Biodystopian Narratives and the Democratic Challenge

From a biodystopian perspective, the worst-case scenario of Mae-Wan Ho and Joe Cummins, as described in chapter 1, is worth repeating. These biologists believe genetic engineering creates a scenario of genetic determinism that 'offers a simplistic, reductionist description which is a travesty of the interdependence and complexity of organic reality', and has the potential to destroy all life on earth. Ho argues that genetic engineering has no concept of the organism as a whole, nor of societies or ecosystems; that genetic engineering, at least in its current form, will not work; and that it is based on the misconception that organisms are machines, and a denial of the complexity and fl exibility of the organic whole.