genetic research in "unnatural selection"

[euphorik]

hey everybody - rewatching "unnatural selection" this afternoon. i couldn't guess how many times i have seen this episode, but this just occurred to me -

it had been established (inferred, anyway) in "space seed," and several DS9 episodes produced after "unnatural selection" that genetic engineering was viewed in the federation as a dangerous and illegal practice. and yet, in "unnatural selection," we've got an entire research station supported by starfleet that is devoted to the cultivation of genetically-engineered telepathic humans. did i miss (or forget) something, or is this a pretty major continuity error? just wondering!

 

[T'Girl]

The research facility in Unnatural had permission, private individual can't get such permission.

Federation Council: "Do as we say, not as we do."

 

[euphorik]

The research facility in Unnatural had permission, private individual can't get such permission.

Federation Council: "Do as we say, not as we do."

so the federation is actually conducting advanced genetic research in the 24th century? so much for gene's rosy vision of the TNG era.

 

[Timo]

Hmh? Surely advancing beneficial medicine should count as "rosier" than keeping it from helping the patients?

What "Unnatural Selection" is intriguing for is that the openly stated goal of the researchers is to create supermen. Yet the very core of the phobia about genetic engineering in the 24th century is that among the thousands of happily healed patients, there might lurk one superman or -woman with superhuman ambition, resulting in a reenactment of the 1990s.

This isn't just a case of the government practicing in a responsible manner something that civilians would do irresponsibly and to evil goals. The goals of the government are "evil" to begin with, by their own stated standards! It's probably closer to the practice of the police firing guns at corpses or sticking knives to them to see how best murder people with them, which then helps in fighting crime...

What is easy to overlook, too, is Picard's attitude towards the research:

The mere thought of a possible connection between the Lantree tragedy and a genetic research facility fills me with profound apprehension.

Is Picard simply afraid of the outbreak of something highly contagious, in his opinion a likely scenario with genetic research? Is he opposed to genetic research as a thing because it results in things that, when breaking out, create greater dangers than "natural" pathogens? Both sound like ill-informed opinions unbecoming of Picard the renaissance man. Yet Picard objecting to Gagarin or to genetic research on the traditional 24th century grounds, i.e. it results in Khans (or, more accurately, in those Augments who were not as civilized and beloved as Kirk's favorite glorious leader), makes no sense in this context - there were no supermen onboard the Lantree, and no supermen were responsible for murdering the crew as far as Picard can suspect.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think this is just a case of the writers of one episode not paying attention to other episodes.

 

[DonIago]

Was this the first episode to discuss genetic engineering since TWOK? If so, the Federation's attitude toward genetic engineering probably just hadn't been particularly thought-out amongst the writers yet.