The inestimable Will Saletan writes in Slate about the late election and biotechnology. One need not agree with everything he asserts to know that the following is not only brilliantly written, but it is unquestionably true:
“Meanwhile, the technology grows more complicated. Stem cells from leftover embryos are only the beginning. To cure people reliably, you have to move on to cloning. To avoid cloning, you have to devise alternatives, such as reprogramming adult cells so that any cell in your body could become an embryo. To eradicate diseases with today’s technology, you’d have to screen embryos and flush the ones with bad genes. With tomorrow’s technology, you’ll be able to re-engineer them. Each of these advances saves life at the price of dissolving it. We’re taking ourselves apart.
“We’re so not ready for this. But we can’t stop ourselves. So, we try to simplify the oncoming technologies, treating them like issues we already know…”
Saletan closes with: “So, hold on to your hats. A new kind of issue has arrived. It’s moral, it’s economic, and it’s life and death. Biotechnology is here to stay, even if humanity, as we know it, isn’t.”
That’s why he deserves, and I hope makes, the big bucks.
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