January 30th, 2009

I have a small child at home and there is no length I wouldn't go to to ensure her continued good health and longevity. With genetic modification, and stem cell research making us able to engineer "defects" out of our children, the future looks rosy for our ability to create, not just healthy humans ... but healthy superhumans.

And that is a slippery slope, indeed. What if we were able to identify the gene or set of genes for homosexuality? Or homophobia for that matter ... ? What if university entrance were based on one's genetically-enhanced potential to learn? Unless governments want to start paying for this, the rich folks will be the smart capable folks, and the poor folks will be the slobs.

I am sure that debates about genetically modified children (or genetically-based selection) will seem quaint and archaic one day to the armies of genetically superior people who are the result of natural selection accelerated a few thousand-fold (through eliminating the long slow messy process of actually having children, selecting, rinsing, and repeating).

It is pretty certain, at least in my mind, that as with most other technologies that provide an advantage:

  1. We develop them

  2. We debate the moral rectitude of them

  3. We use them anyway

... and later adjust our cultural thinking to accommodate them. If we can genetically modify ourselves into superior beings (or monsters, depending on your nomenclature) we eventually will. In the list above, we are already at about 75% for #1, and the completion is approaching at an accelerating rate, and items #2 and #3 are both already in preliminary stages. This, apparently, isn't going to go away!

My only hope is that the first thing we program into our test-tube superchildren is a sense of compassion, otherwise our old age rest homes might be gas chambers.

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