Unnatural Selection (or stylistically, " un natural selection" ) is a 2019 TV documentary series that presents an overview of genetic engineering and particularly, the DNA-editing technology of CRISPR - from the perspective of scientists, corporations and biohackers working from their home.[1][2] It was released by Netflix on October 18, 2019.
It was a great opportunity to speak last week at Cordell3 on the ethics of human genome editing (video forthcoming).
Just binged all 4 episodes. A few quick random thoughts:
It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting - the trailer really made me think it would be all about biohacking and how it’s going to turn us into monsters.
I wish they’d spent less time on the biohackers and more time on the other subjects - the patients being treated and gene drives.
I don’t know why they couldn’t have included just a 3-minute explanation of how CRISPR gene editing actually works in the first episode.
I can’t stand the attitude of some of the biohackers, especially Zayner - in fact both his attitude and trumped-up claims made it hard to watch his parts. I was glad to see a glimmer of sober self-reflection among them in the final episode.