Sadly, I don’t think so. I think the closest we can get is by designing machines that can make people stronger and help them to do things they can’t normally do. For example, there are people in the military designing robot suits for people to wear, to help them lift really heavy stuff, which is quite cool.
That said, I think it is possible to improve humans by using biology – we can edit people’s DNA and that might help us stop certain diseases and make people healthier. But it is very tricky at the moment, and there are lots of people who think that we shouldn’t change people’s DNA in case it isn’t safe or causes some nasty side-effects. But I think we will see some interesting developments in the future. For example, scientists have changed the DNA of white blood cells in some patients so that they fight cancer. I think that is really clever, but maybe not as cool as super human strength or being able to fly…
It wouldn’t be possible to get a lot of the superpowers we see in movies sadly. But it’s amazing that we can now use computer generated images to get lots of things from our imagination onto the big screen. The CGI that we see today is the result of years of hard work by computer scientists.
I think it depends which superpower we’re talking about. I don’t think we could change a human so they could control the weather or other people’s minds but I think it’s in the realms of possibility to give someone super strength or radically alter them before birth so they grow wings and fly. If we could do this though should we? Is it safe? Is it right?
It is a bit of a shame. I have read about people cocerned about the ethics of manipulating genes but it really does cut off a whole world of possibilities.
Indeed! There are lots of different ethical concerns. Some religious people think it is ‘playing God’. Some people are very concerned about whether it is safe or not. Some people think it will lead to things like designer babies, where we manipulate DNA for reasons to do with looks rather than focusing on important things like preventing diseases. It is important to have all these things in mind when you think about what experiments to do, but sometimes I wonder what amazing things we might be able to achieve if these were not an issue!
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_Elizabeth_ commented on :
It is a bit of a shame. I have read about people cocerned about the ethics of manipulating genes but it really does cut off a whole world of possibilities.
Elliot commented on :
Indeed! There are lots of different ethical concerns. Some religious people think it is ‘playing God’. Some people are very concerned about whether it is safe or not. Some people think it will lead to things like designer babies, where we manipulate DNA for reasons to do with looks rather than focusing on important things like preventing diseases. It is important to have all these things in mind when you think about what experiments to do, but sometimes I wonder what amazing things we might be able to achieve if these were not an issue!