>The barrier of entry to biology is artificially high due to all sorts of reasons, mostly regulatory. Considering the nature of the placebo affect and the diffe

>The barrier of entry to biology is artificially high due to all sorts of reasons, mostly regulatory. Considering the nature of the placebo affect and the difference between feeling better and being better, I am skeptical of pulling down many of the barriers to DIY biology. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding and making a straw-man here, but we already have therapies that do not work, such as acupuncture or a wide range of So Called Alternative Medicines. "Stem cell" treatments that are outright fraud already exist [0,1]. My fear is that this will be replicated with CRISPR technology. Personally, I would like treatments that work and am skeptical that the market could decide what's best (I don't think this is the argument that you are making, but I want to address it nonetheless). The CRISPR babies that I believe you were referring to are an example of needing regulations. One rogue doctor made changes to their genome that are not preventative. This was incredibly shoddy work that should not be applauded [6]. I would also argue that the barrier is not artificially high. Doing biological research is incredibly difficult. Unlike with your analogy to Tesla, people can die from treatments [2]. Additionally,with CRISPR there are off target affects that need to be understood before wide scale use [3]. There is great promise in biotech [4,5]. However, the consequence are not just billion dollar explosions, but lives. I may be over dramatizing, but I think a careful approach is important. Also, the increments are still progress. Could there be another way to approach this kind of research, absolutely! There I think you hit on something very important. My bio graduate education did not at all prepare me for any kind of business thinking. > remember the donation you made to the local animal rights campaign helped hinder biological research and development by decades I think this is a little over dramatic, but I agree with the feeling without really knowing if this has been studied. [0] https://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-ruling-riles-researchers-1.12678 https://www.nature.com/news/stem-cell-ruling-riles-researche... [1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/more-stem-cell-quackery/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/more-stem-cell... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/43977 https://www.nature.com/articles/43977 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31911131 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31911131 [4] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/boy-rare-disease-gets-new-skin-thanks-gene-corrected-stem-cells https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/11/boy-rare-disease-get... [5] https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/360/360ra134.full https://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/360/360ra134.full [6] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/did-crispr-help-or-harm-first-ever-gene-edited-babies https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/did-crispr-help-or-h...