A QUARTER of a century ago, a Cambridge scientist called C茅sar
Milstein was perfecting a solution to a pretty important problem鈥攈ow to
produce antibodies. Or rather, how to fish out individual 鈥渕onoclonal鈥� forms of
these molecules from the massively diverse pools that exist in animals.
Milstein was not looking specifically for new methods of diagnosing and
treating disease. It was only later that scientists recognised the huge
medical鈥攁nd commercial鈥攑otential of monoclonal antibodies. But
suppose that an opinion pollster had gone round asking people if they approved
of biologists taking cells from mouse spleens and cloning them (which is what
you have to do to make monoclonal antibodies). Milstein would probably have got
a thumbs down.
During the past year, the opinion poll has emerged as one of the principal
weapons in the battles for the hearts and minds of the public over issues such
as genetically modified crops and cloning. It鈥檚 a worrying development.
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Consider the most recent poll. Conducted by MORI, the British market research
company, on behalf of the drugs giant Novartis, and debated at last month鈥檚
meeting of the British Association, the poll concluded that people are more
willing to support new bioscience if it offers concrete benefits. Approval for
cloning human cells rose from 28 to 46 per cent after people were told that it
might have a role in curing Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. People were also keener to back
techniques designed to confer medical benefits than ones promising, for example,
agricultural methods that don鈥檛 damage the environment.
Nothing surprising there. So what鈥檚 the problem? Well, for starters, such
polls encourage people to think research projects are like trains trundling on
single tracks with predetermined outcomes. In reality, we cannot know in advance
where a technology like cloning or gene transfer will make its greatest
positive鈥攐r negative鈥� impact. Today鈥檚 breakthrough in using gene
therapy to treat, say, muscular dystrophy might be tomorrow鈥檚 recipe for
athletes to enhance their muscles in ways undetectable by dope tests. We鈥檇 all
vote for the first application, but what about the second? And can we have one
without the other? These are the questions pollsters do not ask.
But that is not all. In a world shaped and limited by opinion polls, any
research programme would have to restrict its more troublesome science to
projects with clear benefits to humans. Among scientists, the temptation to
cobble together fictional lists of possible applications or, even worse, put a
gloss of practicality on work that鈥檚 frankly blue sky, would become
irresistible.
Keeping an eye on public opinion makes good sense. But allowing periodic
glances to become a fixed gaze is a serious mistake. When innovators give the
public only what it wants, they cease to innovate. If science devotes itself
slavishly to finding out what people think will be useful, it will wither. And
deserve to.
Biotechnologists should not be immune to the forces of democracy. But it
would be a grave mistake to make them kowtow to a democracy of the
under-informed.