Choosing the traits of your child - how far away are we?

Surely this is just the first rung on a ladder to the future previously spoken of.

Imagine having your DNA read and a person telling you exactly your limits. This would allow people to judge you and compare you with others. Some people would be simply better than others - this would create a reigning upper class of people. Along with the obvious potnetial IQ, potential muscle strength and athletic ability, personality traits such as kindness and generosity are also genes. (I do acknowledge the fact that these all also depend of the environment that grew up in and are living in.)

aperson wrote:

Imagine having your DNA read and a person telling you exactly your limits. This would allow people to judge you and compare you with others. Some people would be simply better than others - this would create a reigning upper class of people. Along with the obvious potnetial IQ, potential muscle strength and athletic ability, personality traits such as kindness and generosity are also genes. (I do acknowledge the fact that these all also depend of the environment that grew up in and are living in.)

They could tell less about your DNA as an infant than you can tell about a grown person in one glance. You can already make guesses about who is stronger, smarter, better at certain things just by looking at them...and people already use this information to judge you. So I'm not worried.

You are proposing a debate which most likely will entrench itself in the realms of ethics, where we'd be pusing eachother around in circles.

I suspect we already have the knowledge among us to do a lot more than determine the sex of the baby.

It would be the fall of humanity. If we could design our own babies, I seriously doubt that anyone would desire a 'boy suitable to work in the coalmine'. We'd all be lining up for the next Einstein. Where would that lead us? Our diversity is key to our survival.

They could tell less about your DNA as an infant than you can tell about a grown person in one glance. You can already make guesses about who is stronger, smarter, better at certain things just by looking at them...and people already use this information to judge you. So I'm not worried.

The difference is that all of one's traits etc would be defined precisely on a piece of paper as opposed to a rough guess by looking at someone.

Many books and movies, such as Gattaca, depict a future in which choosing the personality, appeatraits and abilities of your child are commonplace. At first this may seem like a distant reality, if a reality at all, but how far away are we really?

Quote:

More than 40 per cent of fertility clinics in the US are allowing couples to choose the sex of their child...

(New Scientist 30 September 2006, pg 15)

Surely this is just the first rung on a ladder to the future previously spoken of.

Another question - will this future be heaven or hell? Imagine having your DNA read and a person telling you exactly your limits. This would allow people to judge you and compare you with others. Some people would be simply better than others - this would create a reigning upper class of people. Along with the obvious potnetial IQ, potential muscle strength and athletic ability, personality traits such as kindness and generosity are also genes. (I do acknowledge the fact that these all also depend of the environment that grew up in and are living in.)

Yet another question - if nobody was violent, aggresive, or a potential bully, then the world would be, well, boring. There would be no challenges to face or enemies to stand up to, and your potential in your career would be a fixed variable.

Errrr... perhaps this is a dumb ill placed question but if we could or did wouldn't that screw up the whole evolutionary process?

For people who don't like to believe in a "God" we sure do like to play the part don't we?