Is There a Precautionary Principle for Human Genome Editing?

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Sydney Brenner joined the debates around a psilomar Sydney Brenner. He was also one of the key motor forces at the meeting and he said well yeah it's a you know what we're worried about is an accident but unlike say a road accident those kind of accidents don't tend to be self-replicate. The reality is that these things are amazingly complicated let's just go back to the blue-eyed boy baby, says Chrisitt.

Shermer and Cobb discuss: objections to genetic engineering (political, religious, cultural) • selective breeding • recombinant DNA • the ethics of genetics • patenting life • gene therapy • gene editing • CRISPR • literature and films on the dangers of genetic engineering • bioweapons • 3 Laws of Behavior Genetics and what people fear about it.

Matthew Cobb is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is the author of six books: The Idea of the Brain: A History; Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; Generation; The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis; Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944; and Smell: A Very Short Introduction. He lives in England.