According to the Associated Press, the FDA this week will be considering whether to approve a fertilization technique that could combine the DNA from three people.
The notion is to try to end genetic diseases by splicing out “bad” genes and replacing them with good ones. via FDA Could Green Light Genetically Modified Humans.
They say that art imitates life but perhaps the reverse is true in this case. Scientists are looking at ways to splice together DNA from three individuals to produce a genetically superior offspring. I guess their attempts at cloning individuals had not worked out so well.
In the FOX sci-fi thriller “Almost Human” set in the year 2048 technology has evolved to a place where a person can replace lost body parts with fully functioning biotic limbs (think the bionic man of yesteryear.) Additionally science has attempted to produced the perfect human through genetic engineering.
In the latest episode “Beholder” a creepy, bandaged home invader has killed folks…but nobody puts the fact that they have a serial killer on their hands until he kills a “chrome,” one of the Almost Human world’s genetically perfect citizens.
“Chromes” by design don’t die of natural causes (this guy’s weapon of choice is designed to make it look like they died of natural causes), and suddenly, the case is linked to the mysterious and sudden deaths of seven other citizens. The only apparent connection? They’re all attractive.
These genetically modified chromes form a cliché and are very secretive and dismissive of any normal human infiltration. I guess you could say they are rather snobbish. But when one of them gets killed we get a behind-the-scenes look at these laboratory enhanced humans. They consider themselves to be privileged. Even science can not make decent human beings out of the self-important.
The killer was part of a test group who was being treated with an advanced form of plastic
surgery which used nanobots to do the surgery from inside and not externally. The experiment went terribly wrong and our killer finds himself with a very distorted view of himself. (His face was horribly disfigured.) The reason he goes on a killing spree is because he is harvesting facial features from his victims to reconstruct his face before he presents himself to his online girl friend who just happens to be blind.
Apart from the irony this little trip down fantasy lane may actually shed a light on the human condition. All these scientific attempts to manipulate nature, and to find a way to genetically modify life, is science’s attempt to play god and ultimately to cheat death. In the end it always turns out the same. The attempt to produce the perfect human always ends in failure. What the world needs is not more technology or biology. What the world needs is not man-made fixes to personal shortcomings. The world needs a cure for the inward disfigurements of life caused by sin. The world needs to be transformed. This life-changing transformation can not be manufactured in a laboratory, or produced by nanobots, it must be accepted as a free gift from God through Jesus Christ.
Oh yes someone had to die so that your remake could be completed, but that someone gave his life willing for you so that you could live.
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich
person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard him asked, “Who, then, can be saved?” Jesus said, “The things that are impossible for people to do are possible for God to do.” Luke 18:25-27 (GW)
In other words you can not buy yourself a ticket to heaven. So you see art does imitate life.
You must be logged in to post a comment.