Genetic Future Weblog

Welcome to the Future! (Almost.)

Welcome one, welcome all to GeneticFuture.org. I’ve been musing and reading about genetics for the past few years, especially as it relates to ethics, medicine, and agriculture. I haven’t been transformed into a “bio-luddite”, nor have I become a transhumanist GMO-munching cheerleader for the wholesale appropriation and rejiggering of the animal and plant genomes around us.

What I have concluded is that genetic engineering is going to be responsible for revolutionizing our economic, environmental, and personal landscapes. Furthermore, it seems clear to me that this is going to happen Real Soon Now, long before most of us have had a chance to understand and weigh the ethical considerations that come with all the goodies locked away in this particular Pandora’s Box.

The purpose of geneticfuture.org is to build a resource which will help to keep us informed about developments in the fields of genetic and genomic research. It’s not meant to be super-technical, nor dumbed down to USA-Today — “MONKEY WITH SUPER BRAIN TO REPLACE HUMANS” — style content.

For the time being, this site will consist of a blog in which I will track the news, organize some of my thoughts, and hopefully engage a number of folks in discussions about ethics, our hopes, our fears, and even the fate of monkeys with super brains. Later on, geneticfuture.org will be the home to something like a full-blown “wiki” which will make it easier for folks to learn more about the background and history of genetics.

For those of you who are curious about the image above, the “bar code” type stuff is what chromosome fingerprinting looks like to your average gene researcher. The lower image is in fact a fish being tagged by some game wardens, but doesn’t it evoke some kind of weird DNA-tangled human manipulation future creepiness?