Does mankind need some great new philosophy?

[glazbagun]

Just read about this facinating news piece:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment...

And it got me wondering (again) about what it is really that's holding us back now that we can split the atom, go to the moon and clone animals. Biosciences strike me as the next big thing (though they're obviously not so shabby already), and the idea of pavements that eat st, green/red paint that produces energy and three breasted women facinate me as a reader of scifi.

But the other part of me knows that if this technology ever matured to such a level and proliferated to the point that, say, IT is already, we'd have mutant killer dog/crocodiles being sold to chavs and schoolkids killing entire local forests with custom diseases for sts & giggles. Do you reckon we'll have to mature to some level of "great responsibility" before we really go for the power that genetic engineering/creation might have in store, and that findamentalist christians, etc, are inadvertantly doing society a favour by opposing so much of it, or should we just go as far as we can & hope we don't kill ourselves?