When people are faced with the task of making judgments about new areas of scientific inquiry, they are obliged to try to look into the future. Given the inherent dynamism of science, people have to ask, not only whether the research in question is acceptable now, but also whether it will still be acceptable when it reaches maturity, and whether or not its immediate, practical benefits will be overshadowed by its wider, long-term consequences. This was clearly true of the debate over embryo research. The debate arose, in part, from the existence of differing opinions about the nature of the early human embryo and about the morality of conduct that requires the destructive use of such embryos. But the debate also involved a fundamental clash between different visions of what would happen in the future if human embryos were to continue to be employed for the purposes of scientific research.

Two figures of mythic dimensions were brought into play by participants in the debate as they attempted to convey, and to justify, their particular visions of the future. The first of these was the historical figure of Galileo. Galileo, as we have seen, entered the debate as a scientific martyr. Galileo's story was used to speak of the dangers of allowing people's non-scientific beliefs to impede the advance of scientific knowledge. Galileo was used to emphasize the human cost of outside interference of this kind.