Coming soon: playing god? Season 2

Season Two of playing god? is coming soon. Here's a preview of what's in the works.

Episode Transcript

Serena Aunon-Chancellor (00:01):
If we're halfway on the way to Mars
or, say, a month or two out andsomeone becomes critically ill,
do you consume all of yourmedical supplies towards that
one person so that the rest ofthe crew has nothing?

Aaron Henkin (00:12):
Human beings are on the cusp of traveling deeper
into the cosmos than we've everventured before. 1st, we have to
confront some serious bioethicsquestions, like, is the
potential for discovery worththe prospect of disaster? And
what's ultimately moreimportant, the success of the
mission or the life of theastronaut?

Bernard Harris (00:31):
I would rather die accomplishing a dream or a
goal than to live in fear.

Serena Aunon-Chancellor (00:35):
So it comes to the ethics.

Aaron Henkin (00:37):
I'm Aaron Henkin. I'll be your host here on the
upcoming season of Playing God.I'm a longtime radio journalist
and a podcaster, a seniorproducer at the Decapolis
Bloomberg Ideas Lab at the JohnsHopkins Berman Institute of
Bioethics. And like you, I'm acurious person. I hear about
what's happening on the newfrontiers of science and
medicine, and I'm amazed.

(00:58):
But I also wonder, are we readyfor the future we're creating?
Together this season, we'regonna hear some incredible
stories, Stories about editingthe genes of entire animal
populations.

Roberto Santamaria (01:10):
A gene this small can create large scale
changes.

Aaron Henkin (01:14):
And stories about deliberately infecting people
with harmful viruses in the nameof science.

Jake Eberts (01:21):
We were taken to a room and a small needle and they
injected us with a clearsubstance that could have been a
placebo or one of the twostrains of the Zika virus that
they had cultivated.

Aaron Henkin (01:31):
How much risk is too much risk? What's the cost
we're willing to pay to getthere? And in our race for
progress, what and who are weleaving behind?

Daniel Weinberger (01:41):
There were millions of people that had been
in these large scale geneticstudies. How many individuals
were in those studies of Africanancestry? 0 of African ancestry?
0. This is not an objectivefield of science.

Gwenaelle Thomas (01:50):
This is not an objective field
of medicine. It matters who asksthe questions.

Aaron Henkin (01:54):
Together, during the season ahead, we'll listen,
we'll learn, and we'll talk withdeep thinkers about some of the
most fundamental questions inbioethics.

Laurie Zoloth (02:08):
Will we always tell the truth about our
enterprise? What do we owe oneanother? And then that question
that I think is so central, whatdo we owe the future that we
cannot know?

Aaron Henkin (02:17):
Power and wisdom. Just because we can do
something, does it mean weshould? And who gets to decide?
Join me on the new season ofPlayin' God, a podcast from the
Johns Hopkins Berman Instituteof Bioethics, coming soon.