I guess I don’t see any problems with the idea of it — any more than i have a problem with humans developing glasses to compensate for bad eyesight, or microscopes and telescopes to augment good eyesight.
The reality of it brings up a couple of potential problems. First, genetic modification of humans has great potential for inequality. If this technology is available based on who can pay for it, for example, you could fairly soon have a group of rich, young, healthy, beautiful, super-strong, disease-resistant folks on the one hand, and a bunch of poor, unhealthy, normal-strength, disease receptive folk on the other. This seems to me a great potential problem.
Secondly, if there isn’t an incredible amount of testing done first (and maybe even if there is) the potential for side effects we hadn’t considered is incredible. The body is a system. Altering any part of it affects everything else. As you move up the scale of sophistication, the potential for benefit grows, but so does the potential for disaster. To go back to the example of glasses again, if my glasses give me a headcahe, I can just take them off. On the other hand, if my genetically modified musculature is requiring more blood than my heart can pump, that may be a bit more tricky. Worse yet, if the altered gene that increases my muscle mass also leads to increased aggression, the effects on society could be pretty extreme.
BBC
Mar 26 2004
06:54 am
I guess I don’t see any problems with the idea of it — any more than i have a problem with humans developing glasses to compensate for bad eyesight, or microscopes and telescopes to augment good eyesight.
The reality of it brings up a couple of potential problems. First, genetic modification of humans has great potential for inequality. If this technology is available based on who can pay for it, for example, you could fairly soon have a group of rich, young, healthy, beautiful, super-strong, disease-resistant folks on the one hand, and a bunch of poor, unhealthy, normal-strength, disease receptive folk on the other. This seems to me a great potential problem.
Secondly, if there isn’t an incredible amount of testing done first (and maybe even if there is) the potential for side effects we hadn’t considered is incredible. The body is a system. Altering any part of it affects everything else. As you move up the scale of sophistication, the potential for benefit grows, but so does the potential for disaster. To go back to the example of glasses again, if my glasses give me a headcahe, I can just take them off. On the other hand, if my genetically modified musculature is requiring more blood than my heart can pump, that may be a bit more tricky. Worse yet, if the altered gene that increases my muscle mass also leads to increased aggression, the effects on society could be pretty extreme.