
frankenstein blog
Connections to the real world
Summary
Reflection
The interesting article, "The Gene Hackers", posted in the New Yorker and written by recognized journalist Michael Specter, outlines the developing technology of Dr. Feng Zhang's team at the Broad Institute of both Harvard and MIT and their advances in our gene science. Dr. Zhang is the youngest member of his team, addicted to science and the knowledge of this topic, he has put himself in a mission most would call impossible: rewriting what we call our DNA. "Imagine being able to manipulate a specific region of DNA... almost as easily as correcting a typo", Zhang states, clearly excited by the idea. However, even though this idea sounds spectacular, implying we would be able to get rid of such many diseases and genetic problems, we would also have to think of the consequences of such science and discovery. The article goes on to talk about the undenying possibility that if such technology and science comes to life, we would most possibly be living in a totally artificial world with artificial humans. This same thought just makes us imagine the power and danger of such technology. As the article concludes, we get a reassurement that we are no where close of discovering all of this science, however, we are working our way into the dangers and possibility of altering our human gene pool.
I found this article extremely surprising. I never thought that we would be discussing the possibility of such science to exist. I thought that it would all stay in the typical movies. That said, I believe that even though this science is extremely important for our welfare and health as a human race, in this case we should opt to leave things as they are and investigate no further. We will have a Frankenstein type situation. I am sure we are going to regret the knowledge and weight this new information will have upon us. These discoveries pose as an incredible threat not only to our human nature, but also be used to our world peace. This can be used as a weapon of mass destruction. Even though the CRISPR technology can eradicate all kinds of diseases, I think that in the world environment we live today, it would not be wise to publicize or even make an outlet for these discoveries to be put into action. If we have the technology, it is basically inevitable for our gene pool to be manipulated. I find the ethical consequences to be similar to those of human cloning, and even find these ideas way more dangerous. I completely agree with researchers such as Doudna and her sentiments against this proposal, "suppose somebody like Hitler had access to this-- we can only imagine the kind of horrible uses he could put it to". Imagine such technology at a time like that of Hitler, in the hands of a very violent, cruel and reckless individual. The consequences would be terrible. Even though we apparently have no Hitler in our times, I truly believe we do not live in a peaceful world at all. Global tensions are growing, we all know if this material falls into violent people's hands they will make a use of this powerful weapon to their violent advantage and reckless ways. That said, I believe that we have to do the necessary to fight terrible diseases such as AIDS and cancer, but strongly think that there are other ways to approach these diseases. We should fight them directly instead of changing our natural human anatomy, it will make the world only more artificial and dangerous than it already is.
Reflection
Bibliography
Specter, Michael. "The Gene Hackers." The New Yorker. Condé Nast, 16 Nov. 2015. Web. 22 Feb. 2016. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-gene-hackers>.

