More Creativity and Smarts Couldn’t Hurt

In her Feb. 13 commentary “The Weapons of Mass Creation,” Caroline Wagner worries that the same technology that may soon allow us to prevent many genetically based diseases may also allow us to create “smarter, more creative” children. This statement occurs in a piece positioned just below one about the Bush administration’s attempts to do away with America’s civil liberties [in the Justice Department’s proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003].

It occurs inside a newspaper detailing an obviously choreographed attempt by that same administration to sow panic among the American people -- to rush into a war whose unknown consequences could have a devastating effect on thousands of lives, to pursue an economic policy being completely discredited by almost everyone who knows anything about economics and to do its best to undermine worldwide gains in environmental protection. As far as I’m concerned, the creation of “smarter, more creative” children can’t come soon enough.

Stephen Mark

Santa Monica