Sunday, March 1, 2009

That's him alright. He looks just like this DNA.

When I first saw this article, I was intrigued. Upon reading it, I was amazed, then disturbed, then frightened. But now I'm back to intrigued. We now have the technology to make a composite picture of a person based on their DNA. Wow. Someone could pick up a dab of blood, a hair or some skin cells from you and create a picture of what you should look like, with relative accuracy. I'm betting this method is only in its infancy, and once the practice of obtaining DNA samples of everyone becomes commonplace, it will be much harder to get away with a crime. I'm suddenly remembering the movie Gattaca, in which your DNA decides what you would do in life. This could be very interesting for our future as a society, where you can be tracked by your DNA, catch hereditary diseases before they show themselves, and even carry around a copy of your DNA profile in your wallet in case of emergency. But the downside (and there always is one), is that you can be tracked by your DNA. Also, the idea of eugenics rears its Huxleyan head out of the gloom. If you knew ahead of time that your child would have some disability, or that your combined DNA could possibly produce a serial killer, a child with crippling depression, or heaven forbid, an ugly child, would they end the pregnancy or avoid having children altogether? Doctors could covertly clean up our gene pool, or create perfect combinations of DNA to make super-soldiers or champion runners or--serial killers. I'm going to wait and see on this one.

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