Kevin Lopez (on sabbatical)’s review of The Gene: An Intimate History > Likes and Comments
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I guess I'm a Luddite, but I agree that "writing their own instructions" scares the bejesus out of me. Two years ago, there was a huge conference held in Boston for enthusiastic amateurs who had purchased their own CRISPR kits and formed a DIY gene-splicing society. The winners that year were a group of high-school kids from Shenzhen who had somehow duped a spider's genes into spinning pink and purple silk.
Gene manipulation scares me as well. Yes, everyone has good things in mind, but of course it can only lead to even more disparities between those who can afford it and those who can’t. I don’t trust humanity to not turn genetic manipulation into yet another weapon and source of separating the richest from the rest.
@Left Coast Justin That is terrifying. It also sounds like a great opening scene for a comic book or a horror movie!
@Nataliya I agree 100%. Genetic engineering and gene modification — even during their very short histories as things that human beings are actually able to do — have proven to be tools that are far too powerful to put in the hands of any government or private corporation. Unfortunately, as Dr. Mukherjee points out toward the end of this book, the full-surge-ahead attitude of many Chinese biochemists (which came to international attention in 2015 when some less-than-ethical experiments tinkering with human embryos were made public) has stirred up something of a genetic arms race. Now many other countries have restarted their genetic experimentation programs, newly emboldened, with the justification of: “whether or not we do it, there are others who are going to do it regardless, so we need to keep up at any cost.” Something that makes the whole new frontier of gene manipulation and modification even more terrifying than it already was!
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Left Coast Justin
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Apr 01, 2021 07:43PM
I guess I'm a Luddite, but I agree that "writing their own instructions" scares the bejesus out of me. Two years ago, there was a huge conference held in Boston for enthusiastic amateurs who had purchased their own CRISPR kits and formed a DIY gene-splicing society. The winners that year were a group of high-school kids from Shenzhen who had somehow duped a spider's genes into spinning pink and purple silk.
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Gene manipulation scares me as well. Yes, everyone has good things in mind, but of course it can only lead to even more disparities between those who can afford it and those who can’t. I don’t trust humanity to not turn genetic manipulation into yet another weapon and source of separating the richest from the rest.
@Left Coast Justin That is terrifying. It also sounds like a great opening scene for a comic book or a horror movie!
@Nataliya I agree 100%. Genetic engineering and gene modification — even during their very short histories as things that human beings are actually able to do — have proven to be tools that are far too powerful to put in the hands of any government or private corporation. Unfortunately, as Dr. Mukherjee points out toward the end of this book, the full-surge-ahead attitude of many Chinese biochemists (which came to international attention in 2015 when some less-than-ethical experiments tinkering with human embryos were made public) has stirred up something of a genetic arms race. Now many other countries have restarted their genetic experimentation programs, newly emboldened, with the justification of: “whether or not we do it, there are others who are going to do it regardless, so we need to keep up at any cost.” Something that makes the whole new frontier of gene manipulation and modification even more terrifying than it already was!
