Nick Spencer: Why playing God isn't actually a bad thing

Scientific advances have been rewriting our understanding of reality for centuries. Now, in the 2020s, the pace is rapidly accelerating. 

Whether it's the quest for immortality or the search for alien life, the treatment of pandemics or animal personhood, AI or mental health, abortion or genetic editing, science is making advances that pose huge questions about what it means to be human, whether we should change ourselves, and how far we should 'play God'. 

With every new power we develop, a whole new set of ethical and moral questions emerge. What does it mean to live well in a world where the very concept of personhood is up for debate, and where human ingenuity is extending its reach into the very building blocks of life? What impact does that have on our daily lives – and the way we live out our faith in the places God’s put us? 

To unpack these thorny questions, Paul and Grace speak with Dr Nick Spencer, author, broadcaster, and Senior Fellow at the think tank Theos.

Nick is the author of several books and reports, including 'Magisteria: the Entangled Histories of Science and Religion', 'The Political Samaritan: How Power Hijacked a Parable', 'The Evolution of the West', and 'Atheists: The Origin of the Species'. His latest book is 'Playing God'. Nick is host of the podcast 'Reading Our Times', and outside Theos, is Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.