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| DNA - A, B and Z (by Zephyris) |
It seems no accident these days that the word "science" is hidden within the term "omniscience."
Whereas omniscience used to be strictly God's domain, science seems bent upon catching up.
Researchers are eagerly following DNA footprints in order to determine who it is that left them, and
what it is that makes these people tick.
Jill Lawless of the Associated
Press reports that you "can ditch your computer and leave your cellphone at home, but you can't escape your DNA." And the
unsettling truth is that it not only "belongs uniquely to you," but also more and more "to the authorities."
Because these "authorities" are all-too-human, the concern arises that their increasing omniscience might not work out quite so well as that of an omnibenevolent God.
Lawless suggests that our biological identities might be as vulnerable as our social-security numbers and other supposedly inviolable information.
Case in point: MIT
researcher Yaniv Erlich recently disclosed that identifying individuals from DNA samples was as easy as one, two, three (one
being "a computer algorithm," two
being "a genetic genealogy website," and three
being "a search of publicly available Internet records"). Then he added: … our work shows there
are privacy limitations.
Or are there? Perhaps
our right to privacy has a Snowden's chance in you-know-where of actually surviving such an investigative onslaught …
Resources
http://news.yahoo.com/spread-dna-databases-sparks-ethical-concerns-072535306.html
Copyright July 14, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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