potential
1. adj. Possessing potency or power; potent, powerful, mighty, strong; commanding. Possible as opposed to actual; existing in posse or in a latent or undeveloped state, capable of coming into being or action; latent.

This definition of potential describes the unrealized, the things that can become, and those that are latent. In general usage, potential carries a positive connotation in that it foreshadows things that are powerful and strong, as the definition has included. By the essence of this meaning of possibility and bursting ability of latency, biotechnologists frequently use potential to illustrate the promising outcomes their research can bring. For instance, Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology at Whitehead Institute, says in his congressional testimony on cloning, “I am concerned that the revulsion against “cloning” rather than objective reasons may . . . impede potentially promising research.” In this sentence, Professor Jaenisch presses forth the “capability of coming into being” without projecting any consideration of possible failures in his research to provide such monumental promises, as he has described in his testimony to advocate research in therapeutic cloning. Although therapeutic cloning does possess potential contribution to health, the latency depicted by the word potential is, nevertheless, not yet to be manifested; which brings to the question of whether research possessing the possibility of significant results should be considered equivalent to research possessing no possibility of failure or results less than significant. No matter how promising potential appears to be, it is, nevertheless, unrealized. It is only a possibility of such promises, along with the possibility of not achieving to the level of such promises. Thus, potential should be interpreted cautiously because something potential can go both ways. The potency of potential is only a suggestion, not an absolute attribution to the thing described as potential.

2. n. A potential agent, a thing that gives power. That which is possible, opposed to what is actual; a possibility. Also, resources that can be used or developed; freq. preceded by a defining word.

More power than the adjective, potential as a noun attributes power to the subject rather than a quality in possession of the subject. In ethical debates on cloning, the phrase such as “unrealized potential of adult stem cells” from Professor Jaenisch’s testimony assigns credence to his argument that adult stem cells are truly capable to generating the cells patients need in their bodies. Critics of cloning, however, refer to the potential of cloning as catastrophic disaster that would come to being if cloning is not banned. Therefore, potential can either represent a thing that’s powerfully positive, or a thing that’s powerfully negative, on the other end of the spectrum.

glossary