A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution

In A Crack in Creation, Doudna and Sternberg demonstrate how CRISPR technology grants humanity unprecedented control over genetic evolution. This transformation manifests through agricultural developments, animal modifications, and potential species resurrection, presenting both opportunities and responsibilities for wielding such extraordinary power.

The agricultural applications of CRISPR exemplify humanity’s new capacity to accelerate evolutionary processes that previously took millennia. As Doudna and Sternberg explain, traditional crop development relied on “natural mutation followed by artificial selection rather than natural selection,” a process that spanned thousands of years (120). CRISPR fundamentally alters this timeline by allowing direct genetic modifications with “unprecedented single-letter accuracy” (121). The authors illustrate this through the example of Mlo gene modifications in wheat, where scientists achieved in one step what nature and traditional breeding required multiple generations to accomplish. This acceleration of evolutionary processes demonstrates the revolutionary impact of precise genetic control.

The manipulation of animal genetics further illustrates humanity’s expanded power over evolution. The text describes how scientists have created “gene-edited cows, pigs, and sheep” with specific traits that would typically require multiple generations of selective breeding (130). One striking example involves the creation of double-muscled livestock through myostatin gene modifications, where CRISPR enables the replication of naturally occurring mutations across different species.