Philosophy of Genetics

Eugenics is Evil

G.K. Chesterton once wrote about the "Scientifically Organized State" and the evils of eugenics.  Having the government make decisions about who is fit to live, or what genes you should have, is the ultimate evil. 

However, genetic selection based on individual choice is another matter.  It can bring about greater fairness in society. Eugenics is defined (in my opinion) as State control over genetic selection.  When genetic selection is based on individual choice, it is no longer eugenics. 

Some people (including Jeremy Rifkin) may disagree with this definition.  In a recent Salon article, they describe his viewpoint: "an insidious slide toward a new eugenics [is] consecrated on the altar of consumer choice".  But this is guilt by association.  If someone has a problem with individual choice, they should come up with a different argument.  It's not eugenics.

Synthetic Biology

Craig Ventor's new venture aims to create artificial life forms (see article).  His initial plan is to create a synthetic bacteria by assembling a minimal set of genes required to "hatch" a stripped down bacteria (some bacteria only need 500 genes to live), then adding in other genes to achieve a specific scientific goal, such as mass-producing proteins or other products like nylon.

Down the road, other synthetic organisms loom.  Yet, in reality, the artificial organisms will be assembled from known genes (not new genes).  The synthesis lies in bringing known genes from many types of organism into a single organism.

Gregory Stock: "We're going to ... manifest our philosophies in our biology"

In a recent interview with Salon magazine, Gregory Stock, the director of the UCLA Program on Medicine, Science and Technology, answered some of the following questions:

• [Will] the rich perpetually enshrine their social advantages genetically, by making their kids smarter, better looking and more ambitious
• Do you think that this is all just the next natural step in human evolution?

Should we allow Genetic Selection?

There is a distribution of traits across people. This assists in the robustness of society, or at least it did in the State of Nature, because it allocates some roles to certain people and different roles to others. Some are predisposed to be explorers, some are born leaders, and some are followers.

Certain personality traits, however, are subjectively very uncomfortable or destructive, and many traits are no longer needed in our modern information society. For example, a small percentage of the population is highly paranoid, forever asserting that other tribes are encroaching upon our territory, or that our food is poisoned. Far from being unnatural, this is a highly tuned personality type from the State of Nature. Sometimes, paranoids are right. Sometimes there are conspiracies or slowly changing situations that only a fanatic can recognise, make concrete and alert others to. But subjectively, to be a paranoid person is torturous.

Parents roll the dice, when having children. Abortions are now becoming more prevalent due to the genetic screening of late-term fetuses, and this is an ominous development. Pregnant women over 35, especially, are encouraged to have an amniocentesis, and abort the fetus if a genetic disease is detected. In the future, however, as more and more genetic tests become available, women will abort because their baby has potential criminal tendencies or emotional imbalances, as well. The genes for all sorts of personality traits will soon be known. Do we really want to encourage this "get-pregnant-then-test-then-abort" strategy of genetic screening?

Rolling the Genetic Dice

Humans currently living should be respected and supported above all potential new life. This should be our highest moral principle. But each human couple has the potential for a million different children, due to the random selection of genes in each fertilized egg. People usually just roll the genetic dice and have the two or three children they do. Once a child is born, they cannot imagine the child being otherwise, and this is how it should be. But parents simply ignore their thousands of other natural potential children, and deny them life.

Cloning, and Human Difference

Two questions are often asked when discussing the possibility of human cloning:   

• Since humans already share 99% of the same DNA, why would you want to clone someone for just a 1% improvement?
• Don't identical twins share 100% of the same DNA (just as clones would)? They are not always alike. So why would clones be any different?

The first question has an easy answer. Sometimes the amount of difference between two things does not matter as much as where the difference lies. For example, you could take two nearly identical keys and try to start your automobile. They may differ by less than 1% of their metal form, one of the keys perhaps having an additional groove or point. However, one key will start your automobile, and the other will not, a dramatic difference in effect.    

The second question revolves around a common misconception of what it means for something to be genetic. It's true that identical twins who are raised by different families (for instance, if they were both given up for adoption) can be slightly different in their behavior. But this only occurs when the same genes are set up to respond differently to different environments. Take the following examples:
       
Joe and Bob are identical twins raised separately. Joe's adoptive parents are somewhat authoritarian and psychologically abusive. Bob's adoptive parents are loving and supportive. However, Joe does not have the genes to be adversely affected by his situation, and so grows up to be confident and productive, as does Bob.

However, if Joe and Bob had the genes for extreme need for approval, which some people have, Joe would have suffered lasting personality scars from his upbringing. Bob, because he was given approval and support, would not have.    

So it all depends on what "branching genes" you have, which behave differently depending on your environment. Two people with identical branching genes, but different situations, will develop somewhat differently.

So should we allow human cloning? Of course. Individual couples (as opposed to the government) should always be allowed full choice over their reproductive options. This is especially true in the Post-Industrial Age, in which brain-power (determined genetically to a great extent) is the key to survival. If you like your own genes (and motivations and personality), then why would you risk rolling the genetic dice to have children who may lack the genes for success in the modern world?

Genetic selection, or Genetic Lottery?

In the next 10 years, we will have genetic tests to determine whether a child will be born naturally optimistic, energetic, extroverted, resilient, and able to defer gratification, or not. Parents could choose which of their potential children would then be borne. This would reduce the number of late-term abortions, which modern society should be moving away from in any case.

A typical couple, call them Phil and Rose, has the potential to bear many different children. Assume, for this example, that they decide to fertilize eight eggs, although the real number could be in the thousands. Let's call the fertilized eggs (i.e. the potential children) "Tom," "Sue," "Betty," "Bill," "Joe," "Sam," "Jill" and "Molly." Using genetic tests on the "Tom" egg, we see that he would be born naturally inquisitive and somewhat ill-at-ease in modern society. (He may be more at home in a primitive environment, but this no longer exists.) "Sue" would be born prone to severe depression, and would be unable to study or work. "Betty" would be born highly energetic and sociable, with a good mind for facts. "Bill" would be born with obsessive-compulsive disorder. "Joe" would be born with a low threshold for violent behavior, and a tendency toward alcoholism. "Sam" would be born with an analytical nature, being comfortable with people, but also somewhat withdrawn. "Jill" would be born with a need to please people in authority, and would tend to fall into abusive relationships. "Molly" would be born highly driven, somewhat uneasy, but highly motivated to succeed. After a genetic screening, knowing that genes are only loosely correlated with certain behaviors in the environment they could provide, the parents of these potential children decide to bear only Sam and Molly, and leave the rest unborn.

Is this futuristic form of genetic selection moral or immoral? Indeed, we endorse other, less humane means of breeding across society, although we rarely acknowledge it. Men in prison--or sentenced to death for their crimes--cannot help a woman conceive. Thus we keep people with violent or criminal tendencies from having children. Is that a better alternative?