Zitat des Tages von Gregory Stock:
Our increasing ability to alter our biology and open up the processes of life is now fueling a new cultural war.
No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?
We should be happy. We should be enjoying that there is all this bounty. Somebody can take an iPod and have all the world's music at their beck and call in an instant. What an amazing thing!
The biggest development in reproductive biology is the birth-control pill. Nobody ever talks about it, but look at the consequences: demographics; aging populations; the sinking population of Europe, Japan; immigration. It's incredible.
People who drink four or more cups of coffee a day - it doesn't matter whether it is caffeinated or decaffeinated - have a reduction in Type 2 diabetes, or a reduced incidence of Type 2 diabetes, of about fifty percent. The same with Parkinson's, although there it is more related to the caffeine.
If out of concern over cloning, the U.S. Congress succeeds in criminalizing embryonic stem-cell research that might bring treatments for Alzheimer's disease or diabetes - and Dr. Fukuyama lent his name to a petition that supported such laws - there would be real victims: present and future sufferers of those diseases.
If you judge by what people do to improve their health, they value their lives highly. So adding to your period of vitality is something that most people would certainly do. If there was a pill that would do that, it's clear that everyone would take it.
In my view, the most damaging evils that are perpetrated upon us are through some abstract notion about good, where we're willing to sacrifice individuals in the present for some great vision of an improved or perfect future.
There is a pent-up demand from people who want to clone their dead children.
Retarding the aging process would be therapy and enhancement because it would mean defeating diseases and because it would extend our life span.
