perfectibility and that sort of seductive idea, there is a geneticist working in the united states, razib khannics" being upon us. he, by the way, he sequenced his own son's entire genome in utero and he went on to predict that people are going to be better looking, healthier and smarter. "what is not to like?" he concluded. as an ethicist, what would your response be? he is exaggerating, to start with. we do not really know what makes you clever or more beautiful or a better person. that is the first thing. the second thing, you only have to look at the people in the last century who tried to make a better human — hitler, stalin. these are not good people and their attempts were misguided. they were notjust misguided because they had terrible science, they were also misguided because it is the randomness of humans which makes them real. after this, i am going to battersea and i will go to the shopping centre and i will see people in all their shapes and sizes and that is great and imagine if they were all the same. if they were all, i don't know, it would be a very boring place and of course