As part of the research for one of the new books I’m working on, I’m coming up to speed on the state of the art in biotech, nanotech, gerontology, and bioethics. As such, I’ll be posting periodically links to speeches, lectures, and articles I find germane to the topic so that I can find them easily for reference. I might also do a few articles as I get a deeper grasp on the topic.

This first order of business is this lecture from William Hurlbut, and represents probably the best, most nuanced articulation I’ve heard of the bioconservative case. Does anyone else find it distressing that the part he reads from the President’s Report at the end (which he authored) sounds much more like something you’d get out of a Romantic poet than like something you should get out of a scientist?