Word: biologists
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Inspired by these experiments, Watson, then a young Ph.D. in biology from Indiana University, decided to take a crack at the complex structure of DNA itself. The same thought struck Crick, a physicist turned biologist who was preparing for his doctorate at Cambridge. Neither man was particularly well equipped to undertake a task so formidable that it had stymied one of the world's most celebrated chemists, Linus Pauling. Watson, for his part, was deficient in chemistry, crystallography and mathematics. Crick, on the other hand, was almost totally ignorant of genetics. But together, in less than two years of work...
...cafés" that would replace bars and coffeehouses. There, perhaps with the help of "dream machines," one might order a menu of "enhanced vision, sensory hallucinations and self-awareness." One might also be able to experience the mental states of a great man, or even of an animal. Molecular Biologist Leon Kass of the National Academy of Sciences projects a world in which man pursues only artificially induced sensation, a world in which the arts have died, books are no longer read, and human beings do not bother even to think or to govern themselves...
...RING IS ONE among many, both scientists and ethicists, who find it considerably harder to justify "positive" genetic engineering, restructuring the genes to make the "perfect" man. The prospect suggests apocalyptic possibilities: M.I.T. Biologist Salvador Luria approaches it "with tremendous fear of its potential dangers." Biologist Joshua Lederberg of Stanford University disowns such Utopian aims as a proper goal for serious biology, and even doubts that techniques sophisticated enough to achieve them could be perfected in the near future. But the possibility nonetheless tantalizes: Who would decide what qualities to preserve, and by what standards? Even remedial genetic engineering could...
...means for a sterile mother to bear a child, even if not from her own egg. But he draws the line at artificial wombs, which, he says, "would produce nothing but psychological monsters." Others emphasize that the family itself must survive to fill important psychological needs. Molecular Biologist Leon Kass, who left the research labs to become executive secretary of the National Academy of Science's Committee on the Life Sciences and Social Policy, puts it effectively: "The family is rapidly becoming the only institution in an increasingly impersonal world where each person is loved not for what he does...
...technical men who understand them. Even if government does enter the field, points out Daniel Callahan, much of the success of any ethical policy will depend on a responsible professional code. "If you depend solely on laws, sanctions and enforcements," says Callahan, "the game is over." Molecular Biologist Francis Crick is confident that basic morals and common sense will prevail. Some of the wilder genetic proposals will never be adopted, he claims, because "people will simply not stand for them...