I was at a talk this summer by Francis Collins at the ASA meeting. He talked for quite a while about CRISPR Cas9 and the opportunities there. He also shared some concerns he had about the boundaries of gene editing. We certainly see the usefulness of editing out the “bad” stuff in somatic cells, but for instance, is it ethical to edit germline cells without the permission or consent of the potential future person who could result from those cells? I think there is value in having people of all faith traditions (including secular humanists) carefully consider these issues. Dr. Collins talked about how having ethical constraints may slow us down (compared to countries that didn’t have such constraints) but that it was still important for society to ask those ethical questions.
I have heard this talk by Dr. Collins. I mostly agree. We do need to consider ethics in what science does. But it must be human ethics not religious ethics that must be considered.