Genetics

At the turn of this century, scientists revealed their success in decoding (and committing to a database) the entire genetic map of a human.  This, many contend, is as great a feat as any accomplished by humans.  Dozens upon dozens of lifetimes of research and work (and machines at the pinnacle of technological advances) were required to produce the code.

And now that we have this map.  Some folks are thinking that not only can we mark and recognize genes that promote particular anomalies, such as dwarfism, maybe we can clean house a bit.

Consider the possibilities.

Perhaps we can engineer out of our systems an array of disease—the same way genetic tinkering may allow us to alter apples to grow square for ease in stacking.  Perhaps we might engineer more subtle changes in human behavior.  For example, we might flip a genetic switch someplace inside girls that will make them desire to shop for power tools when they mature.  In boys, we might alter their genetic patterns so that they find women with a mustache attractive, which will accommodate the particular breeding problems (or lack thereof) for a town that I will not mention.

We now have a roadmap for humans.  This where we are.

But what about taking a wrong turn on this roadmap?  Consider the consequences.  What if the square apples stacking themselves right on top of us!  What if one of the boys that we fashioned to admire a mustache on women engineered all future women to grow a Fu Manchu?  At what point do alter too much?  What are we not foreseeing?        

Perhaps—since I have used a roadmap as an analogy—we might compare all of this to the invention of the automobile, a single innovation that altered the course for all of humanity, just as this will.  Look at how far we have come with the engineering of automobiles since the first complete successful design.  Consider the array of highways and how they and the parking lots and the junkyards and all the goes with the automobile changed the landscape around us.  Consider how the rapid mobility changed virtually everything about the way we conduct our lives.  But always remember that, here in America, somewhere near 40,000 people perish in car accidents each year.  Nearly 4 million cars are involved in accidents, even though we have some of the most stringent laws and safety standards. 

As I write this, people in some places are driving clunkers without any laws to control them.  Dozens of them are approaching the same unmarked intersection at the same time.  Some of the women driving them need to trim their mustache.

—Mitchell Hegman