The genomics revolution, proteomics, metabolomics, all of these 'omics' that sound so terrific on grants and on business plans. What we're doing is we are seizing control of our evolutionary future. I mean we're essentially using technology to just jam evolution into fast-forward.
Gregory Stock
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.
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?
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.
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.
Geographic boundaries really begin to disappear with the Internet.
Retarding the aging process would be therapy and enhancement because it would mean defeating diseases and because it would extend our life span.
When a couple has a strong preference for a baby boy or girl, who is injured by allowing them to choose? Certainly not the child.
Consciousness, for me, is a manifestation of complexity in biology. It's an emergent property.
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.
A lot of the differences between people have biologic underpinnings. Now, we have a dogma of egalitarianism. Everyone's the same.
Our increasing ability to alter our biology and open up the processes of life is now fueling a new cultural war.
There are a lot of people highly motivated to be the first to clone a human.
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.
Everybody is going to want to look at their genetics. You're going to want to get a genetic profile.
As we decipher our biology and learn to modify and adjust it, we are learning to modify ourselves - and we will do so. No laws will stop this.
We're all going to eventually, even in the developed world, going to have to lose everything that we love. When you're beginning to rot a little bit, all of the videos crammed into your head, all of the extensions that extend your various powers, are going to being to seem a little secondary.
