ABSTRACT
Present genetic technology poses a challenge to sport so serious that it is hard to overestimate. What is at stake is the very ethos of sport; nothing less than an epochal confrontation between a model of human identity as spelled out in the Book of Genesis and a science-based libertarian model. According to the former, sports is a means by which we explore human nature, admire it at its peak, and gain self-understanding. It is not up to us to play God or, to put it in a more mundane and secular way, to ‘meddle with our evolutionary determined human nature’. According to the latter, secular model, the deliberate adaptation of our biological nature is exactly our prerogative. We have reached a point at last where this prerogative is becoming a genuine possibility. For supporters of the secular model, our destiny is in our own hands. To those of us who do not accept authority, there still exists a deep humanistic obligation: to see to it that our human nature will turn out to be of a kind that is worthy of admiration. And when moulding our biological nature, the sports arena is the perfect place to test out the results of new biological innovations.
