Michael Burdett: Interview with BioLogos Foundation

In this conversation with the BioLogos Foundation, Michael Burdett discusses the interplay of human being, technology, and biology, questioning the effects of technology upon our lives from top to bottom. Globally, technology is defining and shaping our surroundings; socially and individually, technology is transforming us. At the social level, our interactions with one another have been profoundly altered in form, but even more fundamentally, technology has opened up our biology to alteration. This leads us to ask the question, what ought we do with our technology? To begin to respond to this question, Burdett turns to matters of medical ethics, and specifically that of genetic engineering. The therapeutic dimensions of genetic modification (such as through CRISPR Cas-9) are certainly intriguing, but then, is there not the risk that only the rich will be able to access such technology, and that we will see increased stratification in our society newly originating from the genetic level? The rich will continue to get richer, but now they will be richer physiologically, biologically, fundamentally. These are the kinds of thorny issues that Burdett considers in his research, and which he discusses further in the videos below.

1. Technology and Humanity

2. Technology and the Human Genome