Ultimately, this is why even in a far future where we can customize children, we have to be extremely mindful of allowing diversity and not messing with too many genes which could one day contribute to disease resistance, or give us the ability to adapt to a new diet.
You are too hopeful we will be able to progress cautiously and mindfully wait for scientific evidence to prove the success of our experiments. Corporations will be seeking profits from the science and caution delays these profits. We see this now with genetically modified crops; deemed ‘safe’ until proven otherwise, not proven safe first before being unleashed on the public. Regulators from the FDA working for, for instance, Monsanto and former Monsanto employees going to the FDA and becoming regulators. Rubber stamping rather than long term testing; this is how seriously we take the potential harmful effects of our new science. Genetic modification for profit is the norm now for plants and will no doubt be the same in future human genome manipulation. Humanity doesn’t proceed cautiously as we are greedy beasts and forethought is not our strongest trait.
