DNA!.
The language of the second half of our century has made a place for these.
letters as both an adjective and a noun. Biologically, we may turn it into a verb.
to "DNA" a person or an animal or a plant, to transform it at its most basic.
physical level.
If I may use an almost unavoidable pun, the discovery of DNA, the working.
out of its structure and its alteration for therapy or for enhancement of.
potentiality or achievement may be the most pregnant scientif- ic/technical.
advance of mankind. It's one thing to view the galaxies with our astronomical.
instruments; it's another to view the "master molecule" of life. It will be a very.
long time before we can technologically affect, even slightly, the vast galaxies.
that our cleverness has discovered. We are, and have been for a very long.
time, altering the molecule that directs our own life and that of every creature.
living on our planet.
In the face of the great things that lie in our living future we need a sense of perspective. We have manipulated human.
heredity in many ways, from exposing newborn children to death, setting up "noble bloodlines," ethnic cleansing, mating.
only within the clan or tribe, slavery or selective breeding of one kind or another. We have certainly altered for good or.
ill strains of plants and animals through hybridization and breeding. Eugenics in all its forms and varieties is not a new.
idea.