Are we even asking the right questions?

Raymond Kurzweil, inventor of the Kurzweil electric piano and renowned thinker, believes that, with the aide of genetic engineering and nanorobotics, man might achieve immortality in his own lifetime. Simultaneously bounding with possibilities for good and evil, genetic technology raises some critical socio-ethical questions over who should control both the knowledge and application of a technology that promises, according to Kurzweil, to usher in the next phase of human evolution on earth. Perhaps another question needs to be answered first: should mankind even be allowed to possess this technology?

Some of the greatest technological advancements in human history have been used as instruments of oppression, war, and death. Some modern examples include nuclear, demolition, and biochemical technologies. One of the earliest genetic researchers was Dr. Josef Mengele, the now-infamous Nazi physician at the Auschwitz death camp. Where will we draw the line with regards to acceptable application of genetic and cloning technology? Will the rewards of using the technology outweigh the costs? Scientists may cure diseases and severe injury with this technology, but it may also be used by less noble minds as a twenty-first century ethnic cleansing. Instead of killing the ethnic minorities, their genetic diversity will be removed, quietly, from all future generations of children. After fifty years, ethnic cleansing is completed forever.

These questions must be answered before any particular argument for or against cloning and genetic technology moves me to its cause. I fear these questions may require more time to answer than the development of the actual technologies. If that happens, any decisions we may come to as a people could already be too late.