At one end of the spectrum of public opinion is the view that any explicit manipulation of human biology is undesirable. Whether or not this philosophy has merit, it is operationally moot. For millennia, humans intentionally have altered our external and internal bodily environments in ways that influence health ... Some of the first languages uttered by primitive peoples probably included words describing particular plants and animals perceived to be sources of desirable medicinal products.
--John Avise, The Genetic Gods, 1998
Scientists of tomorrow will have a power that exceeds all the powers known to humankind: that of manipulating the genome. Who can say for sure that it will be used only for the avoidance of hereditary illness?
--Monette Vaquin, Life in a Test Tube: Ethics and Biology, 1991
Molecular biology now enables us not only to read the molecular texts that define and direct life, but to edit and rewrite them. Automated equipment and biochemical tools act like molecular word processors, "searching" for specific genetic "words" and "sentences," "cutting" them out of one piece of DNA, and "pasting" them into another.
--Joseph Levine and David T. Suzuki, The Secret of Life, 1998
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Birth control already influences how couples control their reproduction and heredity. Will new techniques to screen for and alter genes be a radical shift? |
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Genetic engineering is used today to produce insulin for a mass market. One day, the defective gene that causes diabetes might be fixed in a human fetus. |
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Prehistoric tools affected human health and heredity by helping humans thrive while other humanlike species went extinct.
Before the medical use of insulin, diabetics were doomed to an early death, and were unlikely to pass on their genes to future generations.
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