Robert Edwards - the father of the 'test-tube baby' - was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, amid controversy.
Credit: AFP
British scientist Robert Edwards believes that the most valuable thing in life is children - and spent his career making the dream of having a baby come true for millions of people worldwide.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine, for his work on developing in vitro fertilisation (IVF), the science behind what became known as ‘test tube babies’.
Edwards, now a frail 85, finally saw his work recognised by the Nobel committee five decades after he first began experimenting and started on a path that would take him into conflict with the Catholic Church and fellow scientists.
He soon grasped that fertilisation outside the body could be a new way of treating infertility. Building on earlier research which showed that egg cells from rabbits could be fertilised in test tubes when sperm was added, Edwards developed the same technique for humans.
In a laboratory in Cambridge, eastern England, in 1968, he first saw life created outside the womb in the form of a human blastocyst, an embryo that has developed for five to six days after fertilisation.
"I'll never forget the day I looked down the microscope and saw something funny in the cultures," Edwards has recalled. "I looked down the microscope and what I saw was a human blastocyst gazing up at me. "I thought: 'We've done it."
But Edwards and his fellow researcher, gynaecological surgeon Patrick Steptoe, were forced to defend their work in the face of severe opposition, especially from the Catholic Church.
At a conference on biomedical ethics in Washington in 1971, the Nobel laureate James Watson, who with Francis Crick had discovered DNA, said IVF research would necessitate infanticide.
Addressing the conference, Edwards strongly defended his work and received a standing ovation. He remains convinced that the Catholic Church is wrong to object to IVF, saying clergy who condemn the technique are "totally mistaken".
"Catholics are told not to do it and yet Catholics go and do it. All the popes have done for themselves is teach their people to disobey them," Edwards has said.
His work was motivated by his belief that: "The most important thing in life is having a child. Nothing is more special than a child." Edwards himself has five daughters and 11 grandchildren.
The culmination of his painstaking research came in 1978, with the birth of the world's first test tube baby, Louise Brown.
and the Nobel Prize for Haters goes to . . .
Whoa! What's with the hating on the Catholics? I mean, really, was that jab necessary? WTF? I'm not even Catholic and I'm offended by this expression of intolerance. Why are scientists so intolerant of religious people? Is it that they cannot stand for anyone to question their ethics or challenge their practices?
I'm thinking universities need to require a bit more diversity studies for their students.
We're not haters, just those possessed by rational thought.
It is not that scientists are intolerant of religion but the fact that the Catholic Church likes to make comments that are based on their own narrow views. They impose their beliefs on others and when asked where these beliefs come from their arguments fall flat on their faces. Over the course of history the church has been forced to change its stance on many scientific phenomena because the actual truth is staring them in the face. For example, the heliocentric model of the Solar System, and the admission that the universe began with a bang. But as usual, the Church must have the last word and proclaim that all that was before the Big Bang "was the work of God". The fact of the matter is that the Church doesn't abide by any logical principles when they make these statements. Science is about logic and logical argument and about being logical. The Church and its beliefs have none of these qualities.
Some scientists cannot stand religion because religion makes grand statements that defy logic and express views that are ridiculously illogical. Every time it's religion vs science religion falls back on something that cannot be argued rationally. I have heard "It's because of God" far too many times to bear. When I come across a religion that abides by the scientific method I may begin to believe.
The Catholic Church can believe whatever it wants, but I don't like it when they publicly refute something as brilliant as IVF based on their own narrow views.
As a university student of physics and maths and a devoted Cosmos fan, I believe I speak for many when I say we don't need any more diversity in our studies as we are students of logic and truth. We can hold a very satisfied sense of belief within us because we study the world without bias towards any prior belief.