Life on Titan?

A dystopia is a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. It is usually characterized by an oppressive social control, such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government. The movie Gattaca falls under this category. This movie depicts a future where children are genetically engineered. I love movies that ask tough questions like “what if?” It really puts the issue of Human Genetic Engineering (H.G.E.) right in your face. I don’t think we should start engineering kids just because we want them to have blue eyes or make them tall just so they could become basketball stars. For the most part I think we should let nature take its course (It’s done a pretty good job so far). I would condone H.G.E. if it was proven necessary to mankind’s survival or if it was proven that it could cure Cancer and was 100% safe. Let’s look at some different views on the subject.

Some scientific arguments for H.G.E. could include; Human life spans could be extended. Studies of Telomeres (the end caps on a D.N.A. strands) show that this part of D.N.A. is linked to how a cell ages. Correlations have been drawn between certain genetic markers and things like addiction, violence, heart disease, and diabetes. It’s thought that if we removed or modified these markers in embryos that we could reduce the frequency of how often these undesirable traits occur. Sharks are one of the only species on Earth that don’t suffer from Cancer in any form. It’s possible that if we inserted a specific shark gene into our genes that we could become immune to cancer.

Scientific arguments against H.G.E. could include; genetic diversity protects us from being wiped out by any one particular plague or disease, the more diversity the better the odds that a certain group of individual would have a natural resistance. Some scientists think that evolution takes huge and sudden leaps. They theorize that the first homo-sapient (human) was likely the result of a genetic abnormality (Infantile Syndrome) and could even been cast out of its pack because it was so different. If we uniform and control D.N.A. there would be no chance of some huge leap in evolution happening like that again. Other scientists say that if we alter D.N.A. we run the risk of creating new and potentially deadly diseases in the process.

Some religious arguments against H.G.E. are; Creating life is the providence of God and it is not meant for man to tamper with. Parallels can be drawn between the quest for the Holy Grail and the pursuit of prolonging human life. They say that Adam and Eve were punished for seeking the knowledge of God and that if we seek to gain the same knowledge that we will also be punished.

One religious argument for H.G.E. is; we have a moral responsibility to alleviate human suffering by any means possible. The book of Genesis in the bible states that God crated man in his own image. That would make God the first cloner.

Keeping all your eggs in one basket is dangerous. If you drop them they may all break. Likewise mankind existing solely on one planet is risky. Our sun could explode, an asteroid could smash into us, or we could render earth uninhabitable with our own pollution. There is an innumerable amount of bad things that could happen to destroy us in one fell swoop. As soon as we’re able we should spread ourselves across the solar system, Galaxy etc, to give ourselves the greatest chance of survival. We may need to alter D.N.A. so that man could survive the rigors of space flight or we may need to alter ourselves to be able to survive in an alien environment when we get there. The same way that we are perfectly engineered to live on planet Earth, we may have to be engineered to live on an alien planet. So in the future if someone were to ask you “what’s the weather like on Titan this time of year?” you could say “It feels really nice.”