Re:Public Permission? (Score 1)

I believe it's important in these debates to distinguish between the ethical issues and the technical issues, although of course sometimes things get blurred (though not as often as you might think, and often the blurriness is only because people don't or won't understand the issues in the first place). Why should the public be consulted? Because the public are the ultimate arbitrator of ethical issues. I agree strongly that the public should not be asked to comment on the technical issues, such as "is this dangerous, are we likely to produce terrible monsters by doing this research". Technical committees should answer these questions. The question "Is it ethical to perform this research" can not be answered by a technical committee, as it's not a technical question.