Ah, mankind. We are such evil villians. Poking needles into cells to insert our concept of perfection into a future living being. How Hitleresque. And we make it all sound acceptable because lo, we can eradicate cancer! Prevent heart disease! Obliterate autism! Give you the male heir you’ve always wanted! Woohoo!

Next we’ll start changing the color of our children’s eyes, or messing with the color of their hair, or inserting smarts where they don’t already exist, or doing away with all their less desireable personality traits — like sociopathy or the inability to potty train by age two.

There’s a natural process for advanced genetic wiring, of course, it’s called EVOLUTION, but in this era of instant gratification, we just can’t wait those millions of years or so that it would take to set things right. We want perfection =now=.

In my imagination, when we puncture the delicate skin of that embryo to implant our godlike intent, we puncture the cells that regulate morality. Wouldn’t it just serve us right if we raised our children to stick needles into us?

If cells have memories, it is reasonable to expect that they will rise up against us when the time is right.

I have genetics-inspired nightmares. In them I see genetically manufactured children whose DNA has turned against them, crippling them, defacing them, imploding them. With flesh falling off their prematurely arthritic bones and mutant diseases raging through their tiny bodies, these innocent victims turn their suffering eyes to those of us who wield the almighty needles and ask, “Why did you do this to us?”

We are not God. We are fools.