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The strongest argument for gene editing cane toads, house mice, and ship rats is also the simplest: what's the alternative? Rejecting such technologies as unnatural isn't going to bring nature back. The choice is not between what was and what is, but between what is and what will be, which often enough is nothing. This is the situation of the Devil's Hole pupfish, the Shoshone pupfish, and the Pahrump poolfish, of the northern quoll, the Campbell Island teal, and the Tristan albatross. Stick to a strict interpretation of the natural and these--along with thousands of other species--are goners. The issue at this point, is not whether we're going to alter nature, but to what end?
"We are as gods and might as well get good at it," Stewart Brand, editor of the Who Earth Catalog, famously wrote in its first issue, published in 1968. Recently, in response to the whole-earth transformation that's under way, Brand has sharpened his statement: "We are as gods and we have to get good at it.
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