Those interested in reflecting on the “ethical risks” of the 3rd and 4th industrial / technological revolutions (and there are many such people, “experts” or not) should go ahead: it is rather unlikely they will prevent anything. If there ever are practical and effective restrictions, they will be after the fact.
We have written about the philosopher’s stone of genetic engineering, crispr/cas9 (cyborg issue no8). Armed with it, a team composed of technoscientists from the University of Oregon, the Salk Institute and the Institute for Basic Science of South Korea announced, via the journal Nature last July, that they had removed from human embryonic cells the gene that (according to biotechnologists) is responsible for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This is a condition that appears in 2 per 1,000 cases and can lead to sudden cardiac arrest. As for the gene’s culpability? It’s a matter of fanaticism for the disciples of genetic determinism…
In any case, the genetic tailors announced that the removal of the “bad gene” was 72% successful, and that they allowed the embryonic cells to develop for five days before completing the experiment. They considered that they were multiplying normally.
But it is not a matter of “moral threats” — although the genetic modification of living beings is full of them. It is, moreover, a question of common sense. Targeting genes as being responsible for this or that is simply an idea / theory; and indeed a theory that is systematically challenged by other trends in biotechnologies. In reality, no one knows how DNA works; and it will be a long time before there is undisputed (and above all: non-statistical…) knowledge — if ever. Ultimately, nothing is guaranteed by the “normal multiplication of embryonic cells”: what kind of being this will lead to is unknown.
Right… But with advertising, funding, and the “scientific prestige” of this or that pioneer, no one argues. Isn’t that so?