ARE SCIENTISTS PLAYING GOD? It depends on your religion. “Therapeutic cloning in particular jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of reincarnation.”

Plus, anti-science religious fervor:

“Many Europeans, as well as leftists in America,” Dr. Silver says, “have rejected the traditional Christian God and replaced it with a post-Christian goddess of Mother Nature and a modified Christian eschatology. It isn’t a coherent belief system. It might or might not incorporate New Age thinking. But deep down, there’s a view that humans shouldn’t be tampering with the natural world.”

Hence the opposition to genetically modified food.

I say, tell the theocrats to shut up and let science remain free. Luckily, the stem-cell debate, at least, may turn out to be obsolete.