That sounds really interesting. I don't understand the details as to why Gerald Joyce believes that integrating synthetic genetic molecules into preexisting organic ones is potentially dangerous and to be honest I'm not sure if he does, either. Don't mean to be rude, but I've never heard of him until now. Anyway, at the very least, I know that tampering with the genetic code of any organism can lead to big changes. Birth defects, growing extra limbs or appendages, etc. you get the point.
Before people start fooling around with each other at the genetic level, I believe the human genome should be better understood. As stated at genome.gov, "Having the essentially complete sequence of the human genome is similar to having all the pages of a manual needed to make the human body. The challenge to researchers and scientists now is to determine how to read the contents of all these pages and then understand how the parts work together and to discover the genetic basis for health and the pathology of human disease." In short, although the the human genetic code has been pretty much completely mapped, it has to be interpreted in a way scientists can utilize, first. I guess it's like having a book but not being fluent in the language it's written in.
In any case, we'll see what happens in due time.
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