Everything you wanted to know about genetic engineering in one chirpy video
by Michael Cook | 16 Sep 2016 |
This chirpy video about genetic engineering explains the complex present and speculative future quite well although it probably takes too optimistic a view of how the new technology will be used. Elliot Hosman, of the Center for Genetics and Society, grumbles that it:
With the great public interest in CRISPR, the CGS recently produced a resource page on human germline editing. It's quite useful.
- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-genetic-engineering-in-one-chirpy-video/11999#sthash.j40r6UvQ.dpuf... adopts an exceedingly narrow vision of democratic progress and governance. “The only thing we know for sure,” it asserts, “is that things will change irreversibly.” By this logic, technology’s impending arranged marriage to biology is inevitable, and we might as well sit back and watch the Silicon Valley “cradle of innovation” unburden us from our human imperfections—one human birthing experiment at a time.
However, it has been extremely popular. Released in August by the German company Kurgesagt (“In a Nutshell”), it has clocked up 3.2 million views.With the great public interest in CRISPR, the CGS recently produced a resource page on human germline editing. It's quite useful.
Today is a landmark, of sorts. It marks the first time that a child has been euthanised under contemporary euthanasia laws. Of course, euthanising infants is relatively common, but not children who are old enough to be asked if they really want to die. The death occurred last week in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, although it was announced today by Belgium's euthanasia supremo, Wim Distelmans. His words were very sober and solemn, as befits the occasion, but I suspect that he and his colleagues are quietly happy to see the boundaries of euthanasia spread even further.
Ultimately this is a triumph for out-and-out nihilism, not just Belgium's inventive euthanasia lobby. Nihilism is a philosophical fad which seems to catching on. Below we feature a report on three American bioethicists who argue the case for population control to fight climate change and a defense of infanticide by a Finnish bioethicist. I've also just discovered a new book by South African philosopher David Benatar. In it he argues that procreation is morally wrong because life's a bitch and then you die (I am over-simplifying, of course.) He concludes his book with these cheerful thoughts:
Every birth is a future death. Between the birth and the death there is bound to be plenty of unpleasantness ... Inflicting serious harm—or even the risk of it—on one person, without his or her consent, in order to benefit others, is presumptively wrong.
If I'm right, euthanising a child is not an terminus for Belgian euthanasia, but just a bus stop en route to pure nihilism. What its supporters are trying to eliminate is not just pain, but life itself. What do you think?
Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge
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It may be too optimistic about the future, but it is a good overview of a complex field.BioEdge
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