Unnatural Selection

The first episode focused mostly on the scientific breakthroughs in gene editing in the past few years and where state of the medical and biohacking community is at, and it was fascinating. The next three episodes all really focused more on the ethical questions which, while important, I felt caused the series to begin to drag. I was personally more interested in the science around all of this and the documentary was lighter than what I was looking for in this area. This probably could have been condensed to two or three episodes and would have had better pacing.

I finished watching all episodes in one set. Very very interesting. If in the beginning of the series I knew exactly what I think about genetic modifications, I wasn't so sure by the end of the last episode. Should we leave natural selection to mother nature or take it into our hands? Should we save and or cure every sick person? When we don't see them, know them, it is one thing, but we start thinking differently after we get to know them, like in these series. Does science exist for the sake of science itself? Seems so if no one can afford to use its discoveries and technologies. This applies not just to very rare genetic conditions, but to illnesses that affect thousands. Institutions of science seem concerned (in the series) almost exclusively with health and perfection of a physical body, leaving mental, psychological health out of equation. It is uncharted territory, but it is emotions that make us human. I was waiting to hear about The Gaia hypothesis, yet, no one has mentioned it. I think it is extremely important for every scientist to know, understand The Gaia principle which proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet BEFORE they start messing with genetic modification of all things alive. Be it a human, or a rat or a mosquito.

Quite interesting and thought provoking, but what's with the dog breeder dude? Those hounds of baskerville he had in pens looked both rabid and miserable. The dude is like half Ramsay Bolton and half Gandolph. It's worth a watch...

This is one of those documentaries that make you wonder if these are indeed the best of times or the worst of times. We are basically children playing god, with science that is a lot more advanced than our capacity for reason. And this documentaries does a good job at covering both the incredible feats we are now capable of (with hints of even more fantastic things in store in the future) and all the societal and moral struggles we are barely equipped with to handle the implications and consequences. The pacing may be a bit uneven at times but all in all, highly recommended.

It can be a little boring at times but if you stay with the series and see for yourself the promise of gene therapy, you will understand why public understanding of this technology is so urgently needed. Once people grasp how potent gene editing is, they are going to want it more than they would anything else. The problem is that none of us know what the consequences will be when gene therapies become widely used and accepted.

It might be one of the consequential documentaries made in recent years because Unnatural Selection chronicles the rise of the gene editing revolution. Years from now people will look back (with regret I think) at the cowboy recklessness that unleashed disaster upon the world. Changing the DNA of any organism that can reproduce could have profound implications for the world we live in, not always for the better. But if you are a biohacker, to you the world we live in is already not only unsustainable but also in deep crisis. So to them there is no reason not to try something new, even if it may have potentially catastrophic consequences, to try and make the world a better place.

That sense of grasping at a possible utopia from a paradise that has fallen seem to underlie the motivations of many of the people who were profiled. And therein lies the danger for all of us because they believe that they can make the world a better place and are willing to force the rest of us to go along with or without our consent. It is also worthwhile to look at the ignorance of some of these people and their undisguised greed for life and wealth to see why the gene editing movement is not likely to end well for all of us.