H5N1 Virus, Atomic Weapons, Genetic Modification

On 2/15/06, sraj wrote:
(...)
> But this is nothing compared with the entertainment that will be provided in another ten years or so as the biotechnology industry matures and as tens of thousands of young men and women in every backwater of every country achieve the godlike knowledge of knowing how to meddle with life forms. Nuclear Weapons are difficult to make as fissile material cannot be obtained easily. But not so pathogens, which are available everywhere and which can be deliberately modified by people clever enough to know how. And will there be people who will be sinister enough to do this? You bet! See how the internet is frequently brought to its knees by Virus of another kind.

I have heard before that idea that people will buy the "Genetic
Engineer Kit" at the toy section of department stores, go home and
create centaurs or Humanity-wiping virus. Personally, I am kind of
skeptic that the process will ever come to that level of automatism
and simplicity - successful development of genetically altered
organisms is a very delicate (and finicky) process that currently
takes years of time, the work of ultra-highly qualified professionals
and more often than not great investments of money.

However, even if the "Genetic Engineer Kit" ever comes to reality, and
if it will be really so easy for kids with no sense of moral
whatsoever to develop Humanity-wiping virus (hopefully they will kill
themselves in the process and the virus will never leave their
bedrooms ;-), I don't see why it won't be quite easy also for "genetic
security" professionals to develop genetic "patches" that will prevent
Humanity-wiping - in the same way that Internet and software companies
do nowadays regarding computer viruses.

> And if not biological weapons, there will be enough nuisance created by scientists of all varieties having a go at creating new kinds of life forms, just from curiosity or to make a fast buck or in a misguided attempt to win the Noble Prize. Unfortunately the very nature of genes makes it possible to create infinite mischief. Even if a thousand new and exotic kinds of life forms were created in the lab everyday, one would not run out of fresh ideas in a million years!!

You are talking about the future, but in fact genetically engineered
food has been part of our diet, or that of our animals, for the past
10 years or more, in many, many countries.

> And let us not forget that skills are transferable. There is some kind of informal ban at the moment when it comes to experimenting with human genes. But genes are genes, whether human, animal or belonging to plants. If you can mess up with the one, you can mess up with the other.
(...)

Again, experimentation on human genes is already a reality. There is
much research on how to detect, prevent or cure human genetic diseases
by acting on the genes themselves - sometimes by modifying them.