In a third scenario, people will screen embryos before implantation so as to optimize the kind of children they have. If someone doesn't live up to social expectations, he tends to blame bad genetic choices by his parents rather than himself. Human genes have been transferred to animals and even to plants to produce new medical products; and animal genes have been added to certain embryos to increase their physical endurance or resistance to disease. These will have serious and unexpected consequences.
We don't have to await the arrival of human genetic engineering to foresee a time when we will be able to enhance intelligence, memory, emotional sensitivity, and sexuality, as well as reduce aggressiveness and manipulate behavior in a host of other ways.
第三种情形涉及人们在胚胎移植前对胚胎的择优筛选。如果某个人有违社会的期望，他不会归咎于自己，只会责怪父母未能选好良种。
人类基因已被植人动物甚至植物身上以生产新的药物，动物基因也被植人某些人类胚胎以增强体力或抗病能力，这种转基因的做法都将产生难以预料的结果。
我们无须等待人类基因工程的降临便可作出预测，未来的某个时候我们将通过各种方法来提高自身的智力、记忆力、情绪敏感性和性功能，同时也可以降低自己的进取性，控制自己的行为。
The medical profession is dedicated to the proposition that anything that can defeat disease and prolong life is unequivocally a good thing. The fear of death is one of the deepest and most abiding human passions, so it is understandable that we should celebrate any advance in medical technology that appears to put death off. But people worry about the quality of their lives as well - not just the quantity. Ideally, one would like not merely to live longer but also to have one's different faculties fail as close as possible to when death finally comes, so that one does not have to pass through a period of debility at the end of life.
医学界决意坚持这样一种主张，即任何一种能够攻克疾病、延年益寿的东西无疑都是好东西。对死亡的恐惧是人类最深刻、最持久的情感之一，所以我们欢快地庆祝任何一种看来能推迟死亡的医学成果都是可以理解的。但是，人们所关心的不仅是生命的长短，而且还担心生活的质量。理想的状况是，人们不仅希望活得更长久，而且也希望自己的各种身心功能尽可能地持续到生命的最后一刻，以免在自己人生的末年度过一段衰弱的时光。
While many medical advances have increased the quality of life for older people, many have had the opposite effect by prolonging only one aspect of life and increasing dependency. Alzheimer's disease - in which certain parts of the brain waste away, leading to loss of memory and eventually dementia - is a good example of this, because the likelihood of getting it rises proportionately with age. At age 65, only one person in a hundred is likely to come down with Alzheimer's; at 85, it is one in six. The rapid growth in the population suffering from Alzheimer's in developed countries is thus a direct result of increased life expectancies, which have prolonged the health of the body without prolonging resistance to this terrible neurological disease.
虽然医学所取得的很多成果提高了老年人的生活质量，但是另外一些成果却产生了相反的作用，我们在延长生命的同时，也在强化依赖性。老年痴呆症就是一个很好的例子，患者大脑某些部位的功能衰退了，从而导致记忆丧失，最终出现了痴呆症，而老年痴呆症的患病几率随着年龄的增长而增长。在65岁的人群中，患病的几率可能只是1%，而在85岁的人群中则上升为6比1，即6人中有1人可能患老年痴呆症。因此，发达国家老年痴呆症患者急剧增多的直接原因就是延年益寿，人体健康的时间延长了，但是抵抗老年痴呆症这类神经疾病的能力却没有同步加强。
We could find ways to preserve bodily health but would fail to put off age-related mental deterioration. Stem cell research might yield ways to grow new body parts. But without a parallel curer for Alzheimer's, this wonderful new technology would do no more than allow more people to persist in vegetative states for years longer than is currently possible.
The consequences of medical advances might be the world in which people routinely live to be 120, or even up to 150, but the last decades of life in a state of childlike dependence on caretakers.
We're still trying to make sense of what is happening.
Thank you again for the privilege of speaking at this famous university.
我们虽然可以找到保持身体健康的方法，但是我们却无法推迟与老龄有关的脑力衰退的时间。干细胞研究可能会为我们找到新器官的培育途径。如果我们没有同时找到医治老年痴呆症的良方，干细胞研究这种奇妙的新技术无非只能让更多的人在植物状态下延年苟活而已。
医学进步带来的结果可能使人们活到120岁，甚至活到150岁，但这样的人在生命的最后几十年中只能像孩子那样依赖护理人员而苟活。
我们还在努力弄懂眼前所发生的一切。
再次感谢你们给我如此殊荣，来到这所名牌大学发表演讲。
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