Building bridges

摘要

Public jousting between scientists and organized religion seems to have established itself as a consistent theme of the wider public discourse. Last week, it was the head of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family letting it be known that researchers of the Catholic faith had better adhere to church doctrine on stem-cell research, or face possible expulsion. Next week it will be something else, and it will probably be in the United States, where relations between the two spheres have never been cordial and are becoming steadily less so.