CGS-authored
Whoever titled this week's conference on human germ-line modification "Babies by Design" was playing with fire. Maybe the event's host, the Genetics and Public Policy Center, wanted some buzz or fun. It wouldn't be the first time genetic scientists have played this delicate game with the public: a bit of provocation, a bit of irony. They're flirting with us.
Like all flirts, the scientists fear that we'll take their winks and provocations the wrong way. They fear that we'll turn on them and ban their work, driven by misguided dread that they're creating some new subhuman or superhuman species. They don't fear such a species. They fear the species they already know: us.
Kathy Hudson, the center's founder, opens the conference in the amphitheater of a Washington, D.C., hotel. She warns the assembled biologists, lawyers, and ethicists that they won't call all the shots on genetics policy. The center is polling citizens, too, and it will incorporate their "values" in its recommendations. But as Hudson introduces the day's first presentation, it becomes clear that we non-scientists are poorly prepared to...
Like all flirts, the scientists fear that we'll take their winks and provocations the wrong way. They fear that we'll turn on them and ban their work, driven by misguided dread that they're creating some new subhuman or superhuman species. They don't fear such a species. They fear the species they already know: us.
Kathy Hudson, the center's founder, opens the conference in the amphitheater of a Washington, D.C., hotel. She warns the assembled biologists, lawyers, and ethicists that they won't call all the shots on genetics policy. The center is polling citizens, too, and it will incorporate their "values" in its recommendations. But as Hudson introduces the day's first presentation, it becomes clear that we non-scientists are poorly prepared to...