Evolution and Genetic Engineering

I'm reading a book called The Biotech Century.  In one portion, Jeremy Rifkin posits that the coming eugenics-type movement of germ-line gene therapy to "perfect" the human species could lead to less diversity of the species.  Also that our current spate of mutations and what some people call “disorders” are good for the species to help us in unknown ways. What he is saying is that nature should take its course and we’ll eventually evolve to better beings without manipulating our genetic code.  

That works in the animal kingdom, except that as modern humans, we’ve added money and empathy to nature’s mix.  With those two concepts, Darwinism is curtailed.  Think about it:  Money provides the well-financed class with advantages that completely ignore evolution and make our bodies lazy, forgetting the work our bodies and mind do to evolve naturally.  Empathy sets us up to help the weak and even mate with people that are less than the highest order possible.  As a modern human myself, I personally think there is nothing wrong with these higher concepts, but they just don’t occur in the rest of the animal kingdom.  For our animal counterparts, you either survive or you don’t and the best possible mates are pursued; always.  So, my thought is that when our intelligence about genetic therapy is perfected, we should go for it to make the species better, just because we’re not like the rest of the animals.  It will happen in the near future and our evolution will change forever for the better.