The BBC ran a pretty much content free report a few days ago about the dangers of ‘super athletes.’ Apparently some sports scientists (?) at a conference predicted that by 2012, athletes competing in the Olympics could be using genetic engineering to enhance their performance. Of course the sports scientists (oddly enough) advocated for more research to discover these cheaters.
There was a long thread this summer at Seth Dillingham‘s site about the issue of performance enhancing drugs, including the possibility (more likely inevitability) of using genetic engineering to improve sports performance.
For the most part, I don’t see much wrong with performance enhancing drugs and there is no way the Olympics or any other sport is going to be able to keep out genetically engineered athletes for every long. And why should they?
Take a look at the average athlete today in a sport such as football or basketball or cycling, and compare them to the folks who were in those sports as professionals in the 1920s or 1930s. For the most part its no contest — athletes today are far better than they were early in the 20th century due largely to scientific advances.
The next step in improving humanity’s lot is certainly going to involve genetic engineering and will inevitably impact the sports world.