Down at the flora rose dinning hall, about a dozen of us sat down with GRF Shiv to talk about genetic engineering. We bounced from pigs to Star Trek to designer babies. As with any topic as controversial such as this, a large part of the discussion centered around the ethics of its seemingly imminent commercial use.

This conversation made me think of what it means to be human in the 21st century. As of late, I’ve been giving much thought to my education and what it means in universal terms, not just jobs and societal ‘upnods’. A large part of my own major involves genetics, and I wonder if the extent we’re looking at from designer babies to saving someone who would not even come into existence in the first place is changing human nature.

I settled on the definition of education most widely pursued today, vocational, to be something that exists to make life easier for humans, for us to focus on…living. But when we change our own makeup 1) we’re removing a few elements/obstacles in life that give rise to the essence of humanity such as dealing with the emotions in response to the unknowns nature hands us. With genetic engineering we remove a lot of these unknown and for the better. 2)  We are literally changing our makeup. Personality is widely considered to be more of a product of our environment than genetics but our genotype does influence who we are. Not only directly, but through the characteristics it deals us and how we navigate our life with them. Does this mean we effect a persons nature, their exploration of what it means to be human?