Blogging the Kintisch Point of Inquiry Show, Part II: Is It Reasonable to Fear "Playing God"?

Once again: If you haven't yet, I encourage you to download or stream my fourth (and so far, I think, best) Point of Inquiry program--with Eli Kintisch on the subject of geoengineering. All this week on the blog, I'm going to be discussing issues raised on the show--so having heard it will be kind of an essential baseline. I'm always trying to become a better interviewer, so with this next post, I want to zoom in on an area where I failed to press my interview subject as I probably should have. And that is the relationship between religious beliefs and opposition to geoengineering. At around minute 9:15, I asked Eli about religious opposition to geoengineering--basically, about the folks who say that we shouldn't "play God." He gave a very detailed answer, essentially signaling that, hey, yeah, this is a lot like genetically modified foods--some people think the impulse to interfere with "nature," to remake it in the way that only "God" is supposed to do, is wrong. I have no doubt this impulse is out there. But I don't find it to be at all a rational argument, or a sound basis for public policy. When it comes to the genetics of plants, or the global environment, humans have already been "playing God" throughout the ages--bringing about vast and significant changes. If the only question is whether this interference is intentional or not, then I don't find it to be a theologically relevant distinction. So I should have pressed Kintisch on whether this is really a legitimate argument to make--that we shouldn't "play God." I mean, yeah, it's out there; and yeah, it's rhetorically powerful. But that doesn't mean we should accept it. I actually find the careful, consequentialist reasoning of the scientists who tilt towards at least studying geoengineering to be much more intellectually rigorous and convincing.