It's ultimately the purpose of education to cultivate the love of learning for its own sake.

There is a tendency to think that if we engage too directly with moral questions in politics, that's a recipe for disagreement, and for that matter, a recipe for intolerance and coercion.

Some parents expend great efforts to get their kids into the right nursery school or the right preschool, with the thought that that will set them on the path to success, to competitive success especially.

Aiming at giving our kids a competitive edge in a consumer society - that, in principle, is a goal that is limitless.

I do not argue that nature is sacrosanct in the sense that we must never tamper with nature. That would disempower, really, all of medicine. That would mean that we can't combat dread diseases - malaria, polio, all of which are given by nature, if one thinks about it.

My argument is not that we must never intervene in nature. My argument is that there is a moral difference between intervention for the sake of health, to cure or prevent disease, and intervention for the sake of achieving a competitive edge for our kids in a consumer society.

I do think it is very important that the religious communities do try to bring their teachings and their insights to bear on the stem cell debate and on the debate about genetic engineering.