Monday, June 02, 2003
BETTER BABIES?
Pinker on Bio-Luddite Fears
Steven Pinker has a good essay in the Boston Globe about why the current crop of bio-luddite fear-mongering books about human genetic engineering are missing the mark. Pinker takes an end-run on the subject by simply pointing out that genetic enhancements of the kind deplored by Fukuyama and Glass are just plain unlikely, since "rifle-shot" gene tinkering can't have predictable or even desirable effects. This is because of the complexity of the genome and its expression in real organisms. Pinker makes the point that the bio-luddite drive to ban human genetic engineering is premature and likely to do more harm than good by curbing important and necessary research.
GB, THHotA
posted by Greg 7:25 AM
