[ranic]

> The scientific establishment, however, seems to not have gotten the memo. If you suggest we engineer the genes of future generations to make their lives better, they will often make some frightened noises, mention “ethical issues” without ever clarifying what they mean, or abruptly change the subject.

This, I'm fairly confident, is absolutely untrue and I would be interested to see why they think this is the case, or to hear what specific objections they have regarding the current discussion. This New Yorker article (https://archive.is/uHf5J) from 2023 is about He Jiankui, whose methods the author specifically cites. More than likely, the author just doesn't agree with the objections raised by the scientific community, but I don't think it's about "not getting the memo."

The user Metacelsus mentions this in the comments:

> Finally: we need to be sure not to cause another He Jiankui event (where an irresponsible study resulted in a crackdown on the field). Epigenetic issues could cause birth defects, and if this happens, it will set back the field by quite a lot. So safety is important! Nobody cares if their baby has the genes for 200 IQ, if the baby also has Prader-Willi syndrome.