Our biotech bodies, ourselves

By James Pethokoukis, US News

What if, by taking a drug, you could possess an IQ of 250? Or by tinkering with your genes, have the athletic prowess of a decathlete? Or by injecting yourself with stem cells, live to be 160? Would you do it? Would these enhancements make you less human? If everyone did this, would the world become a paradise full of self-actualized superpeople? Or a dystopian Stepford society devoid of essential human values such as compassion for the less blessed? What seems like fodder for a science fiction potboiler has become a matter of deadly serious debate among scientists and ethicists.