Selecting For Desired Traits In the Future, Good, Bad or Ugly?

Great Debates
1

Someday down the road, it will most likely become possible to reliably select at the genetic level for desired traits while weeding out (or altering) undesirable traits in all manner of plants, animals, and even humans (in the first two, I think we’re already making strides).

In recent years, it has been hinted that it might be possible to determine that certain behaviors and thought processes may have a genetic component at some level. Of course, nature vs. nurture will probably be an argument until the end of time, but as we understand the structure of the genome of humans, it might be possible to identify, and even change, future behavior before a person is even born.

So, give that as a possibility, what happens if a way is found to “correct” Conservative Thought? Remove the code for belief in God? What if homosexuality really is 100% genetic, and could be “fixed” in the DNA before a child is even born? What if you could “adjust” someone to be altruistic and caring as an adult when they’re only a few cells old? Maybe even change the race of individuals in the womb so that society reflects a homogenized uniformity?

I know that there is an entire field of study and speculation that is devoted to pondering the implications of a designer genetic future, and the ethical questions it raises. What do you think - is it a case of “just because we can, we should”? Who decides what changes are allowable, and which are not. Do you think that if the technology comes to fruition under a Liberal societal influence that they will attempt to “correct” conservative thought and implant unbridled altruism and acceptance as well, or if Conservative thought is in charge that they will breed for compliance and remove what they view as deviant behavior?

The possibilities are essentially infinite, but the question remains - who will hold the keys, and what would they allow/deny/compel in future generations.

2

My problems with selection is that if australopithecus had the ability to select for traits would homo sapiens have been the result, or would they have selected for sharper teeth, stronger bones and warmer coat of fur? Selection is going to reduce diversity, and humans have thrived because they are generalists, not specialists. We might have a good idea about what traits will be valuable today, but 10,000 years from now, maybe not.

3

I’ve wondered about this too. A lot of our art comes from people who have been marginalized or traumatized. Granted those things are not pleasant, but if everyone is attractive, smart, conforms to all social norms, etc then you lose out on a lot of diversity.

4

Genetic diversity is a useful thing in a population. The environment is always changing, so it’s good to have a set of traits available to take on those changes.

Traits that are useful in one context can be deleterious in another. A favorable trait can be linked to an unfavorable one. Some traits are fine in moderation but become problematic in excess.

Finally, traits come about due to genetic combinations and interactions of interactions. A little squirt of gene A mixed with a big squirt of gene B modified by environmental factor X results in a Trait XX, which then influences Trait XXX. Traits don’t exist in isolation. So yeah, you can select for a trait. But there’s likely going to be a trade-off somewhere else,. You can see this kinda-sorta in dog breeds. Great Danes sure are cool-looking dogs. But long-lived, they are not.

While I’m not excited about people artificially manipulating gene frequencies, I’m not too bothered by it. It’s inevitable that it will happen in some shape or form.

5

It seems like we are a long way from such a thing being so widely available that the gene pool is at risk. There is a huge gap between “technically possible” and “practically available for 25% of world’s population.” It’s still a struggle to get vaccinations to many parts of the world: what organization is going to sweep in and provide DNA-level manipulation to those people?

6

Conversely, the ability to modify our genes and other traits may make us more suitable for space and other worlds, allowing the species (and many of Earth’s species as well) to adapt to hostile environments like zero-G or to handle the psychological pressures of being in a generation ship.

Hmmm… I’m sure there’s a science fiction story in that paragraph… :wink:

7

Well, isn’t that part of the problem? You make the divide between the 99% and the 1% not just economic, but genetic?

8

Heck, both of the last posts have touched upon by Bujold… (Quaddies, Cetaganda).

In some respects we’re already doing it: we’re selecting embryos to be implanted for genetic compatibility to an older sibling, we’re selecting for implantion or selectively aborting a certain sex, we’re selecting embryos to avoid implanting those with certain genes. Some of those cases we consider good (although the trashed embryos might disagree, if they could), others are producing large sex imbalances in populations where males are disproportionally valued over females.

9

There may be problems with that, but weakening the gene pool by limiting diversity is not one of them. People are arguing that we might lose genes that are actually positive, or could be positive in the future. As long as 99.99% of the population goes on making babies the old-fashioned way, that’s not going to happen.

10

I don’t necessarily think it’s a problem myself, but that’s likely because I’m assuming I’ll be in that “1%”. :wink:

11

One problem is that the 1% who can afford (and care to) artificial select will also be the ones who control who gets access to wealth and power.

The 1% will not want their children being influenced by the 99% with “bad” genes. So I expect that gatekeepers will require certain “genetic standards” for admission. Prepare to be told that a parent who doesn’t do gene screening on their gametes/embryos is just as irresponsible as one who doesn’t believe in vaccines or modern medicine in general. “Good” genes will be used as a proxy for “good” parenting.

If your son or daughter is burdened with a critical mass of “bad” genes, maybe they won’t be allowed into the premium elite prep schools, the ones that serve as feeders to the premium elite colleges and universities where all the 1% graduate from before they move and shake the universe.

Overall, the genetic diversity will be there at their disposal. But if it’s restricted to the 99% of the popluation that is consigned to slavery, then it’s being wasted.

Not that I think this would necessarily happen, mind yu. Just that I don’t think numbers and percentages really mean anything.

12

My take on it is that it very well may not be as straight-forward as it seems. We have this sci-fi idea, best illustrated in a film like Gattaca, where we can just change features like we’re creating a D&D character. Oh, you want to be smarter and stronger and have blue eyes? Done. That seems like a naively simplistic view of how our genetics work. Sure, I think it’s quite likely we can correct some diseases, particularly ones that relate to missing or mutated portions of genes, but how well can we select for other attributes? How do we even meaningfully define “smarter” or “stronger” in such a way, as we know they’re not just a single metric. Further, I think it’s quite likely there will be some sorts of trade-offs between various attributes. For instance, maybe we can make someone fairly smart in a lot of areas, but in order to make them a scientific genius or a brilliant artist, it means introducing a “deficiency” elsewhere.

Even within correcting genetic diseases, or any sort of human selection, that carries with it some heavy penalties. What if a genetic disorder, or just some attribute that people select against, is some sort of intermediate state to introducing some really cool new gene into the pool? For instance, I recently heard about a kid in China who was born with exceptional night vision, and has naturally very light blue eyes. If, for instance, blue eyes are an intermediate state toward something like that, and we tended to select against that, we could lose out of gaining new and interesting diversity into out pool.

So, it seems to me, that if we go that way, we’re more or less putting an end to natural selection. We’re pretty much going to end up with a set pool of genes, and we’re going to have less and less genetic diversity over time. Maybe eventually we’ll gain enough knowledge to actually improve on or create new genes, but I’d be quite worried about the time between when we started manipulating the human genome, and when we could actually create pure artificial selection. However, a lack of genetic diversity, at least for the next few hundred years, probably isn’t as big of a risk as it otherwise might be because we have technology to insulate us from many environmental factors that could spell disaster.

Either way, it may or may not be the best course of action, and I suspect that, if it’s possible, it’s more or less inevitable, but it is something that we need to approach with great trepidation. The worst thing we can do is instill our current mores and vision of our future into our genetic diversity and limit ourselves as we may choose to change directions.

13

Realistically, I don’t see genetic engineering for ill defined factors such as intellegence, beauty or gender identity happening in the foreseeable future. The genetic and environmental interactions that make up these characteristics are so complicated that attempting to manipulate them individually will likely have a success rate not much better than choosing to delay pregnancy so your offspring is born under a favorable star sign.

While you may be able to take Einstein’s genetic code and make another Einstein, it would be very difficult to isolate what part of that was intelligence and so making an Einstein with the body of Marilyn Monroe won’t be easy.

The more realistic application of genetic engineering would be to correct clear genetic abnormalities that have known simple causes, such as Huntington’s disease, the BRCA breast cancer gene, or Genetic Dwarfism. I think that all but the most fundamentalist of Luddites would support correcting the first two of these when possible, but the last is a more interesting case that will require careful thought and reasoned debate.

14

Huntington’s actually presents an interesting query.

Huntington’s is caused by a critical number of CAG repeats in the huntingtin gene. If an individual has less than 35 repeats, they are likely not going to get the disease. However, due to the tendency of the repeats to expand each generation, your grand children may be at increased risk even if you don’t have the disease. (I know because I was given this warning when I was tested for HD. I scored a 28).

If you have more than 40 CAG repeats, you will certainly get the disease.

But if you have between 36 and 39 repeats, you may or may not get it. “Reduced penetrance” is what this is caused. You may not get the disease, it may be “full blown”, or it could be a attenuated version that hits much later in life. No one can know what will happen until it happens.

I guess it would be easy enough to just reject all embryos that have 36 or more CAG repeats in the huntingtin gene. But what if you’ve got an embryo that has 37 CAG repeats, but also have a set of genes that would confer great Michael Jordan-like prowess in the athletic arena. What if CAG repeats are correlated with intelligence and creativity, and what looks like a horrible mutation is something that can actually be a blessing in moderation?

So even with something like Huntington’s, which I wouldn’t wish on anyone, the issue isn’t so black and white.

15

So the future will be filled with supermodels who have hip dysplasia.

16

People might still try it, though. E.g. a certain gene/allele is known to be correlated with higher intelligence, so parents tell the doctor “give our child that one, please”. The result may or may not be that the child has higher intelligence, and it may or may not have non-obvious side effects.