Wouldn't it be better if people debated these topics rationally rather than, you know, worrying about what meaningless rhetoric other might people hear?
Last night I heard an interview with Craig Venter where the interviewer used the term "playing god", or something similar several times to to characterize the arguments she assumed that some others might be making against this research. Venter actually corrected her at one point when she misquoted one of the commenters -- in this case a representative of the Vatican. It sounded to me as though the "playing god" expression was being used more by the proponents of this kind of research rather than the ones raising objections or concerns themselves. I think that the expression was being attributed to people who weren't raising that specious issue in the first place.
Still, I don't know why the expression,"playing god", whatever it might mean,is "dangerous" unless you're concerned that the uneducated masses might be stirred to some undesirable action as a result of hearing it.
People aren't against stem-cell research because they think it's playing god, they are against it because they think that embryos have the moral worth of adults. Perhaps you are thinking about the arguments against cloning?
Incidently, stem-cell research has high potential but is also highly speculative. Similarly, gene therapy (using viruses to deliver gene fixes into the body of cells) was and is considered to have enormous potential with very similar hype to stem-cells. But after 35 years and billions of dollars of work, the the actual number of people who have been helped is very small.
Just because you think something will save millions of lives doesn't make every counterargument, and every turn of phrase used by every counterargument, "dangerous" though. That's just one step away from saying that your opponents are not only mistaken but unconscionable.
True, but "playing God" isn't always used as meaning "we should be aware of the benefits", and often used as a cheap scare tactic. I feel that actually analyzing the risks and benefits is a better tactic than trotting out this old cliche. Furthermore, it has connotations of fearing new technology (I can't quite phrase this right, sorry). There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about discoveries such as artificially replicating DNA, but I don't think that "Man vs God" is one of them.
I don't feel that I've phrased this quite as well as I'd like to. If you'd like elaboration or clarification, please ask.
"Playing God" to me is just a turn of phrase, shorthand (and somewhat cliched) for "messing with powers beyond your understanding or ability to control". It has nothing to do with whether one or more gods actually exists and can quite sensibly be used by atheists since it means "assuming powers which should only belong to (hypothetical) gods" rather than "assuming powers which should only belong to that Yahweh dude".
can quite sensibly be used by atheists since it means "assuming powers which should only belong to (hypothetical) gods"
Sorry, but I refuse to call atheist to anyone who believes that an arbitrary, human-made list of values can be "godlike" in any meaningful sense. If anything, should that person use that list of values to base their political or scientific arguments, I would call them theocrats.
I definitely agree that it can be used secularly (I probably should have phrased that last part better), but I still feel that it isn't a good phrase. Of course these type of things are currently beyond our understanding or control, that's why they're carefully being experimented on. Obviously scientists realize there are risks to these types of technologies. Too often, I see the phrase "playing God" followed by unrealistic, uninformed scaremongering. It promotes fear of those discoveries, rather than a healthy respect and caution for their possible risks. Rather than accusations "playing God", I'd prefer to see a truly balanced critique. It's easy to write an a hollow fearmongering article a scary phrase.