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thereafter be ourselves or even human? It seems to me far more likely that a
robotic existence would not be like a human one in any sense that we understand,
that the robots would in no sense be our children, that on this path our humanity
may well be lost.

Genetic engineering promises to revolutionize agriculture by increasing crop yields
while reducing the use of pesticides; to create tens of thousands of novel species
of bacteria, plants, viruses, and animals; to replace reproduction, or supplement
it, with cloning; to create cures for many diseases, increasing our life span and
our quality of life; and much, much more. We now know with certainty that these
profound changes in the biological sciences are imminent and will challenge all
our notions of what life is.

Technologies such as human cloning have in particular raised our awareness of
the profound ethical and moral issues we face. If, for example, we were to
reengineer ourselves into several separate and unequal species using the power
of genetic engineering, then we would threaten the notion of equality that is the
very cornerstone of our democracy.

Given the incredible power of genetic engineering, it's no surprise that there are
significant safety issues in its use. My friend Amory Lovins recently cowrote, along
with Hunter Lovins, an editorial that provides an ecological view of some of these
dangers. Among their concerns: that "the new botany aligns the development of
plants with their economic, not evolutionary, success." (See "A Tale of Two
Botanies," page 247.) Amory's long career has been focused on energy and
resource efficiency by taking a whole-system view of human-made systems; such
a whole-system view often finds simple, smart solutions to otherwise seemingly
difficult problems, and is usefully applied here as well.

After reading the Lovins' editorial, I saw an op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook inThe
New York Times (November 19, 1999) about genetically engineered crops, under
the headline: "Food for the Future: Someday, rice will have built-in vitamin A.
Unless the Luddites win."

Are Amory and Hunter Lovins Luddites? Certainly not. I believe we all would agree
that golden rice, with its built-in vitamin A, is probably a good thing, if developed
with proper care and respect for the likely dangers in moving genes across species
boundaries.

Awareness of the dangers inherent in genetic engineering is beginning to grow, as
reflected in the Lovins' editorial. The general public is aware of, and uneasy
about, genetically modified foods, and seems to be rejecting the notion that such
foods should be permitted to be unlabeled.

But genetic engineering technology is already very far along. As the Lovins note,
the USDA has already approved about 50 genetically engineered crops for
unlimited release; more than half of the world's soybeans and a third of its corn
now contain genes spliced in from other forms of life.

While there are many important issues here, my own major concern with genetic