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The Michael Shermer Show

313. Matthew Cobb — As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Science, Natural Sciences

4.31K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2022

⏱️ 120 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Shermer and Cobb discuss: objections to genetic engineering (political, religious, cultural) • selective breeding • recombinant DNA • the ethics of genetics • patenting life • gene therapy • gene editing • CRISPR • literature and films on the dangers of genetic engineering • bioweapons • 3 Laws of Behavior Genetics and what people fear about it.

Matthew Cobb is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is the author of six books: The Idea of the Brain: A History; Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; Generation; The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis; Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944; and Smell: A Very Short Introduction. He lives in England.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to theurmer Show. Hello everyone, it's Michael Schurmer, and it's time for another episode of

0:18.0

The Michael Schurmer Show. This one brought to you by Wondrium.

0:21.0

Wondrium is the former teaching company online platform now

0:26.0

through a subscription service where you could gain access to all of their

0:29.0

fabulous content. I mostly listen to their college courses which are 12, 24, 36, even 48 lectures long, 30 minutes

0:37.2

a lecture, which as you know.

0:39.0

You can get through in 20 minutes if you listen to it at 1.3 speed which I usually do.

0:44.0

And let me just tell you about a course I just started because I'm interested in

0:47.4

conspiracies, as you know my new book, I just came out on this subject and I just

0:51.6

found this course on the CIA called the agency, the history of the CIA, and this is 24 lectures, 30 minutes each, and I just started this one secrecy democracy and the birth of the CIA George

1:06.8

Cannon and the rise of covert ops yes our government has been secretly running around the world,

1:13.1

assassinating foreign leaders,

1:14.9

rigging foreign elections in Latin American countries,

1:20.6

and generally spying on other countries.

1:23.4

Yes, they do that too, but here we are a liberal democracy.

1:26.7

Did we know all this was going on?

1:28.1

Not at the time.

1:30.4

The CIA China and the Korean War, the Iran coup of August 1953.

1:35.0

Did you know about that? I did not know about that.

1:38.0

Regime change in Guatemala.

1:40.0

I knew about that.

1:41.0

Okay, what were we doing there? You two spy missions and the

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