Can Man Create Himself?

[JohnR7]

It has been suggested that soon we will enter into a era of genetic engineering. If this were the case than man could in theory effect things like intellect, or strength or whatever.

Do you think this is more science or science fiction? Do you think man is able to make the right choices to make improvements that would really be for the better?

 

[Duane Morse]

I think Man is able to make both right and wrong choices, for both the right and wrong reasons.

As to making the correct choices with regards to genetic engineering, some will probably be beneficial and others not. But anything we do is trial and error, we learn from our failures as well as from our successes.

 

[Siliconaut]

Science. Our knowledge is rising exponentially, so whatever sounds like sci-fi today may very well be an old hat tomorrow. Our ability to predict that future is quite bad, judging from all the "prophecies" that have been made during the last couple of decades (see how much impact the PC had on our lives - not many saw that coming).

Will man make the right choices, thusly? I can't tell - but I have some hope we'll make the wrong choices first and still be able to learn from them.

 

[lucaspa]

It has been suggested that soon we will enter into a era of genetic engineering. If this were the case than man could in theory effect things like intellect, or strength or whatever.

Do you think this is more science or science fiction? Do you think man is able to make the right choices to make improvements that would really be for the better?

There are two issues here:

1. Humans having the technical ability to gengineer humans. Yes, we have that ability now. In fact, we are using a more primitive ability in genetic counseling to avoid genetic diseases.

2. The second issue is more moral and ethical: the "right choices to make improvements". Define "right choices". Define "improvements". Now you are out of science and into the area of value judgements.