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California’s $3 billion stem cell agency has called a high-level meeting for next fall to examine a "red-hot" issue that many prominent researchers say could lead ultimately to alteration of the human race.
The topic is a technique that makes it much easier to alter the genetic make-up of individuals in a way that can be inherited by their offspring.
In April, scientists in China reported genetically modifying human embryos in what was regarded as a “world first.” (See here and here.)
That came after a group of leading scientists in March called for a global moratorium on the genome-editing practice, stating that the therapeutic benefits were tenuous.
More recently Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, wrote on May 28 about how the subject was viewed at a meeting called, “Biotech and the Ethical Imagination: A Global Summit.”
“The far end of techno-enthusiastic perspectives, both on human germline modification specifically and on biotech in general, was represented by Harvard experimental psychologist and popular science writer Steven Pinker. In...