Some people joke about genetics and tell you that there must not be a life guard for the gene pool. But within the next 20 or so years, that quote may become obsolete or at the very least altered. With the advancements of genetic engineering, soon the gene pool will have a life guard, because scientists are working on ways to allow parents option when conceiving their children. Many people are, as of right now, referring to this process as designing children. This is mainly due to the fact that you can potentially change the outcome of their eye color or hair color or body style before they are born. Not only are scientists working on this, but they are also working on ways to scan fetuses for genetic diseases and disorders to help prevent children being born with them. With genetic engineering, also comes the hope for many people of a long sought after dream. Immortality. For centuries, men have tried countless different ways to make themselves live on after they die. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids that last thousands of years. Men right biographies to preserve their life in a book for others to read after they are gone. So when a television show comes along and depicts a solution to immortality, of course people are going to be interested. Genetic engineering has somehow become that solution and I believe that Star Trek: The Next Generation has helped this become a reality for many people. The writers could not have known that what they were creating could somehow lead to a giant research that was only beginning to develop around the time of the series.
your title make me laugh out loud haha. on a side note, parents are trying to make their children different before they are born, but what if the child is born not to their liking? i think designing babies can offer up a whole new problem of resentment towards the outcome of the baby and possibly anger towards the scientists who didn't make good on their word.
ReplyDeletethank you! I thought it was pretty funny when I saw it so I had to use it. And while I can agree with your view, the more important part of genetic engineering and the ultimate goal is to prevent diseases. But to work up to that, scientists start out with small things like appearance, currently parents can choose whether they get a girl or boy. It is crazy to think we are at this point with science, in my opinion. Yet it is very fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThere's great profit potential in genetic engineering for disease prevention. I'm hoping for the sake of oru genetic variation that by the time genetic designing becomes readily avaiable and mainstream we'll have realized that diversity is good and not to mess with it unless it's life-threatening (like genetic disease)
ReplyDeleteThat is exactly what I am hoping for. I would love to see diseases go away, my grandma died from Alzheimer's and a good friend of mine has a 50/50 chance of having Huntington's so to stop these would be wonderful. As for changing and creating a sort of super race... well that sounds useless and a tad stupid in my opinion. If it happens you can say we truly learned nothing from the Holocaust and Hitler's failed attempt at this.
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