The issue is not the science, but who has power over the scentific outcome.

but, to answer Tim’s question, the term’s definition, ‘deliberate efforts to improve the genetic condition of future human generations’ is so broad that it covers any method of using these kinds of technologies. In essence it’s a word defined so as to cut across ideologies, but that’s heard as ideological.

“I’m not sure that being “more intelligent, stronger and healthier” is a good thing necessarily. Variation is good.”

More intelligent people are not more homogenous than the general population, surely? Having people with more creativity, capacity for critical thought, capacity for technological innovation, etc. is hardly a recipe for monotonous uniformity.

Similarly, stronger people have a greater range of physical possibilities for, I dunno, athletic innovation, whatever that would involve. Climbing skyscrapers, dancing upside down supported only by their fingers, etc.

As for health, of course it’s true that, by definition, health is a concept that makes people less variable – but do you really value the ‘variation’ between people with functioning kidneys and people without, between people with legs but no hands and people with hands but no legs? In short, isn’t calling ill health and sickness ‘variation’ a complete misuse of the term?

Of course the term is often misused in the converse way – classifying actual variation as sickness (homosexuality, Asperger’s syndrome, etc). But there you have to choose: if it’s good variation, then it’s not sickness, and if it’s sickness then it’s not good.

The issue of variation vs. uniformity is, just like Dave showed for the issue of inequality, an ideological one, not one intrinsic to the use of any technology.

As for the rest, why shouldn’t we radically alter the human form? If someone wants a self-destruct mechanism (watching too much House MD are we?) then why the hell not? With regard to how all of this balances against financial costs, none of it would be possible under a system which relied upon the market – but we have other mechanisms.

And who gets to decide what people are allowed to do, how this balances against financial cost etc…?

Seems to me that we’re talking Brave New World here…

With regard to pressure on parents, if we create a society in which all abilities and ranges of abilities are valued, then who the weakest in the class is won’t matter – but again, I don’t see such a society as mutually exclusive to one in which we are permitted to adapt our own bodies, either at a genetic level or cybernetically.

I’m confused as to why you seem to set these things in opposition; we can have both.

And no, I’m not sure that being “more intelligent, stronger and healthier” is a good thing necessarily. Variation is good. I’m also unsure what pressure we’d be putting on parents by going with this approach (after all, who wants their child to be the weakest kid in their class).

Surely it’s better to change society so everyone is valued and we find ways in which everyone’s talents can be recognised to allow them to contribute?

Altering genetics prior to embryo implantation is one way – and as for how it is ‘good’, is being more intelligent, stronger and healthier not a good thing?