What are examples of research topics/areas where ethical concerns have held science back? Are there any? I guess “cloning humans” is such a field?
What are examples of research topics/areas where ethical concerns have held science back? Are there any? I guess “cloning humans” is such a field?
Altering the germ line of a human is illegal in most countries.
Not the USA, where private companies can do it, one owned by Sam Altman.
The current controvery is whether we should allow the development of new organisms that have a opposite chirality in their chemical composition. They could grow out of control with no way to stop. It’s called Mirror Life.
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/12/potential-risks-of-mirror-life
Keep in mind, before the Trinity bomb test, a few physicists, including Enrico Fermi, believed the atomic reaction would ignite the earth’s atmosphere in a chain reaction. Army said go anyway.
Every college chemistry class I’ve taken (5 now) has had a professor asking why no living thing uses all d-aminos. Kinda sounds like that experiment may answer the question one way or another!