That’s kind of a bold claim to make about someone you don’t know.
I can believe that there are good motivations for this kind of thing, and possibly even good applications, but you have to ask who gets to make the decisions on what to remove and what to leave, and what impact will it have?
Could we solve lots of problems? Absolutely. But is it the right tool for the problem? That’s a bit more nuanced. Sure, if we could edit out Alzheimers, or hereditary cancers, I’m sure most anyone would be on board with that idea, in a vacuum at least. But what about when the goals shift? Should we edit out autism? What about homosexuality? Hell, if we homogenise humanity and edit out racial differences, we could solve racism as well.
That’s obviously a bit extreme, but take blindness for example. I’m sure most sighted people would prefer to not be blind, and even among people born blind you’ll find supporters, but there’s also entire cultures and languages that have come about because of people being blind. Who gets to decide if that’s worth keeping or not?
That’s just one example, but you could replace blindness with deafness, or dwarfism, or any number of things.
Then there’s the question of what it’d mean for people who can’t access that kind of technology. What kind of future would this sort of thing create?
Doctors in the US have become the first to treat a baby with a customised gene-editing therapy after diagnosing the child with a severe genetic disorder that kills about half of those affected in early infancy. Ian Sample explains to Madeleine Finlay how this new therapy works and how it paves the way for even more complex gene editing techniques. David Liu, a professor at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the inventor of these therapies, also describes the barriers that could prevent them reaching patients, and how he thinks they can be overcome.
That’s kind of a bold claim to make about someone you don’t know.
I can believe that there are good motivations for this kind of thing, and possibly even good applications, but you have to ask who gets to make the decisions on what to remove and what to leave, and what impact will it have?
Could we solve lots of problems? Absolutely. But is it the right tool for the problem? That’s a bit more nuanced. Sure, if we could edit out Alzheimers, or hereditary cancers, I’m sure most anyone would be on board with that idea, in a vacuum at least. But what about when the goals shift? Should we edit out autism? What about homosexuality? Hell, if we homogenise humanity and edit out racial differences, we could solve racism as well.
That’s obviously a bit extreme, but take blindness for example. I’m sure most sighted people would prefer to not be blind, and even among people born blind you’ll find supporters, but there’s also entire cultures and languages that have come about because of people being blind. Who gets to decide if that’s worth keeping or not?
That’s just one example, but you could replace blindness with deafness, or dwarfism, or any number of things.
Then there’s the question of what it’d mean for people who can’t access that kind of technology. What kind of future would this sort of thing create?
this sounds more interesting ☞ https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2025/may/22/the-extraordinary-promise-of-gene-editing-podcast