Amazing, but still just a beginning. We have a long way to go in understanding how to apply this knowledge . . . Early diagnoses of nearly 1,000 diseases are possible through genetic-based technology, but treatments and cures are not. Howard Ducharme, chairman of UA's philosophy department and director of the conference, sees it as a chance for doctors, lawyers, teachers, students, clergy and anyone interested to get a more complete understanding of genetics. These scientific advances can't occur in a secular vacuum, Ducharme said.
Science has to rely on society's moral and spiritual guidance.
The moral decisions, though, have to be based on science, he said. It sounds easy to say that people should own their genetic information, free of any governmental or medical institution. The problem is that this information will be enormously complex, well beyond the understanding of most people. Earlier this year, one company secretly screened employees and prospective employees for a genetic association with carpal tunnel syndrome, a disorder that had begun to cost the company a lot of money. The conference also will move beyond the scientific to the spiritual.