Ethics, science and technology : genome editing : hope for our future or what?

Abstract

This unit looks at how genome editing affects the technological reproduction of humanity. I deploy Martin Heidegger’s thinking on how technology sets an order upon nature to explore whether genome editing brings a shift in the understanding of biology. After tracing the development of genetics from Mendel to the first modifications in the Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strand, I explore whether genetics is concerned mostly with the management of life. In this sense, geneticists appear more designing novel courses where life can develop differently. At the end of the unit, I questions whether genetic advancement retains in its vision the notion that our moral worth as humans is maybe worthier than the three billion base pairs that constitute our genome history.