The whole Larry Summers controversy is an example of the faulty thinking which I describe at http://dancar.blogspot.com/2005/02/dumb-thinking-part-1-averages-dont.html

Many college educated women (and men) forget that averages don't apply to individuals. The fact that men are on average a few inches taller than women doesn't negate the existence of tall women or short men. It doesn't help you know the relative heights of actors Danny DiVito and Allison Janney (C.J. Craig on The West Wing).

The question of why some occupations tend to be dominated by one gender or the other is an interested one. Suggesting that it might be due to tendencies for the male and female brains to develop along certain lines ought not to lead one to be tarred & feathered, especially when research suggests it might be true.

As for tinkering with the human brain, many of us already do it everyone morning with our cup of coffee. Others tinker with brain function using drugs of all kinds, including stimulants, depressants, hallucinogenics, and doctor-prescribed psychiatric drugs. As technology develops it may be more possible to fine tune the brain for different functions, eventually creating a “Brave New World” society where people are genetically engineered to best fit the role they are to play in society. Where exactly do we draw the line?

I, on the other hand am above average in nearly every respect, except where I'm average or below average.

Tinkering with my own brain via an infusion of caffiene is not the same as some scientist tinkering with brain physiology on a permanent basis. As far as questioning where exactly do we draw the line... I guess that depends on where you place your self and who the 'we' is. For the christian, God already drew the line, 'we' just have to figure out where he drew it.

Medical science has worked wonders when it comes to fixing parts of the human body that are broken, which allows many people to live longer who would have otherwise died sooner. Although it is contraversial, steroids and other drugs are used by athletes to make themselves better, stronger and faster than they can accomplish with diet, exercise and training alone. Tinkering with the brain to make it stronger and faster is closer than ever to emerging from science fiction and becoming a reality.

I assume you don't have a problem with medicine curing disease or repairing injuries. As for improving on God's (or evolution of you prefer) work do you draw the line right there, or only when it comes to the brain?

Switching the subject now Danny boy?

How do you get - "I assume you don't have a problem with medicine curing disease or repairing injuries"

from - "where people are genetically engineered to best fit the role they are to play in society"?

I'll explain my logical progression. At this point in time, medical science is very good at treating illness and repairing injury. In other words, they fix what's wrong.

Medical science is now at the point where we're talking not only about fixing what's wrong, but making it better than it was before. Justin Katz quotes Kurtz:

"The new interest in brain biology is a two edged sword. It has raised legitimate questions about social constructionist orthodoxy. Those questions ought to be debated. But the new brain biology is itself on shaky ground and should not be treated as an alternative orthodoxy, much less as a license to tamper with the human brain."

To which Katz replies:

"Kurtz is right that we're "headed for dangerous times." Medical science is entering a range of promises that all too many people find irresistible. It has been harmful enough, these many decades, that social engineers have been plunging our society into cultural changes. We should all shudder to think about the possible results when biological engineers begin doing the same."

What is it that Katz warns we should shudder about? The logical conclusion to this that I'm speculating is the novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxely, where fetuses are grown in artifical wombs and engineered so that the resulting person has the appropriate level of intelligence and aptitude for his/her destined role in society. See http://www.huxley.net/

Kurtz warns of the trend of separating parenthood from marriage. This also reminded me of BNW in that it describes a society where babies are produced in production lines of artificial wombs, sex is purely recreational, monogamy is rare and familes as we know them don't exist.

Well this version of the future makes me shudder. When the technology exists to make superhumans, then what happens to our values that say that every life, including those challenged by handicaps and birth defects, is sacred?

At this point, it is highly debatable that medical science is 'very' good at treating illness and repairing injury and even less so at treating birth defects. The highly secularized European medical profession already appear disinclined to treat birth defects or terminal illnesses with anything other than euthanasia. If you haven't heard of it, do a search on Groningen Protocol. You are professing worry about a domino ("what happens to our values that say that every life, including those challenged by handicaps and birth defects, is sacred?") that falls 'prior' to being able to gengineer super humans, not after. As I alluded earlier, God draws the lines we shouldn't cross. If you want to look for them, you have to be facing them, not looking for them way after you've already crossed them.