Called "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness," the council's report concerns present and future interventions intended not to restore health but rather to alter genetic inheritance, to enhance mind or body, or to extend life span beyond its natural limits.

Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward unintended and destructive ends.

I must express some suspicion of this given that we already understand what the administration's perspective of this is. Is this a search for answers, or a hammer looking for a nail?

Some of the NYT's quotes reveal a mixed bag:

For example, this makes sense to me:
"By medicalizing key elements of our life through biotechnical interventions," the report says, "we may weaken our sense of responsibility and agency."

We already do this in many different ways.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine a more foolish luddism then this statement:

It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at `improvement.' "

While the wording here is carefully chosen, the message is clear. Obviously there are risks. Everything has risks. It is important to understand risks and avoid them. But by waxing about the perfection of the human being and placing the word improvement in quotes, the author is not really referring to risk management. He stops short of arguing that all activity in this space would be counterproductive only because he can't prove that. He is saying that biotechnology is bad.

What this perspective ignores is that every single technological development in the history of man, from the first wooden spear to the space shuttle, has been an attempt to escape the boundaries of what nature has given us. That is, in fact, fundamentally what makes us human and what differs us from most other animals. We invent technologies which help us adapt to environmental pressures that other species cannot adapt to because they adapt at random and without will.

To claim that we have no reason to continue to expand the boundaries of our capabilities is the same sort of narcissistic bullshit that lead Fukuyama, who made large contributions to this paper, to conclude that we are at the end of political history. This perspective is absolutely ignorant of human nature.

] Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the
] President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an
] analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward
] unintended and destructive ends.

Comments on the matter from Decius:

I must express some suspicion of this given that we already understand what the administration's perspective of this is. Is this a search for answers, or a hammer looking for a nail?

Some of the NYT's quotes reveal a mixed bag:

For example, this makes sense to me:
"By medicalizing key elements of our life through biotechnical interventions," the report says, "we may weaken our sense of responsibility and agency."

We already do this in many different ways.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine a more foolish luddism then this statement:

It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at `improvement.' "

While the wording here is carefully chosen, the message is clear. Obviously there are risks. Everything has risks. It is important to understand risks and avoid them. But by waxing about the perfection of the human being and placing the word improvement in quotes, the author is not really referring to risk management. He stops short of arguing that all activity in this space would be counterproductive only because he can't prove that. He is saying that biotechnology is bad.

What this perspective ignores is that every single technological development in the history of man, from the first wooden spear to the space shuttle, has been an attempt to escape the boundaries of what nature has given us. That is, in fact, fundamentally what makes us human and what differs us from most other animals. We invent technologies which help us adapt to environmental pressures that other species cannot adapt to because they adapt at random and without will.

To claim that we have no reason to continue to expand the boundaries of our capabilities is the same sort of narcissistic bullshit that lead Fukuyama, who made large contributions to this paper, to conclude that we are at the end of political history. This perspective is absolutely ignorant of human nature.

Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward unintended and destructive ends.

Called "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness," the council's report concerns present and future interventions intended not to restore health but rather to alter genetic inheritance, to enhance mind or body, or to extend life span beyond its natural limits

Called "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness," the council's report concerns present and future interventions intended not to restore health but rather to alter genetic inheritance, to enhance mind or body, or to extend life span beyond its natural limits.

I am very afraid that this chicken little act will scare the west away from leading this technolegy. Our dominance in the modern world is very closely tied to the fact that we have been a leader in development of emerging technologies (computing, nuclear weapons/power, communications). If we deside now to stunt our technological growth in the areas of bio-tech I fear the coming decades will see the west's power go the way of babylon (once the scientific capitol of the world).

The power (economic and military) held by the west today is a result of past generations mastry of emerging technologies. If we choose to for-go this revolution others will take our place. When others control this (china, korea, france, japan) what role will the united states play in the world.

Not all the world is America, this technology will come into being, are we going to master it, or will others use it to master us?

One more note on regulation, if our regulation is too tight in the beginning science will be moved to other nations. When this technology is control by other nations how then will we regulate its growth. I am in favor of regulation, but in this early time, if we regulate too strictly we will find that when this technology comes to fruition our regulatory bodies will be impotent.