The Code Breaker

by Walter Isaacson

Crick had reached the ripe age of thirty-six without having secured his PhD.

Bonds can take different forms, both in chemistry and in life. Sometimes an intellectual bond is the strongest.

“Men ought not to play God before they learn to be men.”

Zhang made the point that the issues surrounding gene editing needed to be settled by society as a whole and not by individuals. “You can imagine a situation where parents will feel pressure to edit their children because other parents are,” he said. “It could further exacerbate inequality. It could create a total mess in society.”

it works best as a slow process. Every now and then, a rogue or rebel—He Jiankui, Josiah Zayner—will prod us to go faster. But if we are wise, we can pause and decide to proceed with more caution. Slopes are less slippery that way. To guide us, we will need not only scientists, but humanists.