"A worldwide network of science and ethics experts, the Hinxton Group,
has said gene editing of early stage embryos would be of 'tremendous
value' to scientific research and could have practical applications." (PA, 10.09.2015)
That's a no-no; right? Designer babies? Brave New World? Bene Gesserit breeding programmes? I touched upon this very early into my blog, (here) , but seven years on, I think, maybe, I should revisit it, although my opinion has not fundamentally changed except that I may have softened my attitudes to certain elements of the human race. (Although I have not softened my attitudes towards the murderous bastards who seem to have a rabid desire to thrust their views on the entire world through the medium of terror and slaughter - you know who you are!)
Humans appear to have an instinctive reaction to genetic manipulation; be it cloning, GM crops or 'designer babies'. This is, in part, understandable providing one accepts that it is only recently that 'science-based' manipulation has become possible and, one day, practical on many levels. But to do so misses the point; humans have been genetically manipulating animals and crops for millennia.
How much relation does a domestic dog have with the wolf? Where do Friesans or Herefords come from if not from wild cattle, oxen or aurochs? In what many ways is domesticated wheat different from wild wheat grasses? How many different variaties of rose are there and how are they related to the wild rose whence they came? Humans have purposely, though not necessarily scientifically, been manipulating nature for at least ten millennia and certainly not to ensure the 'survival of the fittest' (in the 'fitness landscape') but simply to make them more docile, more amenable to farming or from pure, unaldulterated convenience. Gene manipulation at the 'genetic manipulation' level simply speeds up a process which mankind has been engaged in, by way of selective breeding, for as long as they stopped being hunter/gatherers.
So, despite protests, there are few grounds for dismissing genetic manipulation by scientific means, gene splicing or replacement, out of hand, although that is what many people do; it is just a faster way to do what humans have always done. But humans? Can you gene splice a human embryo?
There are certainly many religious grounds for asserting that such gene splicing is immoral; God, the god or gods, made man (and woman) and to tamper, at best, shows a lack of respect and due worship and, at worst, is likely to draw down divine retribution for man's temerity in seeking to amend 'God's' will and his perfectionist creation. While many people in the 'West' reject religion and, by extension, religious teachings, much of Western thought, culture and philosophy is founded on Judaic, Christian and Arabic thought by a process of rational rejection or acceptance. Most humans, I would propose, would reject gene replacement or splicing on ethical or moral grounds; it would be simply 'wrong' in their view, much like murder, incest or rape is considered 'wrong' among most in a population. But I would argue that if it were possible to provide a 'cure' for Sickle Cell disease, Cystic Firbrosis, Down's syndrome and all of the other inherited diseases of humans due to 'defective' genes, most people would agree that, in the words of Sellars and Yeatman, this would be a good thing. So why are people so resistant?
Why? Because people fear their very own selfishness and greed! Humans have long known of their genus' inherent, intrinsic, illogical and instinctive selfishness; I am worth more and can do whatever I wish! They know that selective breeding on the lines favoured in cattle or dogs or wheat do not seem to produce a human which is any 'better' than random pairings; two geniuses do not necessarily produce another genius, largely because humans don't actually know what it takes to produce an Einstein, a Michaelangelo, a Feynman or a Rodin. But gene therapy could be of such use and benefit to those afflicted with awful conditions but, at the very bottom line, humans don't trust other humans to abide by the rules; there will always be somebody who tries to cheat!
Game theory predicts that cheaters will never prosper in a group providing, and only providing, that the others in the group are able to spot the cheaters. The danger to the other individuals in the group arises when they cannot either spot the cheater or have no way of 'punishing' him or her or his and her behaviour. Whether in an evolved, naturally selected group or whether in a human society, there are usually ways to 'punish'. Whatever the ethical decisions that humans take about the ill-wisdom of 'designer babies', would they ever be able to 'punish' sufficiently severely to effectively outlaw and thereby eradicate the practice by default. Most humans, I would hazard, would think this most unlikely. There would always be some unscrupulous physician, politician or scientist who would go against the common concensus; whether from belief or, more likely, profit.
This is what frightens people. The emergence of a genetically engineered race of haves and have-nots, a race of superior and inferior, a race of Morlocks and Eloi, which was not 'natural' but engineered for political, economic or 'social' purposes and which would deny the fundamental rights which humans deem to be of paramount importance and have fought so hard and long to win. A future in which there was a possibility of improvement, of affecting the status quo, of bettering one's status, of finding love in the most unlikely of places. That the human race, or at least a significant part of it,might be consigned to the same genetic restrictions as apply to every other animal on the planet? To be consigned to such a fate with consciousess is probably a human's worst, imaginable nightmare. And so people oppose any chance of alleviating potential suffering in their own species!
Me? As a penguin, I am more sanguine. Let the researchers have a longer leash; let them develop the technology to make 'designer babies', while putting in place ways in which, as far as possible, 'designer babies' cannot be born and trust in humanity's acquired wisdom, scant though it may be.
The atomic bomb was developed at the end of the second world war; Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated its efficacy. However, in the intervening seventy years, there has not been a single case of a nuclear weapon exploded in anger or in conflict, even a small one. This might change, India and Pakistan, North Korea and South, China and the USA, Russia and Europe but I seriously doubt it; wisdom and good sense have long since prevailed. And so I think it will be with human genetic engineering. The mass of people will rise up and overthrow any perpetrators of an attempt to genetically engineer an advanced 'race'; but only because it will be in their interests to do so. Humans are, after all, selfish in the extreme; it's in their genes!
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