From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2003 - 14:32:52 MDT
mez@apexnano.com (Ramez Naam) writes:
>From: Adrian Tymes [mailto:wingcat@pacbell.net]
>> ...okay, I'm spacing here. There's a standard retort
>> to the fear that genetic enhancement will lead to a
>> single genotype becoming dominant - much moreso, by a
>> much higher percentage (at least of those with access
>> to this) having more 9s in their 99.999...% similar
>> DNA, than is presently the norm - with the remaining
>> holdouts becoming discriminated against for that
>> reason alone. But I forget what that retort is just
>> now.
>
>I'm not aware of a standard retort here. If there is one I'd like to
>hear it.
I don't know what the standard retort is, but one obvious approach is
to figure out why evolution has produced diverse genes rather than one
dominant genotype. Genetic engineering doesn't appear to alter the
incentives that organisms have to adopt or avoid diverse strategies.
The literature on why sexual reproduction exists might help. It has
some obvious costs to the organisms that adopted it. The best explanation
I've read for what benefits justify those costs is that for organisms
that reproduce slowly, diversity is an important strategy for avoiding
disease. Bacteria and viruses evolve fast enough that if they only need
to target one genotype, they can adapt to its weaknesses well enough to
make that genotype uncompetitive with a species that has a large number
of genotypes with different weaknesses.
Even if disease ceases to be a problem for humans, there are plenty of
similar ways that diversity can be rewarded. For instance, if most parents
in 1930 decided to optimize the personalities of their children for
popular occupations such as farming, and a handful choose to optimize
for rocket scientists, the rocket scientists kids would have gotten
even larger salaries than was actually the case because they would be
in such short supply. And if everyone tried to breed rocket scientists,
the farmer salaries would rise.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | "To announce that there must be no criticism of http://www.rahul.net/pcm | the President, or that we are to stand by the | President right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic | and servile, but morally treasonable to the | American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
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