We are living at the cusp of an exponential technological revolution. The world is changing so rapidly that we fail utterly in updating our notions of morality, ethics and culture along with it. One fine example is the battle of intellectual property rights against the zero cost of replication over the internet. People (and the recording industry) are still at loggerheads on how to come to terms with such a monstrous revolution.
This is just the begining. We are soon to witness another fantastic dilemma – about the very meaning of a physical relationship in a world shaped by virtual reality. The notions of family, friends and marriage need to take new meanings in the coming ages.
But no change would be more disrupting than the upcoming revolution in genetic engineering and biotechnology. This will be posing dilemmas on the most sacred relationship ever – that between a parent and a child. We are soon to enter into an age of designer babies – children whose genetic material would be carefully engineered to ward off potential diseases and pitfalls.
The Human Genome Project is carefully mapping the DNA of the entire human population, and studying the effects of several genes. As the information keeps on exploding, we will soon be discovering which gene/set of genes are responsible for immunity against cholera or for baldness or for obesity or for myopia and so on. Parents of the future will soon be at a position to choose which set of genes their baby should possess.
The baby would receive genetic material not only from its mother and father, but from an infinite number of sources. In this scenario, the very meaning of parent-offspring would change. Throughout history, parents have looked upon children as the means to carry forward their genetic material. Most of the behavior of plants or animals (or indeed humans) is to be explaind by this primitive urge to propagate their DNA. The bodies of animals or human beings are merely bags to carry genetic material. Their primary loyalties rest with the genetic programs written in the marvellous code of DNA. With advances in science, however, DNA has no more use for these perishable bags of transmission. Thus liberated, the bags/bodies become truly independent. The primary purpose of existence would be for the sake of existence itself.
Let us observe how this miracle would be achieved. The genetic code of DNA, been secret for eons of time, is now being transcripted into other languages. Every cell of a living organism contains a copy of the genetic code, and now methods exist to preserve these cells in isolation. The stem-cell culture can grow complete bodies true to the genetic program inside the cell. At present, this remains an understudied and costly affair. But soon in the future, this becomes the most common means of reproduction for all living species.
The repurcussions of this technology are extremely profound. Evolution gets bypassed and every gene becomes immortal. Though this sounds far-fetched, this is not so. Humans, for example, have indeed stopped evolving for a couple of hundred years now. This ihas happened due to the advances of medicine. This is the reason why black-skinned people do not die in huge numbers when they settle in polar climates, or why white-skinned people do not die in huge numbers when they settle in tropical climates.
Thus, the notion of evolution has stopped having any meaning for the human species. Soon, this will be true for a multitude of other species. Unless there comes about a mass extinction like a meteorite which we are not able to avoid, the diversity of the entire genetic material of nature will forever be preserved by the advances of science.
What is evolution ? It is the logical outcome of multiplication of a gene which produces a phenotype better at survival. Due to the enormously long life-times of most living beings, this process needs to have millions or billions of years to produce any meaningful results.
But, human culture and science progress at an enormously rapid pace as compared to the slowness of biological evolution – by millions of orders of magnitude. Human beings are currently so spoilt by science that they demand results within their own life time (or within the span of one generation). They do not want to wait for the millions of years that are required.
What is eugenics ? It is the extremely stupid process of trusting biological evolution to take its course, and wantonly killing unwanted genes/attributes with the hope of making it faster. This sounded like a good idea for the Spartan Greeks who killed all their deformed/handicapped children. Anybody who thinks of similar terms in the current age needs to have their heads examined by a psychiatrist. Firstly, we don’t need to kill any individuals in the rabid hope of speedening up biological evolution. Secondly, the process of judging the genotype based on the phenotype is stupid to begin with.
In today’s age, we can pick and choose on the genetic material themselves. In the future, the parents will be able to choose whether their baby would have blond hair / black hair. They would be able to decide whether their baby needs to look like Marlon Brando or like Mussolini. They might indeed be X-men with superior mental/physical capabilities hard to imagine in our own generation.
Now, in this scenario, it is extremely annoying to hear the talk of racist propaganda. When immortality (for our genes) is just around the corner, who can even bear to listen to the melancholy of racism ? – only the most melancholic nuts that are the marvels of human evolution !!! Not to mention that the argument is extremely stupid by itself considering the digital format of genetic information.
Until our sensibilities of love and family keep to have their meaning, let’s enjoy our life for what it has to offer. Let’s make love. We hardly have enough time. We are soon going to turn immortal.
