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The World and Everything In It
12.29.25 A Supreme Court case over intellectual disability, a year-end economic review, and a pioneer of cloning
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- [00:00]
Albert Mohler
Good morning. This is Albert Mohler speaking to you in my role as editor of World Opinions. Here at World, we believe that ideas shape the way we understand the world and how we live in it. We are committed to making Christian arguments in the public square, grounded in scripture and in the Christian intellectual tradition. We write to explain the world as it is, to interpret events in light of what is true, and to defend what earlier generations understood to be the permanent things. World Opinions is for readers and listeners who seek more than reaction. We write for Christians who want to think rightly and speak faithfully in their own time. We are in the final days of World's December giving drive. If you have given already, thank you. If you have not given yet, we would be grateful for your support. I can assure you of this. Every gift makes a difference. You can find more information@wng.org donate thank you and as always, God bless you.
- [01:02]
Jenny Ruff
Good morning. Today on Legal doc and disability and the death penalty. And we remember a Supreme Court justice who died this year.
- [01:10]
Noah Feldman
The mistake people made about David Souter was thinking that he was a conservative when he went onto the court and then magically became a liberal justice. Souter was hiding in plain sight the whole time.
- [01:20]
Nick Icker
Also today, the Monday money beat looking at third quarter economic growth. Economist David Bonson standing by to talk about that and more. And later, we remember the scientist behind one of the biggest breakthroughs in biology.
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David Bonson
Her name is Dawn. A clone was created from a single cell taken from the udder of a sheath.
- [01:47]
Jenny Ruff
It's Monday, December 29th. This is the world and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio, I'm Jenny Ruff.
- [01:54]
Nick Icker
And I'm Nick Icker. Good morning.
- [01:58]
Jenny Ruff
Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.
- [02:02]
Kent Covington
President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Mar a Lago resort in South Florida Sunday to continue peace talks. Trump praised Zelensky, calling him brave, and struck an optimistic tone about ending the war. He said peace in Ukraine is closer than ever, though he acknowledged that talks could still break down. Trump also said that he spoke with Russian leader Vladimir Putin before his meeting with Zelensky.
- [02:27]
David Bonson
We have two willing parties. We have two willing countries. They want to see it end. Look, the people of Ukraine want it to end and the people of Russia wanted to end and the two leaders wanted to end.
- [02:36]
Kent Covington
U.S. and Ukrainian diplomats have been working for weeks to hammer out a peace plan. And Zelensky said that in his view, that proposal is nearly ready for the US to begin talks with Moscow. Zelensky said Sunday that His talks with President Trump would focus on the sequence of steps outlined in that 20 point plan.
- [02:54]
David Bonson
Very important. Our teams talked about strategy, how to make step by step and to bring this closer. And we will discuss.
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Kent Covington
Security guarantees for Ukraine, also a major topic. Zelensky is still drawing a hard line at ceding territory to Russia. Meantime, Trump is set to meet in Florida today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Diplomats are pushing to move the peace deal forward with Hamas into its next phase. That stage would involve Israeli forces pulling back from Gaza and removing Hamas from power, to be replaced by a temporary governing authority. But inside Israel, protests continue, with demonstrators insisting the process cannot move ahead until the remains of the last deceased hostage are returned. Severe winter weather snarled holiday traffic in parts of the country over the weekend, and there is more of it on the way. Several inches of snow fell in New York City over the weekend, catching some tourists by surprise.
- [03:55]
David Bonson
We're from West Virginia, so we're not from here.
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Mary Muncie
Right.
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David Bonson
Going here for a three year anniversary, which was yesterday, we realized it's going to snow like hectic. We didn't even think it was coming.
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Kent Covington
Numerous airports have been dealing with delays after a busy travel weekend between Christmas and New Year's. Bob Oravec with the National Weather Service.
- [04:11]
David Bonson
Storm track was a little atypical for some of the northeastern storms we've seen in the past, but it was pretty quick moving. But it did produce periods of heavy snow and there was some pretty decent accumulations.
- [04:24]
Kent Covington
More than 8 million Americans were still under winter storm warnings as of last night. Forecasters say those warnings are driven by an intense bomb cyclone that is bringing a mixture of snow, ice, rain and strong winds. Severe winter weather is expected from Montana to Texas to Pennsylvania. Several provisions from President Trump's sweeping tax and spending bill are set to take effect on January 1, and the White House says small businesses stand to gain the most. The head of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, says the changes give owners more certainty as they plan the year ahead.
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Jenny Ruff
A lot of it thanks to the.
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Mary Muncie
Working families tax cut, that small businesses finally have certainty about what their tax.
- [05:06]
David Bonson
Rate'S going to be, that 20% pass through deduction.
- [05:09]
Kent Covington
Supporters say those tax breaks could free up more cash for hiring raises and new equipment. But states that adopt the cuts may also face tighter budgets as the bill shifts more costs onto them for programs like Medicaid and snap. Security is expected to be tight for New Year's celebrations this week across the country, but the Department of Homeland Security is not tracking any specific credible threats right now. And DHS spokeswoman Trisha McLaughlin says no one should be deterred from celebrating.
- [05:41]
Mary Muncie
You know, we're not going to bend the knee to these cowards, these terrorists, as we've seen in the past. And so Americans should go out. They should celebrate this great year we've had. Be with friends and family, but just be aware of your surroundings.
- [05:53]
Kent Covington
Federal authorities say they foiled a bomb plot whereby suspects were planning to detonate explosives at multiple sites in Southern California. And one year ago, a man driving a truck in New Orleans rammed into a crowd at a New year's celebration, killing 14 people. I'm Kent Covington. And straight ahead, determining when intellectual disability should limit enforcing the death penalty. Plus, the Monday Money beat with David Bonson. This is the WORLD and Everything in It.
- [06:39]
Nick Icker
It's Monday, 29th December. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the WORLD and Everything In It. Good morning. I'm Nick Iger.
- [06:47]
Jenny Ruff
And I'm Jenny Ruff. Time now for Legal docket. We'll get to this week's case in a moment. But first, in these last few remaining days of 2025, we're remembering the lives of people notable in their fields who died this year in the field of law and the courts. A former Supreme Court justice died David Souter, May 8th at age 85. The soft spoken Souter had arrived on the national stage in 1990.
- [07:14]
Nick Icker
I was in a state of virtual shock. Souter had a thin public record and only months on the federal bench. But the White House was playing it safe, thinking it had learned the lessons of the failed nomination of the well known Robert Bork. Former White House lawyer Doug Comeec, who worked on the Souter nomination, later reflected to cnn at the time, David Souter was called the stealth candidate. All the while, the White House was assuring Republicans that Souter was one of them. Pressed on abortion, though in his Senate confirmation hearing, Souter dodged again and again. I have not got any agenda on what should be done with Roe v. Wade if that case were brought before me. Senators tried different methods to coax Souter out. Democrat Howard Metzenbaum brought up women facing unwanted pregnancies.
- [08:05]
David Bonson
And I would just like to get your own view and your own thoughts of that woman's position under those circumstances.
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Jenny Ruff
Souter described a moment from his law school days.
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Nick Icker
I was on the board of freshmen.
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John Gurdon
Advisors at Harvard College.
- [08:19]
Nick Icker
One afternoon, one of the freshmen who.
- [08:22]
Jenny Ruff
Was assigned to me that afternoon, Souter said he spent hours counseling a distraught student who was considering a self induced abortion he cited this personal experience to demonstrate he understood the emotional gravity of the abortion debate.
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Nick Icker
And your question has brought that back to me. And I think the only thing I can add to that is I know what you were trying to tell me.
- [08:46]
John Gurdon
Because I remember that afternoon.
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David Bonson
Well, I appreciate your response. I think it indicates that you have empathy for the problem.
- [09:01]
Nick Icker
Souter had smooth sailing to confirmation, 90 to 90 opposition from Republicans. But within two years, Souter would vote to reaffirm the right to abortion in Casey vs Planned Parenthood. By the year 2000, Souter would vote to strike down a partial birth abortion law. Conservatives would point to that nomination and demand of future Republican presidents. No more Souters. But years later, one of Souter's former law clerks, legal scholar Noah Feldman, would argue that no one should have been surprised. The audio here from pbs.
- [09:37]
Noah Feldman
The biggest mistake that people made about David Souter was thinking that somehow he was a conservative when he went onto the court and then magically became a liberal. In fact, Justice Souter was hiding in plain sight the whole time. He believed that the Constitution was not a dead document that should be interpreted according to what people thought 200 and some years ago, but rather was a document that needed to be interpreted in the light of our changing needs and circumstances.
- [10:04]
Jenny Ruff
Another former Suiter clerk, Jeannie Sue Gerson, later reflected on her assignments to monitor emergency stay petitions from death row inmates, often arriving on the very day of a scheduled execution. In the Harvard Law Review, she wrote that the work took a physical toll, precipitating nausea, an inability to eat and insomnia. And then something worse. The Capitol cases became so routine that a numbness that looked like indifference could set in.
- [10:34]
Nick Icker
That concern came to define David Souter's later years on the bench. And as Gerson remembers it, Souter insisted in the most empathetic and graceful manner imaginable that she just needed to pull it together. Her words a jolt essential to the ethical life of a young legal professional. Souter's skepticism of the Court's role in administering the death penalty would increase, especially as cases grew more technical, but more medical and more dependent on judicial line.
- [11:05]
Jenny Ruff
Drawing questions about who may be executed, about how courts measure intellectual disability, about whether legal standards can keep pace with human reality. Those are not abstract questions. They continue to come before the Court and they bring us to the case the Justices are considering now, Hamm v. Smith, a death penalty case that turns on how we measure the human mind and, and where the Constitution draws its limits.
- [11:32]
David Bonson
This is one of my favorite questions, and there is A very high chance.
- [11:36]
Nick Icker
That you will get it. On the assessment test, how many triangles do you see? You have four different choices. Choice A, nine triangles. Choice B, 12. That may sound like a classroom riddle, but for Joseph Clifton Smith, the stakes are life and death. 28 years ago, Smith beat a man to death in Alabama. Today, he's 55 years old and on death row. Smith has taken multiple IQ tests over his lifetime and performed poorly. He argues his low scores make him ineligible for execution. His challenge rests under the Eighth Amendments clause banning cruel and unusual punishment.
- [12:16]
Jenny Ruff
While we often think of that clause as a ban on how we punish, outlawing torture or the rack, the Supreme Court has developed a second standard for who we punish. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot be executed. And a few years prior to that, it said the same of the intellectually disabled. Smith argues he belongs in that category. John Fabian is a forensic psychologist and neuropsychologist. He spends his days evaluating the minds of men like Smith to determine whether they meet that constitutional threshold.
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Noah Feldman
And that's how I met Joseph goes by Jody Smith on Alabama death row a number of years ago.
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Jenny Ruff
Ten years ago, Fabian served as an expert witness during an evidentiary hearing in the midst of legal challenges.
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Noah Feldman
You know, he presented as very low functioning verbally, almost like he fit in the Of Mice and Men story, where he just was low functioning and seemed almost kind of like a big child.
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Jenny Ruff
Did he understand that he killed someone?
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Nick Icker
Yes.
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Jenny Ruff
Does he understand that he's on death row?
- [13:29]
Noah Feldman
Yes.
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Jenny Ruff
And that it's wrong to kill someone also? Yes. But his guilt isn't the question.
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Nick Icker
Sentencing is regardless of legal guilt. If he's intellectually disabled, he cannot receive a death sentence. To try to find out, Fabian administered the Stanford Binet v. IQ test. To Smith, the person the average Joe.
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Noah Feldman
Is going to be, really?
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Nick Icker
We look at it as a standard.
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Noah Feldman
Score of 100, being 50th percentile.
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Nick Icker
Smith's score was 78. Generally, courts look for a score of 70 or below to find someone intellectually disabled. But Smith has taken multiple tests over his life with scores ranging from 72 to 78. But because numbers tell only part of the story, Fabian also tested Smith's adaptive functioning, meaning his actual ability to navigate the demands of everyday life.
- [14:23]
Noah Feldman
You know, being able to utilize a bank account, fill out job applications, cook food, tend to hygiene, drive just.
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Nick Icker
Fabian says Smith could not do those things very well and concluded that even though it was a close call, Smith did fall into the category of intellectually disabled. Lower federal courts agreed and vacated Smith's death sentence. But Alabama appealed to the Supreme Court with fighting to reinstate the death penalty.
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Jenny Ruff
The core dispute how should a court handle a defendant with several different IQ scores? Robert Overing argued for Alabama, insisting Smith's scores prove he is not disabled.
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David Bonson
But Smith is not.
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Nick Icker
He didn't come close to proving an IQ of 70 or below.
- [15:10]
Jenny Ruff
With Justice Brett Kavanaugh searched for a logical way to wade through so many tests, suggesting courts could use a median score or a composite of all of them. Alabama was open to the math. But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back. She argued that focusing solely on IQ ignores the real world struggle to function.
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Mary Muncie
But we also have allowed for evidence.
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David Bonson
Related to adaptive functioning to be taken.
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Jenny Ruff
Into account when looking at intellectual functioning.
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David Bonson
So I think what you've done is.
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Mary Muncie
Show shift this to be all about the IQ test in a way that is not supported by our case law.
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Nick Icker
Justice Elena Kagan seemed to agree that state courts have the discretion to at least consider secondary evidence. But Alabama warned that once you let in squishy evidence, like whether a defendant can buy car insurance or manage a bank account, the hard data gets ignored.
- [16:07]
David Bonson
They simply move on from iq.
- [16:10]
Nick Icker
And so once you open the door to this kind of balancing test, really malleable, really amorphous, and so that evidence.
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David Bonson
Is not disciplining the inquiry, it's not adding more rigor to figuring out what the intelligence is.
- [16:23]
Nick Icker
Justice Samuel Alito echoed that concern, arguing that without a concrete standard, every case is a guessing game. Will there not be greater consistency and predictability? And is that not one of the lodestars of the court's death penalty jurisprudence, as opposed to a situation where everything is up for grabs in in every case?
- [16:46]
Jenny Ruff
Representing Smith, attorney Seth Waxman countered that Alabama's own state law requires looking beyond raw IQ scores.
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Nick Icker
And I am holding all 12 decided reported cases on this issue in Alabama, and there is not a single case in which the court said we're only going to look at the test scores. We, we are not going to consider other evidence.
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Jenny Ruff
Ultimately, the justices are looking for a stable standard. They have to balance two risks. One, the risk that a defendant might fake a low score to stay alive, and two, the risk that a state might repeatedly test a defendant until he finally gets the passing grade they need to proceed with an execution. And that's this week's legal docket. SA.
- [18:07]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from Commuter Bible, the Workweek Audio Bible, available on podcast apps and commuterbible.org new yearly plans begin January 5th.
- [18:32]
Jenny Ruff
Coming up next on the World and everything in it. The Monday Money beats.
- [18:38]
Nick Icker
Time now to talk business markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm, the Bonson Group, and he joins us now. David, good morning to you.
- [18:50]
David Bonson
Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.
- [18:52]
Nick Icker
Well, David, we got the third quarter GDP report last week. It came in a lot stronger than expected. The headline growth number north of 4%. It's something we have not seen in quite a while. And at first glance it seems to suggest an economy running really well despite tariffs and trade tensions and month after month of warnings about recession coming. But when you see a GDP print like this, what is the first thing that you want to break apart to try to understand what's actually going on under the hood of the economy?
- [19:28]
David Bonson
I want to look at the ingredients that go into it for the quarter, piece by piece, which I've done. And I want to look at it in the context of the full year. And so first of all, let's remind everyone that the quarterly number is itself annualized. And so when they talk about 4.3% for Q3, that isn't the quarterly growth, but rather the annual growth of the quarter. When we talk about this being a hot economy, you know that the full year GDP growth in 2024 was 2.8%. The full year growth for 2025 with this strong quarterly number may come in at 2.0 or 2.1. So in the best case scenario, even with the strong Q3 number, you're going to have economic growth that was much less this year than the year before. And I assure you nobody was talking a about the economy being really, really strong. The issue in the Q3 numbers is that the consumer was, and this is never a surprise to me, spending plenty of money. That's a big ingredient, the biggest in gdp, the way they measure it. And consumption is always pretty much constant for American consumers. They love to spend money and they generally do unless they get cut off from credit. The two volatile inputs to GD throughout 2025, and you mentioned the tariff and trade impact, the up and down numbers, the real kind of unpredictable issues that are somewhat skewed by people trying to front run trade policy have been both inventories and then imports and exports. And what you've seen is numbers go up and down around the reality. And I think the attempt to try to optimize what is going to happen around trade policy. But the ingredient that I haven't mentioned is the one I care about the most. And I've talked about it on this podcast many times, which is essentially the business investment, the productive inputs, the output and output might have grown about 1.5% this year. That's not recessionary, but it's definitely a slowdown. And I think that is the real impact of the tariff policy is that we are getting a decline in output, even though for now consumers are still spending money. So I'll summarize a long answer with a pretty short summary sentence. The quarterly number was better than expected. The annual number is still not great. And the reasons in this are somewhat predictable. Slowing output, but a pretty healthy consumer.
- [22:23]
Nick Icker
All right. Well, this being the final Monday of 2025, it feels like a natural moment to take a step back and take stock of the full and one of the more interesting year end analyses that I came across was from the president of the Fed bank in Richmond, Virginia, Tom Barkin. He was asked to describe the economy in a single word. And the word that he chose was resilience. And it wasn't because the year was particularly calm or predictable, but more because it really wasn't that the economy had absorbed a remarkable amount of stress and has come out where it's come out. David, when you look back on 202025 as a whole, does that word ring true to you? And if you had to offer a single organizing word of your own, what would it be?
- [23:13]
David Bonson
Well, I would absolutely echo the term resilience and I would add uncertainty or ambiguity, if you will, because first of all, the resilience is not a 2025 feature. It's a reasonably permanent feature of the US economy. Yes, there was a lot of resilience in 25 through trade uncertainty, through a change in government programs with DOGE and a lot of these layoffs, a change in immigration and some of the illegal immigration that had taken place in the prior administration, which has an impact in the labor force and just general policy changes from a new administration and yet an economy that was reasonably resilient. But nobody should be surprised at the US Economy being resilient from things as small ball as policy changes. Our economy was pretty resilient through a global pandemic. I mean, they shut down our economy and we bounced back pretty quickly. There are a lot of market issues that have come up, but this dynamism in the US Economy embeds a certain resilience that is a feature and that is a pretty dependable condition. And so it's a testimony to the free enterprise system that undergirds the U.S. economy. But when I refer to the uncertainty, it is also true that that we right now have ambiguity in how exactly strong our labor market is. You know, the unemployment rate is up, the number of new jobs being created is way down, layoffs appears to be up. And yet there's some question as to where all of this is taking place. My best guess, the indicators I see in the data is that small businesses are struggling a bit more. Larger businesses particularly, you know, those that are tech adjacent, are doing better. And I got to say that that's very different than we saw in the first Trump administration. There was a lot of benefits in the first Trump administration to the tax reform and regulation reform that really accrued largely to some of the small businesses. 2026 is going to be a different year. There's a lot of things I'm going to be focused on. I do have my annual paper in heavy writing mode right now. We'll have more to say on that in a week as you and I talk next Monday. But where things stand now, Nick, is I think that the US Economy is resilient and I think the US Economy is facing some uncertainties.
- [25:41]
Nick Icker
Well, David, knowing that you're deep in that analysis, I do know that in your data gathering you surely see some of the contours of what lies ahead. So let me ask for a very early preview, sneak peek, maybe just some of the big questions that you're asking about 2026 to come, the issues that you think are going to matter most over the next year.
- [26:03]
David Bonson
Yeah, well, I've hinted at some already. The whether or not the labor market issues are going to worsen. If they do not worsen, is the Fed really going to go through with continuing to cut rates? I already know the answer to that one. The Fed is going to continue to be cutting rates, if nothing else, because President Trump is appointing a new Fed chair in May of 2026. And that's a precondition of getting that job. So then that would, you know, pivot to a different set of questions. What that due to asset prices, if the Fed continues to cut rates beyond the neutral rate they're trying to get to. So monetary policy is on the horizon, but that's in conjunction with where things stand with labor markets. And it's a frustration for a lot of us to not be able to get real clarity. But that's part of this is letting the process play out a little bit. I would add that the longer term impact of tariffs is a big question going into 26 because I think that 25 has been an incredibly unhelpful year. For those trying to do analysis of the impact of impediments to trade because the politicization of the topic, those that favor tariffs looking for any chance they can to spike a football, those that oppose tariffs looking for a chance to do the same with short term data about how grocery prices go up or down in a given month. And that's just simply not the real economic issues that need to be looked at. Capital flows, capital expenditures from capital flows that set the stage for business investment into production and new goods and services, total trade. The impact of these deals that have in some cases really been set and in other cases allegedly been set for foreign investment into the U.S. these are all unknowns and these are bigger picture issues that in 2016 we're going to start to get a better look at where you don't get that month by month. In the immediate aftermath, most of these deals aren't even fully codified yet. So that's what 2026 is going to be. And that's a little sneak preview of a few of the things on my mind.
- [28:13]
Nick Icker
All right. David Bonson, founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. He writes@dividendcafe.com and at World Opinions. Hey David, it's been a great year. 2025. Looking forward to continuing the conversation in 26.
- [28:30]
David Bonson
Looking forward to another year, my friend. Happy New Year, SA.
- [28:59]
Nick Icker
Today is Monday, December 29th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Nick Iker.
- [29:07]
Jenny Ruff
And I'm Jenny Ruff. Coming next on THE WORLD and everything in it, the beginnings of cloning. Several giants of the scientific world died this year. Those names include Jane Goodall, who devoted her life to studying chimpanzees in Tanzania Richard Garwin, who authored the first hydrogen bomb design, and Edward Blake, who revolutionized DNA testing at crime scenes.
- [29:30]
Nick Icker
Today we devote our usual history book time to one scientist in particular, John Gurdon. He grew up studying the classics and this fall he died as one of the fathers of modern day gene editing. World's Mary Muncie has his story.
- [29:46]
Mary Muncie
In 2012, John Gurdin won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. But in 1947, when Gurdon was 15, he ranked at the bottom of his biology class. His teacher was Frank on his report card. Audio here from a 2012 interview with Cambridge University.
- [30:07]
John Gurdon
Any thought of Godin being a scientist is completely ridiculous and this would be total waste of time on his part and on those who would have the job of teaching him.
- [30:15]
Mary Muncie
That report card was the End of Gurdon's early scientific studies and aspirations. So he turned to the classics. But Gurdon's mother saw that he wanted to know things like how seeds turn.
- [30:29]
John Gurdon
Into plants, how can it know how to do it? And that was that fascinated me. Whereas I wasn't terribly interested in being able to translate the Iliad or Odyssey.
- [30:41]
Mary Muncie
So at age 18, she signed him up for extra schooling in zoology. He graduated university in 1956 and then started his doctoral program studying developmental biology. His doctoral supervisor started him out replicating another scientist's experiment looking at how DNA works within a cell. The original experiment transplanted a nucleus from one frog's cell into a different frog's egg. For the earlier scientists, an egg only grew into a healthy adult if the transplanted nucleus was in its early stages of development. So they theorized that there's a certain point when a cell's purpose is locked in. A skin cell could no longer be reprogrammed to work in the eye or liver. But in the mid-1950s, Gurdon transferred a nucleus from a mature frog's gut cell into an egg, and it grew into a healthy tadpole. Gurdon had just cloned the first complex animal. Gurdon talked about his work with the University of California first.
- [31:51]
John Gurdon
It led to quite a lot of controversy. I mean, here was I, just a graduate student, sort of contesting the conclusions of two very highly respected workers. So naturally, enough people didn't believe what I said, and I couldn't see why.
- [32:06]
Mary Muncie
So he went back to the lab with his professor, and they ruled out a few other possible reasons that the experiment could also worked. There were a few differences from the previous experiments, but the biggest one turned out to be just a different kind of frog. And by the end of their testing, they were sure Gurdon had rewritten the way we understand a cell's life cycle.
- [32:31]
John Gurdon
What we now understand is that as cells develop, they contain the same set of genes. And the only difference is that something decided to read the skin genes in skin and brain genes in brain.
- [32:44]
Mary Muncie
His discovery opened the door for the first cloned mammal in 1997.
- [32:50]
David Bonson
Her name is Dolly. Scientists say a clone was created from a single cell taken from the udder of a sheep.
- [32:58]
Mary Muncie
Then, a breakthrough in gene editing. In 2012, CRISPR could help rid us of diseases like cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and even HIV and cancer. And earlier this year, scientists edited the first cells within a living human.
- [33:14]
David Bonson
A baby named kj, born with a.
- [33:16]
Mary Muncie
Rare genetic disorder, is the first person in the world to be Successfully treated.
- [33:20]
David Bonson
With a tailor made gene therapy.
- [33:24]
Mary Muncie
This technology comes with some big ethical questions. Things like what should we be allowed to choose about our genes? Does it stop with preventing chronic disease? What about eye or hair color? How about performing the experiments at all? Shouldn't scientists be able to practice on human embryos? Gurdon had his own answers to these questions. In 2008, Gurdon told an interviewer that he was agnostic and disagreed with the Catholic Church's view that embryos are early human life and shouldn't be experimented on.
- [34:01]
John Gurdon
So I would say this early human embryo is actually not a potential life and has no significant validity. I don't think it may or may not have a soul. It doesn't matter. The fact is it's not going to. You're not killing anything that's significant and if you don't do it, you're then not taking advantage in the way that we could of relieving an awful lot of human suffering.
- [34:21]
Mary Muncie
He told another outlet that same year that he was a humanist and valued progress over debating ethical questions. During a lecture, he said the fact that someone could possibly misuse science or technology shouldn't impede scientific advancement.
- [34:39]
John Gurdon
For example, if you really wanted to save lives, save lives, you'd ban all cars and transportation. But we don't choose to do that. There's always an element of disadvantage to most advantages.
- [34:51]
Mary Muncie
But in the same way the government, government puts traffic laws in place, scientific advancement needs safety measures too. Cars need seat belts and airbags to protect passengers. Scientists need guardrails and ethics boards to protect them from man's imperfect nature. It's not clear whether Gurdon favored some guardrails, but his studies of the classics should have made him wary. To put it another way, a well rounded person looks backwards to guide their progress forward. Even so, Gurdon told interviewers that he was happy he chose a life of science.
- [35:30]
John Gurdon
I would not have liked to spend the whole of my life getting back to where someone was already. You like to go forward, not backward. And that's the great appeal I think, of science.
- [35:41]
Mary Muncie
John Gurdon died in October. He was 92 years old. Reporting for World World, I'm Mary Muncie.
- [36:10]
Jenny Ruff
Tomorrow, a look back at some of the biggest religious liberty cases of 2025 and a so called anti hate bill in Canada. It could make life difficult for those holding to a biblical worldview. That and more tomorrow. I'm Jenny Roth.
- [36:25]
Nick Icker
And I'm Nick Iker. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically. Objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires. The Psalmist writes, let them praise the name, for he commanded and they were created, and he established them forever and ever. He gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. Verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 148 go now in grace and peace.