With new genotype-phenotype correlations being discovered almost every week, it is but a small step to start wondering about possibilities of directed reproduction. Eliminating gene-related diseases is an opportunity that immediately pops up in people’s minds, but other ‘applications’ such as intelligence (and other) enhancement also trigger some what-if trains of thought.

James D. Miller, professor of economics at Smith College, recently published an article on embryo screening and intelligence enhancement, featuring the following thought experiment :

“Imagine that in ten years China forces all its college students to get genetic tests. Students with intelligence genes in the top 1% of the top 1% of humankind are then forced to donate sperm or eggs. China then uses the sperm and eggs to create a billion embryos each year. The genetic intellectual potential of all these embryos is checked. Those in the top 10,000 are implanted into women. Each of these embryos has the intellectual potential to be in the top one-billionth of humankind.

Now because of environmental factors many of these embryos won’t turn into intellectual titans. But let’s say that one in ten does. This means that each year 1,000 people with the scientific ability of Einstein will be born. By 2035 they will become adults and start doing scientific research. I imagine these Einsteins will be rather helpful to China’s economy and military.”

With (access to) energy-related resources such as oil and gas serving as major weapons on the geopolitical battlefield (also other scarce resources btw, e.g. cobalt, coltan, copper, gum arabic etc.), what if in a true-knowledge economy ruled world, countries (not necessarily China) would turn to the powers of genetics/eugenics to get their competitive advantage? What if not governments and research labs, but also self-organized citizen groups and large private companies would enter this picture and move in the same direction? What about issues of biodiversity, societal equilibria, other threats and opportunities, etc. ?

Enough fascinating food for futures-thought …

Via Accelerating Future (do check out some of the interesting comments made, regarding both implications as well as scientific criticisms)

This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 08:36 and is filed under envision, future, science, society, technology, trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.