[extropy-chat] Article: "Laughter at people's fears"

[Samantha Atkins]

Wow!  Where on earth did they get these scientists and people
supposedly on "our side"?  Are we sure they aren't plants to make
genetic research look scary, irresponsible, arrogant and not at all
wise?   Perhaps they aren't but they sure as hell aren't doing us or
themselves a lot of good with some of this material.

Perhaps it is to be expected.   If you separate science and reason
from all that "separate magisteria" stuff dealing with things that
"really matter" like morals, values, wisdom and such as far as most of
the world is concerned, then the science and reason folk might tend to
be a just a tad ungrounded and seemingly not quite aware of the real
people involved.   I've seen such in some doctors at least.

- samantha



On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 03:34:04 -0500, Neil Halelamien
<neuronexmachina at gmail.com> wrote:
> Over on Transterrestrial Musings I saw a link to a set of interesting
> observations by a reporter at a genetics policy conference titled
> "Babies by Design":
> 
> http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111204&
> 
> If I had been at the conference I would have likely laughed along
> heartily at the jokes made at the expense of unknowledgeable laymen,
> although in reality that would be somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Even
> though we may enjoy mocking the vast majority of society who fear the
> unknowns of transhumanist technologies, I suspect that doing so will
> lead to significant problems in the future.
> 
> I sincerely believe that it's of the utmost importance to try to
> assuage the public's fears about these sorts of technologies, and I
> don't think simply touting their expected benefits will be enough.
> Just look at what happened with genetically modified foods and nuclear
> power.
> 
> -- Neil
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