The Inimitable Tiff

Is it worth the risk? Absolutely. This is not the first time scientists have wondered whether their experiments might cause the world to end. Late-medieval bioethicists frowned on a branch of alchemy that involved isolating semen in flasks. Alonso Tostado (bishop of Avila and a sort of Leon Kass of his day) thought semen, if not tempered with menses, could grow into an army of demonic beings with supernatural gifts. He hypothesized that the wizard Merlin, as well as the entire fearsome race of Huns, had been products of exactly this diabolical tinkering, and that further exploration could be cataclysmic.