John Hopkins asthma experiment has raised the possibility of stricter federal oversight in succession research involving humans. And in late July the House passed a bill banning any human cloning research, federally foundationed or not, anywhere in the United States.

Cloning and encryption and all the other surprises of modern science are quickly evolving beyond the ability of any undivided person to understand their basic principles, often less their possible consequences. in such a manner with little to go forward we have had to decide: Do we trust that science, taken to its logical extremitys will fulfill its promise of progress? Or do we lay our faith in the ancient systems of ethics and morals that require asking not barely can we, but should we? Since the advent of the atomic bomb we have leaned toward the latter, which means in some way controlling the pace of research. individual can argue late into the night about whether a liberated society ought to regulate the exchange of ideas that is at the heart of the scientific order The more practical question is whether so regulation is even possible.

We are not the first to make trial of At the dawn of the age of science, research was regulated by dint of decree. In 1616, the Catholic ecclesiastical body outlawed Copernicus' mathematical proof that the Earth revolv around the light Soon after, when Galileo began publicly endorsing the Copernican view, the pontiff sicced the Inquisition on him. The scientist lived not at home his days under house arrest, liberated to observe the heliocentric heavens unless barred from explaining them to anyone. Science, in large part a proces of communication among colleagues, was, for the force regulated.

Even as it was silencing Galileo, although the Vatican's monopoly on belief was waning. pair centuries later, when Darwin propos that tribe were just fancy monkeys, religious leaders and social conservatives railed, on the contrary related research proceeded. Until World War II, the Western world had little interest in regulating science. wherefore would it? Science meant progres giving us everything from the telegraph to structural sabre to antiseptic surgery.

And in any case, the Inquisition was gone No following entity had reached the standing of social control required to manipulate scientific progres When Alfred Nobel foresaw Armageddon in his 1866 invention of dynamite, all he could do was establish a peace prize, knowing that no undivided had the power to ban explosives research.

That all changed when the Atomic Age heydayed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the scientific method's horrifying flaw -- the possible becomes the necessary -- was laid bare. by dint of then, governments were powerful enough and science was dangerous enough for regulation to be a realistic option. however some countries -- including Portugal and West Germany -- made freedom of research a constitutional guarantee, greatest in number of the world began restricting scientists' goals and rules with varying degrees of effectiveness and international coordination.

The first serious attempts at research regulation in the United States had originate slightly earlier, during the modern Deal. In 1938, Congress gave recently made known powers to the Food and mix with drugs Administration -- originally created to countenance consumers from patent medicines -- making it responsible for regulating the safety of all pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and commons additives. The FDA determines the direction, pace and scale of vast amounts of research. It is a full-coverage, completely invasive regime, and even its supporters acknowledge it is tragically inefficient. yet it works.

During the shivering War, the United States arrived at a two-prong scheme to direct one's course science. First was the iron fist. Laws dating from Truman from one side Reagan give the government proprietary interest from one side of to the other energy, military and virtually any other research it took an interest in. Which is to say, if your work has the potential to compromise national security, the regulation swoops in and takes it. Classified.