Biotechnology's most touted achievement last month was “Cc:”, the first cloned domestic cat (p. 328). This furry clone and her ilk could benefit neuroscience research. She might also allow us to answer questions about longevity (9 or 18 lives)? But “Cc:” was not created to advance medical knowledge or provide fundamental biological insights. She was created because there is a market among certain rich cat owners for resurrected animal companions.

For some people, it is obviously an attractive idea that one could simply write out a check and have a company thaw out a vial at the first signs of Fido flagging or Mr. Tiddles losing his appetite for rodents. For an extra $1 million, it might be possible to engineer cloned cats with opposable thumbs that could open their own cans of chow, thus avoiding the inconvenience of feeding time. The satirical magazine Private Eye has even suggested that we create short-lived pets to suit irresponsible owners. Under a cartoon of a shop window full of doe-eyed dogs, it ran the caption: “GM puppies—guaranteed to be just for Christmas.”

There is a distressing truth about this kind of exercise in reductio ad absurdum: and that is, it is all too believable. We all know a CEO, a scientist, or an investor somewhere whose reaction would be: “Just for Christmas, eh? Y'know, that might just work.” The commercial imperative appears so often to have deflected the process of R&D in relatively trivial directions that we cannot say, “No company would do that.”

Part of the problem is that biotechnology's achievements have been consistently more lowly than its aspirations. It may have set out to feed the world, but so far it has managed only to market herbicide-tolerant crops. It wanted to understand the underlying causes of common disease but has delivered only relief for the symptoms of a few rare maladies. It embraced the principles of cloning for regenerative medicine but has ended up producing perpetual pets.

There are, of course, many applications for biotechnology's powerful tool sets. Disease-resistant chickens could be crammed into ever-smaller spaces in factory farms. Cattle immune to BSE could return with impunity to a cheap diet of rendered animal remains. Cloning athletic Delta semi-morons to populate boy bands would be a definite commercial possibility if only conventional reproductive technologies hadn't satisfied the market already.

Exploiting all the available commercial opportunities may be good business. But if R&D is left solely to market forces, then we will not only produce some rather tacky products but also lose sight of our grander goals. Worst of all, the public may start to become convinced that biotechnology is incapable of delivering on its loftier ambitions.