Eugenics and Me- Why Should I Care?
I've been doing a bit of thinking lately about the future. In particular I have been working on a paper regarding future eugenics. Now, I'm not thinking about the traditional philosophy based on Francis Galton's ideas, which morphed into Social Darwinism and eventually led to some wacky laws here in the states in the early part of the 20th century involving forced sterilization, not to mention the whole insane Nazi application practices.
No, what I'm thinking about is eugenics (which translates to "well born" or "true breeding") in the future. You see, we are already playing around with fetilization in humans (In vitro fertilization, or IVF, has been going on for over 30 years now), and even more interesting aspects of genome alteration in laboratories around the world. It's entirely within reason that in just a few generations human parents will be able to choose genes they want to insert into their potential offspring.
Take for instance, you wanted to have a really tall child so he could get into the NBA and make millions to take care of Daddy in his old age. Well, you pick out a couple of the genes of major effect involved in height (there are probably numerous genes involved), you select the alleles that produce the greatest effects on height and insert them into the selected sperm, maybe even alter the regulation mechanisms of those genes so they turn on earlier in development and stay on longer, and BAM!!, taller kid. But why stop there, add extra artificial chromosomes with more copies of the genes. Or better yet, create and insert entirely artificial genes that create super-tall height-affecting proteins. Look out Shaq, here comes my boy!
Here's why its eugenics, though. New technologies are always very expensive. Even after so long, IVF is priced out of the reach of many Americans, not to mention the vast majority of people around the world. So in the future, offspring of wealthy families will be genetically modified to be "better people," while my kids' kids will be stuck with the same old genes I've had to manage with.
But why should I care? I just can't get riled up for my great, great,..grandkids. I know there is that whole Richard Dawkins "Selfish Genes" thing that supposedly my genes are focusing me on ensuring their continued existence, but that's crap. Genes are inert little information storage devices that just sit there until the environmental conditions are right for the machinery of the cell to copy the info and carry it to the ribosomes for protein production. Where's the selfishness? Or the happiness, empathy, slovenliness, or anything else for that matter? Genes just don't care. So why should I?
Let my descendents just figure it out for themselves. I did.
No, what I'm thinking about is eugenics (which translates to "well born" or "true breeding") in the future. You see, we are already playing around with fetilization in humans (In vitro fertilization, or IVF, has been going on for over 30 years now), and even more interesting aspects of genome alteration in laboratories around the world. It's entirely within reason that in just a few generations human parents will be able to choose genes they want to insert into their potential offspring.
Take for instance, you wanted to have a really tall child so he could get into the NBA and make millions to take care of Daddy in his old age. Well, you pick out a couple of the genes of major effect involved in height (there are probably numerous genes involved), you select the alleles that produce the greatest effects on height and insert them into the selected sperm, maybe even alter the regulation mechanisms of those genes so they turn on earlier in development and stay on longer, and BAM!!, taller kid. But why stop there, add extra artificial chromosomes with more copies of the genes. Or better yet, create and insert entirely artificial genes that create super-tall height-affecting proteins. Look out Shaq, here comes my boy!
Here's why its eugenics, though. New technologies are always very expensive. Even after so long, IVF is priced out of the reach of many Americans, not to mention the vast majority of people around the world. So in the future, offspring of wealthy families will be genetically modified to be "better people," while my kids' kids will be stuck with the same old genes I've had to manage with.
But why should I care? I just can't get riled up for my great, great,..grandkids. I know there is that whole Richard Dawkins "Selfish Genes" thing that supposedly my genes are focusing me on ensuring their continued existence, but that's crap. Genes are inert little information storage devices that just sit there until the environmental conditions are right for the machinery of the cell to copy the info and carry it to the ribosomes for protein production. Where's the selfishness? Or the happiness, empathy, slovenliness, or anything else for that matter? Genes just don't care. So why should I?
Let my descendents just figure it out for themselves. I did.
posted by Fool Ishy at 2:59 PM
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