"Progress" is something that emerges only in hindsight, and is a value judgement that embeds a perspective from which it is made. What we have in the present are choices, and possibilities, and estimations of their outcomes.
You could oppose this because you think it's unlikely to work at all, and so is a dead end and wasted effort. You could oppose it because you think it will work, but that the changes are not likely to be improvements.
Is a procedure that creates a new form of smarter, healthier, longer lived human progress? For them it certainly is. If they deny me that technology for my descendants, is it progress for them?
It is simply not going to break down so easily into "this is progress and progress is good." It will have consequences, some of them negative, many of them unexpected. It will be better for some people some of the time and worse for some people some of the time, like almost all changes are. Resisting change simply to slow it down and better understand and predict the effects is a valid stance as well. None of these things are inherently unethical.
You could oppose this because you think it's unlikely to work at all, and so is a dead end and wasted effort. You could oppose it because you think it will work, but that the changes are not likely to be improvements.
Is a procedure that creates a new form of smarter, healthier, longer lived human progress? For them it certainly is. If they deny me that technology for my descendants, is it progress for them?
It is simply not going to break down so easily into "this is progress and progress is good." It will have consequences, some of them negative, many of them unexpected. It will be better for some people some of the time and worse for some people some of the time, like almost all changes are. Resisting change simply to slow it down and better understand and predict the effects is a valid stance as well. None of these things are inherently unethical.