Today on the Three Martini Lunch podcast, Greg and I discussed the proposal from bioethicist S. Matthew Liao to genetically reengineer human beings so that they develop an aversion to eating meat.
“I want to consider a class of solutions that have never been considered before: human engineering. It involves the biomedical modification of human beings,” Liao proposes. “If we eat less meat, we could significantly reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions. Now, some people would be willing to eat less meat, but they lack the willpower. Human engineering could help. . . . Just as some people are naturally intolerant to milk or crayfish, like myself, we could artificially induce mild intolerance to meat by stimulating our immune system against common bovine proteins. And in this way, we can create an aversion to eating eco-unfriendly food.” He envisions the use of “meat patches” the way some people who try to quit smoking wear nicotine patches.
Liao says his solutions have never been considered before, but, in fact, back in 2012, Dr. Curt Connors of Empire State University contemplated merging human DNA with lizard DNA to help overcome humanity’s weaknesses and did so through a groundbreaking aerosol agent, which started turning New Yorkers into lizard people — wait, I’m sorry, that was the Amazing Spider-Man movie. Still, the principle is the same: Some scientist with more knowledge than wisdom is convinced that he can fix the world by meddling with people’s genes in order to eliminate what he believes are their weaknesses and bad habits. See also Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birth-Mark, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Joss Whedon’s Serenity.
Again, if at any point your plan to improve the world overlaps with that of a Marvel Comics villain and/or involves you cackling madly, you should pause and probably go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan that accepts human beings as they are instead of some vastly complicated scheme to “fix” them.
Why is it that when you see someone with the title “bioethicist” they’re almost always coming up with some sort of mental gymnastics to justify something extremely unethical?