Boethius, adviser to Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, weighs in on the ethics of gene editing in human embryos
“No news is good news.”
An oft repeated old saying, but when examined contains a pleasantly profound kernel: its unstated assumption is that “good” is the norm, and “bad” is the exception. Bad is newsworthy, good is commonplace. Grossly extrapolating on this, we could suppose this to mean that people might be inherently good as well. The bible claims, after all, that we’re made in the image of God. This was probably a good deal for us, though when I look in the mirror I fear God got the wrong end of the bargain. As Woody Allen wrote in Love and Death:
Boris: “You think I was made in God’s image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?”
Sonja: “Not with those frames.
Of course one might suppose that using God’s image was aiming a bit too high for us, maybe an intelligent version of the panda would have been a less acrimonious and bellicose species to have dominion over this planet. Or maybe sentience was a bad idea all together for us. However, the story in Genesis concludes with the declaration, “ And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” So there’s that. Furthermore, several studies have suggested that people are intuitively cooperative, and that even infants prefer people who help others. Thus, even the cold light of science suggests that people are, basically, OK.
Nonetheless, despite this and the engineering adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, we can’t help but want to improve on ourselves. Again peaking into Genesis, self-improvement was the first temptation to humanity; the snake told Eve that if she and Adam ate the forbidden fruit “… you will be like God.”
That’s a hard proposition to pass on.