Issues of ethics in genetics can best be settled by careful decision-making and the backing of "hard science," a genetics expert said in the Atherton Lecture given in Emerson Hall last night.

Sir David Weatherall, formerly the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford and an authority on hereditary diseases, was invited to speak at the event, which is traditionally devoted to ethical issues and was sponsored this year by Adams House.

His lecture, entitled "The New Genetics or the New Eugenics?" presented a brief history of the eugenics movement, along with Weatherall's personal concerns for the future.

"We are in certainly the most exciting time in biomedical history, and as always new ethical issues arise with new developments," he said.

Public fears are sometimes the result of science fiction, he said, but it's usually possible to work through problems.

"What we're doing to change the human gene pool in this field is very small," said Weatherall, a pioneer in the application of molecular biology to human hereditary disease.

"The current thinking in molecular genetics, and why the field is hyped-up these days, is if these genes can be identified, they can lead us to the mechanisms of the disease," Weatherall said.

Weatherall works internationally on issues such as what he calls "avoidance"--carrier detection, counseling and prenatal diagnosis.