Science and Society: The Influence of Genetics on Human Life and Society

The genetic revolution in biology we are experiencing today began early in the last century as biologists noted that dead bacteria could be resurrected by a “transforming principle.”  The structure of the transforming principle was determined to be DNA, in the middle of the last century, and within two decades after that discovery, a form of DNA called genes were inserted into bacteria and animals using viruses and pieces of DNA from bacteria.  Soon after those advances most of our food crops were genetically altered to resist weed killers, helping farmers to literally feed the world. 

In this century genetic techniques are being used to bring sight to the blind and defeat life threatening illness like sickle cell disease.  Recently, embryos were genetically altered to resist the HIV infection that plagued their parents. However, the medical researcher was condemned for not observing an international ban on such procedures.  The genetic revolution does not stop there as new techniques for fighting cancer have been developed and more are being planned.  Genetics testing is helping to detect the genes involved in Alzheimer’s with hope that this debilitating illness will be eliminated from the human population.  Genetic techniques are being used to grow fish on land, raise cattle in extreme environments, and harvest organs from pigs to save human lives.  

But the question has always been, how far do we go? How much do we alter ourselves and the rest of nature?  In this text, we examine these advances in biology and genetics using a Christian worldview filter which declares that all of life is sacred but also shows that healing through medicine and science is not something to be feared but harnessed to promote the sanctity of life.