Horizon: "Playing God" (1)

Richard Feynman commented in one of his books how, for quite a period of time after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he just couldn't see any point in making any long-term plans at all; with so much destructive power available at the push of a button, he felt that we would wipe out the whole of humanity within the decade. It hasn't quite turned out that way, of course, but only the very naive would believe nuclear arms are no longer a major threat.

The reason I mention the above is that I think there are parallels between what was going on in the world of physics back then, and what is going in the world of biosciences now. Feynman was witness to a period when technological advances were taking place at a terrific rate accelerated by world wars, and that must have been both exciting and scary at the same time. I think the life sciences are now advancing at a similarly scary rate, and time will only tell what that brings us.

There is of course a major difference between the nuclear weapons of last century and the bioweapons of this century: the technology for the latter will be available to a LOT more people than the technology for the former. Now the guy who was showing Adam Rutherford around that community lab commented how he was not worried about biohacking being a major threat to us, and his argument was that if anyone wanted to cause harm, it would be much easier to build a dirty bomb. The point he is missing, I felt, is that the harm is most likely going to be caused by those who had no intention to do so - if a deadly synthetic virus is created in the near future, I bet it will be created by someone who just wanted to show the world, and especially the biohacking community, just how clever they are. In that way, I don't think it will be much different to how computer hackers behave today.

Anyway, I'll leave it there before this turns into a huge wall of text! I thought it was a pretty decent episode.