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2 - A Shifting Terrain

The Dynamics of Stem Cell Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2013

Insoo Hyun
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
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Summary

What is the best way to think about stem cell research? What are its unique characteristics, and which of these features are ethically important? Let us address these questions systematically. Stem cell research is first and foremost a scientific discipline. From this obvious point follows a series of important considerations often overlooked in stem cell ethical debates.

First, as a scientific endeavor – with academic linkages dating back to the rise of the modern worldview – stem cell research eschews large swaths of premodern thought, such as Aristotelian animism, in favor of modern materialist explanations. For example, rather than maintaining, as the Aristotelian Scholastics did, that nascent human bodies are impelled to unfold an innate developmental nature through the workings of an animating soul, stem cell scientists embrace the mechanistic view that human biological development is nothing more than a cascade of innumerable physical events. Thus one of the primary goals of stem cell scientists is to understand how the soulless chemistry of genetic information becomes translated into the development of tissues and complex organ systems.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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  • A Shifting Terrain
  • Insoo Hyun
  • Book: Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research
  • Online publication: 05 May 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816031.003
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  • A Shifting Terrain
  • Insoo Hyun
  • Book: Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research
  • Online publication: 05 May 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816031.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A Shifting Terrain
  • Insoo Hyun
  • Book: Bioethics and the Future of Stem Cell Research
  • Online publication: 05 May 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816031.003
Available formats
×