Inching Closer to Frankenstein's Monster Unless...


In Mary Shelly’s famous 1818 story, Frankenstein’s Monster, how the monster is created is left hazy, “an ambiguous method consisting of chemistry and alchemy”. Today, with our understanding of DNA, our ability to clone, to write custom-DNA and then to make it come alive by growing it in the womb of an existing species, we are much further down that road (Saving grace so far? The custom DNA still needs to be grown inside the womb of an existing species, which puts constraints on how different it can be from the mother).

With great power comes great responsibility. But biology seems to operating the way Dr.Ian Malcolm lamented in Jurassic Park:
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

A recent example of this was when David Evans in Canada resurrected a virus called horsepox using genetic material they ordered from a company that synthesizes DNA. Harmless though it is to humans, it a close cousin to smallpox. What if smallpox were similarly created and released, by malice or by accident?

Each such incident leads to the same debate. Isn’t it dangerous that horsepox was resurrected by a handful before the rest of the world even knew that it was in the works? No, it still took years to get to horsepox. But won’t the publication of this information accelerate the next cycle? Possibly, but the tech isn’t that easy. But what if the tech gets better, easier and cheaper with time? Shouldn’t there be checks on what can be synthesized? Ok, but given how intertwined life is, can anyone be sure that something “certified” as harmless won’t interact and mutate to a monster later on? Sure, but if we don’t do it, someone else will, right? Oh c’mon, only kids use that argument. And round and round we go…

Ed Yong sums up the current situation perfectly:
“The problem is that scientists are not trained to reliably anticipate the consequences of their work. They need counsel from ethicists, medical historians, sociologists, and community representatives—but these groups are often left out from the committees that currently oversee dual-use research.”
Further:
“There’s a tendency for researchers to view ethicists and institutional reviewers as yet more red tape, or as the source of unnecessary restrictions that will stifle progress.”
In fact, Calvin and Hobbes had this exact same argument:
If Bill Watterson saw this day coming, and yet we didn’t setup mechanisms and systems as checks, does it mean we are doomed? Or will we devise a framework now? After all, every country doesn’t have a nuke today, nor has mankind obliterated the planet with nukes… so perhaps there is hope after all.

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