Earlier in this series the list of potential modifications of the body began with the relatively obvious, and spiralled off toward the fantastic. Now we will do the same with the mind. Many people take Prozac. Most are now pretty comfortable with the idea that mood is a function of chemistry. Thereforem it follows that we understand that it is genes that control that chemistry.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health found an area on chromosome 17 the predisposes people to anxiety.
Other researchers are hot on the trail of a human "happiness gene." They are presently working on the gene for the dopamine D4 receptor. An Israeli group found that certain variations of that gene made people more likely to seek out novelty, and more likely to answer "yes" to statements such as "I am a cheerful optimist." Such genes may "determine our average set point" for happiness the researching say. Even "winning the Nobel Prize or marrying our childhood sweetheart may not alter our overall happiness -- for that to happen, gene therapy would be required."
It isn't particularly difficult to imagine that genetic engineering could be designed to make our children happier. The Chief of gene structure and regulation at the National Cancer Institute imagines a future time in which a young couple named Syd and Kayla get to adjust the emotional design of their foetus. "They pondered the choices before them. These ranged from the altruism level of Mother Teresa to the most cut-throat Chief Executive Officer. Syd was leaning toward sainthood. Kayla argued that the child should be an entrepreneur. In the end they chose a level half way between, hoping for the perfect mix of benevolence and a competitive edge. Syd and Kayla decided that their child's happiness setting should not be too high. They wanted her to be able to feel real emotions. If there was a death, they wanted her to mourn the loss. If there was a birth, she should rejoice."
By now, the vision of would-be genetic engineers should be fairly clear. They want to do to humans what we have already done to salmon, wheat, pine trees and tomatoes. They want to make them better in some way, to delete, modify or add genes in the developing embryos so that the cells of the resulting person will produce proteins that make them taller and more muscular, or smarter and less aggressive. Maybe handsome, perhaps sweet. Even happy. In certain ways this is a deeply attractive picture.
Suppose you are not ready. Suppose you are perfectly content with the prospect of a child who shares the unmodified genes of you and your partner. What if you think that manipulating the DNA of your child might be dangerous? Or maybe presumptuous. How long will you be able to hold out if germline manipulation begins to spread among your neighbours? "Suppose parents could add thirty points to their child's IQ." asks the economist Lester Thurow. "Wouldn't you want to do it? And if you don't, you child will be the stupidest in the area." That's exactly what it might feel like to be a parent facing that choice. You decide not to soup your kids up. --Well, it could even come to seem like child abuse.
The problem becomes greater. If everyone's adding 30 IQ points, then having an IQ of 150 won't get you any closer to one of the best universities than you were in the beginning. You might be able to argue that society as a whole was helped, because there was more total brainpower at work, but your child won't be any closer to the top of the pack. All you'll be able to do is to up the chances that she won't be left hopelessly far behind.
With germline manipulation you get only one chance. The extra chromosome you stick in your child when he's born, is the one he carries throughout his life. Let's say baby Sophie has a state-of-the-art gene job. Her parents paid for the proteins discovered by 2006 and these, on average, gave ten extra IQ points. By the time Sophie is five years old, though, scientists will certainly have discovered ten more genes linked to intelligence. Now anyone with a good credit card can get twenty IQ points and a memory boost and a permantly wrinkle free forehead. By the time Sophie is twenty-five years old, and in the job market, she's already getting obsolete. The kids coming out of college just have better genetic hardware. This vision of your child as a nearly useless copy of Windows 95 should make you think, and then fight hard to make sure we never get started down this kind of a road.
Here's another thing to consider: the rich would benefit from genetic engineering far more than the poor. The gap in power, wealtth and education that presently divides many of our societies, and also the world at large, would be written into our very biology. If we can't afford the sixty cents per person it would cost to buy bed-nets, to protect most of Africa from malaria, it is not likely we will extend to anyone but the richest these latest forms of genetic technology.
This injustice is so clear that even the strongest advocates of genetic engineering don't attempt to deny it. The most revealing account of the divided future comes from Lee Silver, in his book "Remaking Eden" he wrote "Emotional stability, long term happiness, inborn talents, increased creativity, healthy bodies, these could be the starting points chosen for the children of the rich." "Obesity, heart disease, hypertension, alcoholism, mental illness, these will be the diseases left to drift randomly among the families of the underclass. Genetically engineered people will all carry synthetic genes, and they would control all aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry. The "naturals" would work as "low paid service providers and labourers."
End if Part 5, Part 6 will follow.
