Why does the media potray genetic engineering in such a bad light?

[RyanJ]

Maybe they don't like non-christians playing God.

 

Ah yes that would fit their general attitude quite well.

 

If they ever claim that they should never take macine again as it is "playing god" bby speeding up a process which your body should fix naturally.

 

Cheers,

 

Ryan Jones

[futureless]

Unless I'm mistaken, that article talks of a future where we grow new plants and animals, but we're currently heading towards growing our own 'special humans'. I think the idea that parents may be able to choose what characteristics their child has is the scariest. It goes against my "loving me for my virtues and faults " principle.

 

I agree though, the worst thing that Biotechnology could ever do is stop death. That would mess up the whole planet. More people, more polution, more demands, less space, less progress...never mind the moral arguments!

[darkangel199]

its a superiority thing. People are afraid that somewhere some "mad scientist" will create "superhumans" who are smarter and stronger, and since human nature seems to lean towards aggressive and predatory the superior "humans" will probably take over. You can look at movies, books, videogames, etc to see that people are just scared of being "replaced" or not being at the top of the food chain.

[Anjruu]

Well, it isnt always so negative about genetic enhancements. Look at the show your pseudonym comes from. At least, I assume it is Dark Angel, the one with shark-cat-people hybrids. Those kids have the moral right, and most of them treat the rest of humanity very well, and most of humanity, the ones that know them at least, treat the kids well. I forget the exact names, i've only watched it a couple times and I have a terrible memory for names.

[darkangel199]

Yeah they were animal hybrids, and the government was after them again. but that's one show, usually people are scared of anythign that can be considered superior to them. So they call it unnatural or ungodly or evil or freak etc. Its the nature of people, we assume that any being smarter and stronger than us will want to dominate us, much like humans do with the rest of the world. And of course being human we always assume a being with intelligence of at least our level will act like we do (i've made them istake on these forums with stories and "what ifs ive posted lol) so naturally, people think a being that's smarter and stronger will try to dominate us or exterminate us, which leads back to why people hate and fear the word genetic engineering, it conjours up images of supermen or other creatures taking over in a lot of people's mind.

[gmoafrica]

This is a pretty good question. I author the blog Gmo Africa, and I know what it takes to communicate science and technology issues to the public. It's very demanding because you have to read regulalry and intensely, just like scientists do. Not many journalists or communicators, are willing to engage in intensive reading.

 

This is where the problem lies. With regard to genetic engineering, most journalists don't have an iota of idea of what it is all about. So, they write incompetently about genetic engineering, and in the process mislead and misinform the public.

[CPL.Luke]

Genetic engineering of people poses the problem that it would dramatically reduce the diversity of a population. Since there is a pretty narrow definition by most as to what traits are good and what traits are bad, most parents would select the good traits. Now if in the future traits such as personality type and intelligence level could also be chosen, then there is the far graver problem that intellectual diversity could be reduced. Especially when you consider that a very large number of brilliant mathmeticians and physicists could be classified to have various mental disorders such dyslexia, asperger's syndrome, OCD etc. these "disorders" could be selected out of the population through genetic engineering and thus there could be a great intellectual loss if humans started actively selecting the genes their children would have.

 

Also one of the cardinal rules of biology is that the more diversity there is in a population the greater its chances for survival. There is no universal solution to all the problems in the world.

 

I would also like to recommend the movie Gattaca for a look at some of the social problems that genetic engineering can cause.