Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: I personally think not. And the reason of that is because imperfection and defect are part of a natural process to insure species natural selection. From that perspective, we are also taking in consideration that there is a [process implicit] in the way things evolve in nature. But this consideration, this problem has a human dimension. And I think it has to do more with farmers, itself. Because of the lack of choices offered to a small holder farmer, to make their own decisions about their technologies, and the lack of information about long-term benefits and costs of their decisions, potential costs include dependency on technology. And genetic engineering is a way also that creating this dependency and it's disrupting the natural process. Also farmers are selecting genetic improved materials, from a process of - a large process of domestication of species that come over ancient times. And that lead us, or give the legacy, to humanity, of a large number of the food - of the crops that really is part of our source of food in humanity. So, we have to re-think a little bit about this paradigm, and really come as a global community to make the right decisions in the way that we could have something that could really create the conditions of affecting many countries that are not using this type of technology.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: I think we should distinguish between modifications that effect only you and modifications that might affect all your children. In the case of engineering to fix defects in your person, I don’t see any particular reason to constrain that. I think that’s a matter of personal choice. The issue of what kind of genetic modifications we ought to make that can be heritable, that can be passed on to your children is an issue of regulation. There’s clearly a societal cost to—unintended consequences of such modifications. And we have to decide ethically, in each society decide ethically, what such defect correction and imperfection correction would be allowed. I understand the arguments against allowing such modifications but I think that it should largely be left up to the individuals.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: I don’t know, I don’t posses knowledge in this field.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: This is a question – I don’t think I can answer this question. I really don’t know what to say. I don’t know.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Catherine David: It is always certainly... This question is both, justifiable and extremely circumventive because the whole question is located on the line between genetic transformations in order to correct serious imperfections and the transition of using genetic transformations in order to correct defects that are not so serious and that are not necessary to correct. So, this subject nearly leads us to the questions of genius and to the culture of embryos in order to produce tissue, to replace spinal cord, why not. In contrast, the genetic transformations and manipulations which make a couple have a child with blue eyes, with green eyes and with pink eyes seem to me very problematic. It seems to me that if these kinds of methods existed before, we would be less numerous. If we are not able anymore to accept somebody with a crooked foot …. and a crooked foot has never prevented a personality from developing, from creating, from thinking and from producing. So I think that there really is a frontier which is not that difficult to be found but to impose because up from the moment we can transform, cultivate cells in order to repair spinal cords, we can also transform a human being.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: Answertext will be available soon.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: […] where famines really don't occur, where they can be relieved, we should use it where it can help to improve people's state of health, for instance in the struggle against cancer, but we should use it very carefully, because indeed whole branches of industry often make the genetic material subject to their partly unscrupulous speculation and mercantilization and thus they can evoke as much danger as they can do good.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Cornel West: It is hard to specify what kind of genetic engineering should be allowed to correct defects and imperfections, one because we’d have to define exactly what we mean by defections and what we mean by imperfections. And, of course, who is going to decide if it has to do with the general consensus regarding the elimination of certain kind of disease: if we are talking about curing cancer, if we are talking about curing AIDS, if we are talking about curing leukemia, wonderful. On the other hand, if the -- dealing with issues that are more vague and oblique, then to what degree does genetic engineering itself begin to collapse into eugenics and we’re beginning to make distinctions about what kinds of human beings ought to be here and what kind of human beings ought not? It’s a much more dangerous question. We are here in Germany, of course, where the Nazi regime made eugenics a central part of their program because their perception of certain imperfect people and defective people. I think that the physically challenged brothers and sisters have the same sanctity and dignity as any other group of human beings, and this is very important to affirm, especially here at this gathering. At the same time, there is no doubt that genetic engineering can win, rightly used, promote, and enhance life in general and human life in particular.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Honestly, in our experience we don’t see any genetically engineering food that is being implemented or promoted in our county. However, if that genetically engineered products is beneficial and does not have negative impact on the health of the people, then there is no reason in order not to promote it and accept it. Besides, okay, if the question is promoting genetically let’s say seeds that brings more production and does not mean chemical fertilizer and pesticides, for me I would support that. But, it was here during the [Conference] [inaudible] in Brazil that most of the seeds which are genetically are terminated -- terminated which means you can not produce it in another farm cycle -- which leads to dependency, of course, of, you know, buying seeds every time you need it. For me that those genetically engineered products is not -- does not add value to humanity. Another thing is if this genetically engineered products is not connected to chemical fertilizer and pesticides, well I would be the one and the first one to promote it in our communities.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: I think there’s a lot of hope for genetic engineering to help us deal with diseases that today we feel unable to address in another way. I think a lot of people with a lot of health problems are actually looking forward to genetic engineering as an answer to their problems and I don’t think we can simply discard genetic engineering on moral premises only because it would be immoral to take away the chance for paraplegics to walk again, who are hoping to do that all the time one day. I’m more skeptical to cloning more because I cannot imagine what the effects of that would be. I am more skeptical to deciding what type of person we want to do. I am more skeptical to use genetic engineering for cosmetic purposes but when it comes to making a person that doesn’t walk, walk, making a person who can’t see, see--

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: Well, I don’t really know much about genetic engineering, I don’t know this theme, not for disinterest but because I was short of time to research it. And I also had no time to read these questions, then I’m answering this here, I’ve just knew about it here and I really couldn’t know about this kind of genetic engineering. But intuitively speaking, according to my own experience as a human, I think that genetic engineering is never supposed to harm human beings, nor destruct, kill or keep making those experiences the way it’s been made with animals, they should never damage the human being.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Well, clearly, the idea of genetic engineering to correct mere defects and imperfections smacks of euthanasia, which is repulsive. If we are talking about genetic engineering that can prevent fatal disease, that’s something else again. But, it is a very dangerous line between that and the idea of the improvement of the imperfection of humans. I mean, [inaudible] and we would all be human if we could and we are all obviously imperfect in that sense. And the idea of any sort of model of perfection that will be achieved through genetic engineering is truly frightening and it is one that has certainly been with us since the beginning of the 20th century.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: I so far I know no success story in genetic engineering. They have tried to cure diseases but what seems to happen, for instance with glaucoma, if you implant the gene that seems to be implicated in glaucoma as a disease in seven different patients with glaucoma you get seven different results. One of the big problems with genetic engineering is that the companies doing it understand so very little about how genes work, how the whole genome works. The genome is a living system and it works intelligently. It can recognize when a gene has been damaged. It can repair that gene or put genes out of action that would cause trouble. It can trade genes. It can bring in new genes into the genome. The planet has one genetic system planetwide with genes that are interchangeable among all species from microbes to mammoth sized animals and plants. This is an amazing intelligent information system. Two billion years ago the bacteria, our most ancient ancestors actually developed the first world wide web of information exchange by trading DNA. And this exchange is still going on. Can you imagine that in a few billion years nature has not learned everything possible about genetic engineering on the good side and on the bad side? Yet we don’t study it. We don’t consider it an intelligent system. We map genes as though we’re writing a telephone book of names in a city and then how much do you know about the city when you have that whole map? Very, very little. So we don’t know enough to be doing genetic engineering.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: This is a basic problem of ethics -- of bioethics. It seems to me that it is warranted to use genetic intervention in cases where a child is not yet born in the utero where you recognize that the child without an intervention will be an incomplete or sick or suffering human being and that you also know that intervention can correct this fault. I am very doubtful that all the kinds of genetic engineering and genetic interventions in the human genome are ethical or advisable also because we never know exactly the consequences in a case of a living being when we just, what the further entailments will be of such interventions.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: If, I think, genetically engineering initiatives ensures that it improves people’s lives, and it’s correcting defects, without harming whichever being in whichever way, it’s then okay and should be allowed. Because I think the brains that scientists do have must be maximized to be able to improve the well-being. But I think when it’s used to control, like, for me, genetically modified food, it hasn’t resulted to increasing the availability of food in the world. I don’t agree that it has increased. In actual fact, it only increases in the short term, and in the long term, it reduces. The impact is so massive such that the benefit gained in the short term is worse than if the world was left to produce naturally and biologically its own resources.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: [Certainly,] it is ideal to permit investigations or the application of investigations or discoveries in order to fight illnesses, plagues, or more generally speaking hazards biologically threatening humans or other life species. This would be interesting but if all this serves to irresponsibly draw profit it switches completely.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 4:30:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: It is important to ask ourselves the question what we consider defects and what we consider imperfections. If defect prohibits us from our movements, from our mobility, from the way in which we express ourselves, it may be that we can introduce into our life some results of technology that help us to overcome these defects or imperfections. In a way, we all are imperfect. So, it is completely okay to be imperfect. But, when it really hinders our behavior, our functioning, our joy in our life, our ability to really function, then I think, and that's on an individual level to be answered, that indeed we can allow a level of genetic engineering into our lives. But, again, like in the last question, we have to see if it is not harmful for ourselves in the end and for the environment.

by Fred Matser