Its not magic. Its just something we don't have good mental models for understanding since it doesn't resemble the things we usually engineer. I always give the

Its not magic. Its just something we don't have good mental models for understanding since it doesn't resemble the things we usually engineer. I always give the following rough analogy: "Imagine a programming language where every single instruction simultaneously executes and simultaneously alters the inputs of all other instructions to varying degrees." Complex artificial neural networks and data flow models are closer to gene regulatory networks and the genotype->ribotype->phenotype causal flow but are still oversimplifications. It is sometimes possible to hack individual genes to fix really glaring problems reducible to one or a few key mutations like sickle cell anemia. Those things are the low hanging fruit of genetic engineering. Beyond that it gets harder. Trying to do things like boost life span or median IQ will be exponentially harder and will require new cognitive paradigms IMHO. Its too bad nobody studies this stuff anymore. There was a ton of really great research into complex systems and emergent behaviors in the 90s and 2000s and then it went out of vogue for some reason.