On the weekend, the NY Times ran an article on doping in academia. I find the current obsession with doping (including the seemingly endless steroids in baseball investigation) amusing. Not that I condone breaking laws or suggest that we should let folks who break laws off the hook – it’s simply that much of the moral outrage that accompanies these discussions seems misplaced. Most of us would appear “doped” to an athlete from say 100 years ago. Are vitamin supplements just better nutrition or doping? Are anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen not doping because they don’t contain steroids? Clearly what’s acceptable is part of a social consensus. And that social consensus is about to be dislodged in a major way as we crack the code on modifying our genes. It will likely start with modifications to thwart life threatening conditions, but I am sure in competitive arenas such as sport it will rapidly go beyond that.
