Do not go gentle into that good night

LAST Saturday’s “And one more thing...” opinion piece in Weekend, had a lecturer in behavioural ecology exploring whether it is right to step in to save a wild animal from certain death, as happened recently while filming an episode of the BBC’s Dynasties, thus compromising nature’s prime directive, the “survival of the fittest” – so how delightfully ironic then that the author was one Louise Gentle (Do not go, Gentle, into that goodnight!).

Louise also argued that once we start intervening with nature’s natural process we are potentially augmenting a “survival of the notso-fit”, and often the “survival of the weakest”. But isn’t this precisely what humanity is doing to itself? China’s latest gene-edited babies experiment has ambush written all over it.

With each generation our survival genes and immune systems are becoming compromised, and the only individuals who will probably survive a future catastrophic plague or similar are those who have never needed any sort of significant medical treatment (which includes all their ancestors, obviously).

Perhaps you should forward this letter to Louise because her thoughts on that last point would be fascinating, in particular how many generations we can expect to survive while ignoring that “survival of the fittest” instruction.

Indeed, are flaws and fragilities already becoming obvious?

Huw Beynon

Llandeilo