Many decades ago, back when Thomas Edison was still the only inventor whose name everyone knew, back when people said "man" and meant "person," back when naïve faith in science ruled, we used to hear a saying by Edison that went something like this: "Everything that the hand of man can produce, the mind of man can control."

I don't have the complete works of Edison at hand to look that up and check it for accuracy. It does not show up in any of my dictionary of quotations. Maybe it was just a folkloric line misattributed to the great inventor. Whatever—it belongs to a different era.

"Man" split the atom and invented weapons of destruction that have been held in check for more than a half century. But that control occurred during the time of mad rationality called the Cold War. Will such weaponry remain controlled and controllable in the hands of madly irrational terrorists or criminal elements?

Most questioning about whether humans can control all the forces being turned loose in the inventors' laboratories focuses on probes and discoveries that have very positive dimensions. They go under various code names and include specialties of cosmic dimension and implication: genetic research, genetic therapy, genetic intervention, genetic engineering—the humble human gene attaches itself adjectivally to so many ventures that no one could begin to understand, never mind control, the directions these inquiries will take.

A professional in many fields, and a lay person in all, may decide to sit out the revolution. The authors in this Bulletin, however, are among those who counsel that such standing-by on the sidelines is a foolish, even dangerous, approach. It will take the cooperation of professionals in medicine, law, commerce, religion, and the media, plus the interest of an aroused citizenry and religious community to begin to address—again, not control—all that the "gene business" is unleashing.

If ever there were an on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand situation in ethics, the genetic revolution is it. One side of the typical "me" quakes when peering into the future. Once the Human Genome Project is complete, will data gathered about individuals keep some parents from letting a fetus develop? An insurance policy from being written? Will the market rule at the expense of other human endeavors and values? What will all this do to concepts of being made "in the image of God?"

Stop!

The other side of the divided and typical "me" is less interested in controlling and limiting research and development. This "I" is aware of people who could now be helped by some primitive forms of gene therapy already underway. Stem cell research here and now can be of benefit to many. There can be great advances in efforts to anticipate and prevent problems before birth. Not all decisions relating to genetic knowledge will beg the issue of abortion. The health boons that we can foresee are enormous.

Go!

The whole community of researchers, funders, medics, ethicists, theologians, and citizens at large enter the new millennium poised tensely to deal with these issues that seem beyond our control. As I read articles in magazines like this Bulletin, another side of me—whoops! I've already used up both sides—prompts a question: why can't someone just come along and settle things, present solutions, give us control?

They would be charlatans if they did. They could serve us well by helping us ask the right questions, listening to the voices of the concerned, pondering our ways in the light of God and our most profound commitments, and remain modest about outcomes.

So if Thomas Edison said what I remember them telling me he said, it's not a simple "good-bye, Mr. Edison." It is rather a moment to send him a posthumous thank-you note for the inventiveness he furthered. And to recognize that his early twentieth-century confidence is out of place in this new century, when, among the things we are confident about, we cannot be as confident as he must have been about our being in control.