August 5, 2015
Harvard’s Steven Pinker is telling the worrywarts to stop worrying so much and to “get out of the way” of biomedical research and developments that have the ability to benefit quality of life — and life in general. In The moral imperative for bioethics, Pinker writes, “[a] truly ethical bioethics should not bog down research in red tape, … [n]or should it thwart research that has likely benefits now or in the near future by sowing panic about speculative harms in the distant future.” In essence, the only thing we can know about the future is what seems like a good thing now may turn out to be not so great and what is feared as bad or with extreme caution, may be the next success story. Pinker suggests easing up on unsubstantiated precautionary measures and taking a ride on what some view mistakenly as “a runaway train” to experience the remarkable benefits its journey may reveal along the way.