The Future of Neuroscience:
In Future People Choose Their Partners Based On Their Genes Compatibility
In Future People Choose Their Partners Based On Their Genes Compatibility
Neuroscience going to create history by Determine Lover's
Compatibility. Scientist Predicts Eugenic Society in 5 Years: Gene Tests to
Determine Lover's Compatibility.
It seems we may be heading into a new era of eugenics, and
in the future, instead of choosing to settle with partners we love, we may be
choosing them based on the compatibility of our genes, a leading scientist has
warned. It seems we may be heading into a new era of eugenics, and in the
future, instead of choosing to settle with partners we love, we may be choosing
them based on the compatibility of our genes, a leading scientist has warned.
Professor Armand Leroi, of Imperial College London, predicts
that the ever declining cost of DNA testing means that we may be heading toward
a society that is based on genetic superiority.
It seems we may be heading into a
new era of eugenics, where society will embrace genetic superiority and people
will pick their partners based on genes and not love. The 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca is about how a genetically inferior man, living in a future
society driven by liberal eugenics where babies are designed to have the best
traits of their parents, takes on the identity of another genetically superior
man in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.
Leroi told the Euroscience Open Forum 2012, in Dublin, that he expects that in five to
10 years, it will become standard practice for young people to pay to access
their entire genetic code, according to The Telegraph.
Naturally, the future generation's desire to have a healthy
baby will then lead them to request access to view the genetic blueprint of any
prospective long-term partner.
He told researchers attending the major science conference
in Dublin that with the information, future couples could then use IVF to weed
out offspring with incurable disease.
However, he added that it is unlikely that people will have
the "luxury" of using the technology to design babies by intellect or
eye color, but will instead focus on stopping genetic diseases.
Speaking in a session titled “I human: are new scientific
discoveries challenging our identity as a species”, Leroi said the cost of
genetic sequencing has been falling so quickly that “it is going to become
very, very accessible, very, very soon”.
As an example, he said that the cost of genetically sequencing a person has fallen from $1 billion more than a
decade ago to about $4,000.
He noted that in some ways eugenics are already here, with
tens of thousands of babies with Down’s syndrome and other illnesses being
aborted every year.
"These processes are very well established in most
European countries," he told the conference on Thursday. "Many of the
ethical problems that people raise when they speak of neoeugenics are nought
once you offer gene selection or mate selection as a eugenic tool. We are
actually beginning to identify the genes that make a human.”
"The search for an essence is a 2,000-year-old myth.
What we are left with is a sense of capacity and the role of genes in the way
they give us these things," he added. “I am certain genome sequencing will
be available on the NHS (UK health service) within our lifetimes. It is going
to be very, very accessible very, very soon.”
Danish neurobiologist Lone Frank predicts that some
countries will embrace the idea.
"Some cultures will say, 'Let’s
get a lot of genomes out on the table and see who’s got the best one',"
she said, according to the Daily Mail. However, she added
that others will see it as an attempt to play God.
Philippa Taylor, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said that
society must "recognize and resist the eugenic mind set," the Daily
Mail reported.
"Our society’s increasing obsession with celebrity
status, physical perfection and high intelligence fuels the view that the lives
of people with disabilities or genetic diseases are somehow less worth
living," Taylor said to the UK-based paper.
"We must recognize and resist the eugenic mind set. Our
priorities should be to develop treatments and supportive measures for those
with genetic disease; not to search them out and destroy them before
birth," she added.
Image source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1043922
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