Stem Cell Scientists' Discursive Strategies for Cognitive Authority

Clearly, one could identify other points to begin the SCR governance narrative, such as the widespread (and global) media debates following the announcement of Dolly the sheep.

It is interesting to note that the political division noted by Kitzinger and Williams Citation(2005) in newspaper and news reports where Conservative's tended to voice opposition and Labour politicians voiced support for embryonic SCR is not represented in the final vote. Labour voted 254:69 (ayes: noes), Conservative voted 61:78 (ayes: noes).

Examples of events that ran shortly after the parliamentary debates include small-group discussion based events such as the Royal Society's ‘How can we make sure science is working for us?’ (November 2001) and an open plenary-audience style meeting called, simply, ‘Stem Cells’ (June 2001).

Following the 2001 amendment to the HFE Act, there have been two further policy changes, although only one has involved parliamentary debate. The first involves creating ‘cloned’ embryos using eggs obtained from women through either ‘egg sharing’ arrangements or ‘altruistic donation’. Following a license request to undertake this research, the HFEA conducted a consultation in 2006 as part of their licensing decision-making process [see HFEA, 2006; for a critique of this process see Plows et al. Citation(2006)]. The second relates to the creation of animal–human embryos. Again, as a result of license requests to the HFEA in November 2006 to conduct this research, the government published a document that initiated a set of parliamentary and public debates on this topic (see, for example, Department of Health, Citation2006, Citation2007; HFEA, 2007).

These same themes were explored with other participants in this research who were not stem cell scientists.

This paper draws on the concept of scientisation in relation to the construction of particular arguments by stem cell scientists in interview contexts rather than analysing their role in wider public contexts, i.e. policy arenas. Others, such as Weingart Citation(1999), use the ‘scientification of politics’ to specifically analyse the role of scientists as advisors to policymakers and in legitimating political decisions (cf. Weingart, Citation1999).

Indeed, before commencing the interview, George stressed that he did not want to discuss whether human embryos should or should not be used in SCR. He felt his position was clear and in no need of further discussion and was now supported by changes to the HFE Act. One explanation for this seeming defensiveness is that those senior scientists involved in the research had become familiar with the interview tactics of journalists rather than the analytical style questions used by social scientists. Indeed, after the interviews with Brian and George they commented that the questions had prompted them to reflect on embryonic SCR and had been pleasantly surprised by the style of interviewing adopted. Additionally, the change to the HFE Act had already been announced resulting in George feeling that the ‘embryo question’ had been satisfied.

This point follows what Gilbert and Mulkay coined as ‘the truth will out device’ (1984).

For two examples of feminist critiques of the prospect of reproductive cloning and the corresponding risks to women, see Hanmer Citation(1983) and Hanmer and Allen Citation(1980).

‘Public-in-general’ and ‘public-in-particular’ are derived from Michael's work on ‘science-in-general’ and ‘science-in-particular’ (see Michael, Citation1996).

Although beyond the focus on this paper, it is also possible to speculate that boundary-work is achieved through non-discursive means such as membership of professional bodies, appointments committees in stem cell research laboratories, allocation of research council funding and so on. These are noted on the diagram for illustrative purposes.

Both human and animal eggs are used to try to create ‘cloned’ embryos, a practice that involves the SCNT technique.