The Weapons of Mass Creation

Without providing a shred of evidence, the Raelian cult made headlines with sensational claims of creating cloned babies. Far less attention is being paid to well-documented advances that will soon give us the power to create people with chosen genetic qualities, thus altering the course of human evolution.

Although human genetic manipulation, which focuses on altering select genes -- sometimes called reprogenetics -- is still in early stages of research, scientists report few obstacles to eventual success.

"I am absolutely convinced that we will have both an expansion of pre-embryo genetic diagnosis as well as genetic enhancement of embryos," Lee Silver, a Princeton University biologist and genetic expert and author of "Remaking Eden," says. "We have already perfected this in animals."

The power to change the future of the human race is, in some ways, more frightening than the weapons of mass destruction we hear so much about today.

It is a weapon of mass creation.

For now, gene alteration is focusing on genetic therapy, which has the laudable goal of stopping deadly genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Huntington's...