APPENDIX Q 
THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 
whelming, as to exceed the capacity of society to di- 
rect and control it. 
Therefore, (iii) success in this research “w'ill bring 
with it a train of awesome and possibly disastrous 
consequences,”^ 
and (iv) decisions demanded by this technology 
may well have effects that are “unintended but irre- 
versible.”^ 
Livermore suggests, in effect, that scientists here are 
like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, conjuring into exis- 
tence what they do not fully understand and none of 
them can control. Although appealing, the argument 
fails upon careful test. Consider its elements in re- 
verse order. 
(iv) That decisions regarding DNA will sometimes 
have unintended and irreversible effects is surely true, 
but not very weighty. That is precisely the case for ev- 
ery important human enterprise in research and de- 
velopment — it leaves the world in an irreversibly dif- 
ferent condition from that in which it was before, and 
has consequences that could not have been foreseen, 
and therefore could not have been intended. Many of 
the discoveries that have proved the greatest boons to 
mankind have arisen from basic research in ways that 
were — when that research was first pursued — whol- 
ly unforeseen and unintended. That some conse- 
quences (bad and good) of any major inquiry will be 
irreversible and unintended is evident, and cannot 
reasonably be taken as grounds for the prohibition of 
inquiry. 
(iii) But the consequences of this inquiry may be 
awesome — possibly disastrous. Awesomeness, again, 
may be for good as well as evil. One should bear in 
mind, in weighing arguments like these, that recom- 
binant DNA technology also opens possibilities for 
monumental improvements in the human condition. 
Both sides must be weighed. But it is the “possibly 
disastrous” results that are the nub of this complaint 
— a complaint that cuts either not at all or entirely 
too well. There are no grounds for supposing that the 
likelihood of disaster is greater in this arena than in 
other research arenas that one would not seriously 
think of foreclosing. There is “moderate probabili- 
ty,” I suppose, that the results of research into nucle- 
ar fusion will one day be put to malevolent uses — but 
one v\ould not on this ground seriously suggest a pro- 
hibition of inquiry into the ways in which the nuclei of 
atoms may combine. In any sphere knowledge may be 
put to devilish use; that is a poor reason for prohibit- 
ing its acquisition. 
(ii) It is suggested that the acquisition of certain 
awesome capabilities be barred because the capacity 
to direct them, once acquired, is lacking. But do we 
lack that power? The supposition is very doubtful. 
Many reflective historians and philosophers would in- 
sist that we have the capacity for the direction and 
control of the products of research. V.'hether we will 
sharpen such capacities as finely as we ought remains 
to be seen. Recent self-imposed restraints, followed by 
extended public deliberation, precisely in this sphere 
of recombinant DNA, strongly suggest that the ca- 
pacity to control docs exist and is being applied. Some 
present uncertainty about the outcome of this appli- 
cation surely does not justify the cessation of the in- 
quiry. And even if only the potential for wise control is 
now present, the realization of that potential can be 
stimulated and encouraged only with the advance 
of the inquiry in question. Professor Livermore, 
although reflectively, gives up hope for Dame Rea- 
son; I judge that one is ill advised to join him in de- 
spair. 
(i) His anxieties — and indeed most arguments of 
this variety — stem largely from, the “elemental” na- 
ture of the capabilities in view. But there is confusion 
hidden in the slippage between fears arising from the 
alleged probabilities of disaster (probabilities not ev- 
er established) and fears arising from the allegedly 
special, extraordinary properties of the knowledge to 
be discovered. The implicit suggestion that the knowl- 
edge sought is too godlike for human frailty gives 
seeming (but unjustifiable) plausibility to the claim 
that its acquisition will bring catastrophe. Once it is 
clearly .seen that knowledge is not to be feared, that it 
may prove valuable everywhere, risky anywhere, and 
intrinsically improper nowhere, it will also be seen 
that the specialness of the discoveries in view’, though 
in some ways real, ceases to serve as any ground for 
prohibition. Research in genetics, as in every science, 
moves ever onward; inquiry into the controlled ma- 
nipulation of genetic macromolecules is a natural and 
inevitable phase of that advance. Fears that human 
beings are incapable of dealing with the products of 
their own intelligence are as much a.nd as little jus- 
tified on every other research continuum as on this 
one. 
A differing effort to provide a tenable variant of this 
principle, (2b) is made by Sinsheimer. He writes: 
[One] may extend inquiry into the ends of inquiry and ques- 
tion whether, in particular instances, we want to know the an- 
swer in every case. Given the nature of man and of human socie- 
ty, are the secondary consequences of such knowledge, on bal- 
ance, likely to be beneficial? Here it may be that the highest wis- 
dom. is to recognize that we are not wise enough to know what we 
do not want to know, and thus to leave the ends of inquiry unre- 
strained. Indeed, 1 expect there are only a few instances where 
prudence would be in order. But the set may not be null ' 
What does this say? Sinsheimer is guarded, tentative, 
unsure. From his questions and modalities emerge at 
last his suggestion of four actual spheres in which — 
because the secondary consequences of knowledge are 
not likely, on balance, to prove beneficial — he seri- 
ously believes that inquiry might appropriately be re- 
stricted. 
(i) “Should we attempt to contact presumed ‘ex- 
traterrestrial intelligences ’[*” Sinsheimer believes that 
“the impact upon the human spirit” if it should de- 
velop that there are vastly superior forms of life, and 
the impact of that knowledge upon science itself 
would be “devastating.”' 
(ii) “Research upon improved, easier, simpler, 
Appendix Q--4 
