dont we already got genetic engineering in a way? ppl who are born to parents that are healthy, tall, good looking, no alcoholism, no depression, no diseases etc these people who meet these things like tall and good looking have advantages in this life like job promotion and friendly service. if you can do that for money why wouldnt you? theres always been an arms race for this thing. isn't cosmetic surgery also similar? changing your natural look to become more attractive and younger? why shouldn't us poor ppl get that too?
I think it's the question who will be able to afford it. It's one thing for people to seek out people with superficially "good genes" but it's different when someone can scientifically do that to their kids. Having kids is always a roll of the dice to some extent, where rich or poor has no bearing on genetics. This would change all of that. It's an interesting political question. In countries with socialized medicine, will it become a human right to remove genetic defects from your future children? I could see that, where the state takes on the costs of ensuring the health of your kids. The designer aspect of it (eye color, hair color, height, etc.) I'm not so sure about.
Pretty sure the science is already there to do it today. We already have genetically modified mammals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_mammal I don't think humans are too special to modify.
This isn't so much as a problem with the science. I think the science will happen and once it does it will be used for things like cosmetics and athletic ability. What really needs is a change in culture and economics before we are ready. If this technology existed tomorrow within a 100 years or so I suspect we would start essentially seeing a divergence in the human species. The wealthy of the world won't only be different in terms of lifestyle they will be in terms of biology. This will be a situation that will lead to even greater conflict as there won't even be a common humanity between the two subspecies of humans. If though we can change our economics and culture where this type of technology is widely available to all then there is the possibility that this uplifts humanity as a whole rather than divide it.
The first point I'd make is to disabuse people of the notion that nature = automatically good, which seems to have been planted in the heads of everyone by advertising executives. Nature has evolved a million and one ways to kill you. Now, the real point you're trying to make it that by exercising more control over natural laws and processes, humans, through their cognitive biases and poor grasp of complex systems, will ultimately commit short-sighted mistakes. That's a perfectly valid argument if you can specify which ones you're worried about. Referring to the notion of "Playing God" in broad strokes as something to be avoided is something I have trouble with, however. It implies that the natural state of the world is unknowable and untouchable which breaks every scientific instinct. Were chemists playing God when they invented nylon? Was Jonah Salk playing God when he invented a vaccine for polio? Was Norman Borlaug playing God when he saved a billion lives through the introduction of new high-yield plants? Where is the line traced, and why? Do you object to a higher degree of scientific discretion when applied to human embryos? If so, why? We could have a reasoned debate then. Now all we have is an ominous chill devoid of rationale or example.
The research in the article is just the tip of the ice berg. We can only guess what the US, Chinese, Russian government/military are experimenting with in terms of human genetics engineering.
