Yesterday I covered and wrote a story on a symposium over at UAB on plant and animal genomes which was technically way over my head, it being a discussion for scientists and researchers deep in their fields, but later as I was writing the story and calling other professors to talk about genetics Luke and I started up a discussion over the ethics of cloning. To tell the truth, I’m really not sure how I feel about it, but that’s mainly because I know so little about what actual research is being done. Something in my gut tells me that tampering with our gene code is not as much wrong as it is dangerous. To use the cliched Pandora’s Box metaphor, genetic manipulation would change the rules in the game of survival, opening up huge possibilities for human characteristics and behavior that would be subject only to our imagination and whimsy. Want a child super-smart? No problem. Want one immune to diseases and stronger than a bodybuilder? Done. I realize that these possibilities are distant or most likely impossible, but you never know. So was flying at one point. I suppose the worst part is that the miracle (and I use that word in its strictest sense) of nature could be reduced to a series of choices we would make before a child is born. The idea of going into a doctor’s office and choosing what characteristics my baby will have seems as disappointing as it does abhorrent. But the other half of me knows that as mysterious and incredible as the natural human body is, it still works in patterns that are painful, destructive and avoidable. Being natural is great, but cancer still sucks. If we can use genetic research to reduce pain and suffering, I’m all for it. I say let’s put mother nature under the knife and see what happens. This does not mean we should indiscriminately exploit the genetic the possibilities of the human body, but reduce certain factors that limit our human potential. I have faith in the human ethical component to decide, after time, what medical uses genetic research should and should not allow, and that the final result will by and large be beneficial. For now our technology and understanding are too rudimentary to really pose much of a threat to the integrity of our DNA, but that time is not far off. Right now three women are carrying cloned fetuses that will be born in January, and the world will watch and see whether we can stomach what we’ve created. We are in uncharted waters indeed. And like on the maps of old, here there be dragons.