How Would You Like Your Offspring

How would you like your offspring?

     

Ready-made to succeed

In Anthes’ discussion she touched base on genetically modifying our species in a sort of “upgrade” fashion, a process that leaves the individual with a heightened sense or leverage in an ability like let’s say creativity. What really got my stomach turning wasn’t the idea of a designer baby but the social outcomes that could arise from babies being designed to be genetically better than others and how readily this technology could become available if you could afford it. Why this made me uncomfortable was the possibility of elitist modifying their offspring to be extraordinary creatures while leaving those who could not afford to “upgrade” their children stranded to ride the wave of evolution. Natural vs. Artificial talent would become blurred and for a time could be very unfair to unmodified individuals as they compete for spots in a competitive job market or even just school in general. We all know what it’s like to sit next to that one person who studies the night before an exam and through some gift of god manages to score higher than you on it, the very test you studied for a week for. Now imagine that as an entire social class and it isn't hard to see how this advantage could lead to a large gap in social class.

But how realistic is modifying our genes and tailoring mutations for a specific trait?

Easier than you think believe it or not, while traits are not based on single genes most of the time with enough digging we could uncover what and how these sequences of amino acids serve their functions. In an article by James Shapiro entitles “How Natural Genetic Engineering Solves Problems in Protein Evolution” he reviews the process of domain encoding. In the world of genetics it has been readily accepted that a single amino acid substitution is rarely associated with a change in function. James states that “how proteins changed their size, formed completely novel structures, or combined the capacities to bind multiple different molecules were difficult to account for on the basis of successive single amino acid substitutions. “(Shapiro,2012). Where the variation and function lays is in these sequences of amino acids called “domains”, what is interesting about domains is the fact that we can mix and match different ones to produce a new trait that either has a function similar to the whole of its parts or no function at all. In order for these domains to survive in nature however they needed to be beneficial to the organism but if the secrets to creativity and intelligence, even vision are traced to the domain level then it is possible that these “upgrades” may be plausible.

What about the little guy?

Anthes also made a comment about our duty as a species to help out other species that could not fend for themselves. So if we modify our species to excel past what was originally possible we have a duty to genetically modify the animals around us so that they can have a shot at this evolution highway. That’s all fine but what about the members in our species who still can’t afford modifications, don’t we have a duty to ensure that they too receive equal say and chance at these “upgrades”. What then happens to their children, will “upgrades” available to impoverished communities consist of last years model hand me downs or will winning a chance to have their children upgraded be like playing the lotto? In my opinion it is a really cool idea but with all the politics and chance for segregations and unfair treatment I feel like it’s not worth the hassle.         

Works cited

Shapiro, James A. "How Natural Genetic Engineering Solves Problems in Protein Evolution."The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 May 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-a-shapiro/genetic-engineering_b_1541180.html>.