(Aeon) – Countless species are dying from human-induced environmental change. Should we use genetic technology to alter and save them?

It wasn’t our intention that humanity would become the planet’s greatest evolutionary force; yet the fact that we are confronts us with an urgent and difficult question. Some animals, plants and insects can adapt but, for many, the pace of change is too great. Should we try to save them by deliberately intervening in their evolution?

The emergence of precision gene-editing technology like CRISPR-Cas9, which acts like a molecular scalpel so fine it can swap even single letters of DNA, has made a world of chimeric species possible. (Read More)