Blog Lars Jaeger
"Machines Like Me" – On Ian McEwan's new novel
Most readers of novels, and probably also their authors, barely understand the details of technological progress that is developing at breathtaking speed. There is a lot of discussion about new technologies, but few are able imagine how much we will be shaken up by them in the future. In 2006, the American researcher and Stanford […]
Re-Design of the human being - What are we: Molecular genetic machines or autonomous individuals?
Considering the groundbreaking developments in genetic engineering in recent years, it is all too surprising that the new opportunities to bioengineers have not yet provoked a broader public debate. In concrete terms, as humanity we are facing what is probably the most important crossroads of the last 2’000 years: the appropriation of nature by man, […]
A path towards artificially produced life - From designer bacteria to designer humans?
Meanwhile, everyone is talking about the genetic scissors “CRISPR”: The news at the end of November 2018 that the Chinese researcher He Jiankui had genetically modified two embryos to protect them from HIV and then implanted those into a woman’s uterus who subsequently gave birth to genetically modified twins (“CRISPR babies”) shocked the world far […]
Listen to the sound of science - On denials and the lack of intellectual integrity in the climate debate
They take place all over the world, mostly on Fridays, most recently also on the weekend in Switzerland: Climate strikes and climate demonstrations. They have finally brought the debate on how to deal with climate change into the public domain. It says a lot about the state of our society that it took the initiative […]
The emperor's new clothes – Against the lies in the climate debate
The political and economic establishment is concerned. What climate researchers, environmental politicians and committed citizens have in the past not been able to achieve is now being accomplished by our children: the danger of global warming is being pushed into the foreground of common attention. Conservative politicians, business associations and right wing intellectuals display their […]
The breakthrough in editing the human genome? – The emergence of a new, even more powerful CRISPR tool
Unlike two years ago, today not many people are still associating the term “CRISPR” with something like a muesli bar. Even though few people know that the term “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” is a technical term that at first described nothing more than certain sections of repeating DNA pieces in the genome of […]
Another eco-crisis - and nobody takes notices
German car drivers have long noticed: the number of insects is decreasing. Compared to 20 years ago, the windshield is hardly smeared with the annoying creatures after racing on the autobahn. What may be pleasant for German car pilots has the potential to develop into a global ecological catastrophe. To some, this may sound alarmist, […]
Protect science! – The lack of intellectual integrity exemplified by a recent public discussion in Germany
The recent debate in Germany about the health consequences of air pollution, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides has shown how scientific research results can suddenly become the center of a heated political discussion. It was triggered by the publication of a position paper by Dieter Köhler, a pneumologist (lung researcher), and Thomas Koch, an engineer […]
Globalization 4.0 - The World Economic Forum between the discussion of our technological future and the increasingly unbearable vanity of a dull global financial elite
“Every year once again” could be the motto of the event, which takes place at the end of every January in the tranquil Swiss alpine village of Davos. More than 3000 people, including many high power people from business, politics, culture, and academic research gather and discuss the state of the world. The mottos of […]
The discussion about shaping technological progress using the example of artificial intelligence - On the latest proposals of the EU Commission's High Level Expert Group
It dawns more and more on many people that future technologies will likely not only change the nature around us, as they did in the past, but will soon also transform man himself. The possibility of a fundamental change in our biology, our psyche, our perception and our consciousness is already emerging. How we deal […]