WHAT WOULD YOU SAY: Three Reasons to Think Twice on Gene Editing
Being able to intervene in the DNA of an individual human being in order to eliminate their vulnerability to a lethal disease or otherwise bring about major improvements in their quality of life sounds like a no-brainer, right?
That gene editing can have genuinely profound impacts on society as we know it today is beyond doubt. That is precisely why the issue requires a level of intense thought about every aspect, including especially unintended consequences.
The Colson Center’s Brook McIntire offers in the latest edition of the “What Would You Say” video series three solid reasons for stepping back and taking a deep breath on this issue.
Among them are the common sense fact that “just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.” There’s more and it’s all worth hearing, considering and discussing because gene editing is an emerging issue on Capitol Hill:
BEAUTY BY CHANCE OR BY DESIGN?
Can random chance explain such informal order and beauty?
You are walking your dog on a beautiful Spring morning and you come across something in a neighbor’s yard that you had not previously noticed. How did it get there? Random chance?
Maybe the Azelia and tulip seeds just happened to land in a more or less symmetrical pattern. And it’s possible, if only remotely, that the tulip bulbs somehow sprang up in such a complimentary color pattern, too.
And it’s possible that given enough time (billions of years) a monkey banging away on a laptop would eventually compose Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Yeah, maaayyybe.
But rather than assuming chance did it, wouldn’t it be more logical to infer from the presence of a design the work of a designer?