And yet, such high-decibel, but ultimately feeble, attempts to halt the inexorable march of technology, coupled with a neo-Luddite impulse to desist from intervention in what is deemed God's realm, obfuscate the real issues. Issues of safety, viability and ethics. Maybe Doogie's godfathers too faltered in the christening of their supermice. Instead of falling victim to the multimedia age and invoking an awkward child prodigy from the idiot box, perhaps they should have remembered another rodent, whose short life was once part of the literature curriculum of many Americans. Flowers for Algernon, originally a highly popular short story by Daniel Keyes and later expanded into a novel, tells the poignant tale of a mouse called Algernon who is suddenly rendered supersmart on being administered biochemical substances and of amentally retarded twentysomething man later plucked out to be guinea pig. As the man, endowed with supersharp intellect in no time, watches Algernon regress for no reason, as he braces himself for his own decline, Keyes highlights all the ethical and psychological dilemmas thrown up with scientific tampering. More significantly, Keyes leaves unresolved the question, in hindsight was the experiment justified?

Therein lies the difficulty with genetic engineering. The possible rewards are so enticing (ever bountiful crops, a sprightly, healthier populace) and the nightmares evoked are so goosepimply (an irreversible destruction of biodiversity, a super-race turned Hitlerian) that debate is couched is what-could-bes and what-ifs. Take Doogie. If he offers hope to those caring for Alzheimer-ridden loved ones, can all the rhetoric about the psychological and social fallouts of designer babies justify holding back research? The choice is really quite simple.