I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s about the prospect of genetic technology creating a new caste system, and what, if anything, we can do about it.
It’s easy to sequence the DNA of embryos conceived through IVF. We can use that technology to screen out the ones carrying genes for devastating disorders, which no one could object to.
But what happens when we don’t stop there, and start selecting for embryos carrying the genes that parents want? In a world of capitalism and rampant inequality, it’s inevitable that people will want to give their offspring every possible leg up. What happens when the rich and the privileged start creating custom-tailored children, selecting the genes that make them the tallest, the most handsome or the most intelligent? Should we embrace this brave new world of eugenics, or is this a Pandora’s box we don’t dare open?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter and the ability to post comments.
An American startup, Heliospect Genomics, charges prospective parents as much as $50,000 to screen embryos for desirable genetic traits, especially intelligence. According to undercover footage, they claim they can help parents select the embryos genetically predestined to be the smartest. And if Heliospect’s founders are to be believed, the first children selected through their screening process have already been born or will soon be.
Naturally, this is an opportunity available only to the wealthy. Heliospect only does the genetic screening; it doesn’t help create the embryos. Those have to be obtained through IVF, which costs tens of thousands to start with, on top of whatever Heliospect charges.
We don’t need to imagine the dystopias that might spring from this. Hollywood has already depicted sci-fi worlds with a genetic caste system, where the elite modify their offspring to be superior while the rest of us are an oppressed underclass. We’re barreling toward that future in reality, which is a terrifying prospect.
There are a number of problems with this idea:
1) and foremost, is it actually possible to screen an embryo for intelligence? It’s not a simple thing to screen an actual born person for intelligence. For example, what *kind* of intelligence? Emotional? Social? Any of the others?
2) pretending for a moment it’s possible to screen for getting-into-Harvard intelligence, potential does not equal eventual. Any number of things can impact a person’s intelligence by the time they reach their teen years and start applying to college: nutrition; environmental hazards; accidents resulting in TBI or repeated concussions; undiscovered learning disabilities; any number of diseases including COVID (leading to long COVID), chicken pox, and measles; and many other factors.
Also, did GATTACA and Incorporated teach us nothing?!?
Katydid @1 is correct. There *are* no genes or genetic sequence for intelligence: the field of psychology doesn’t even have a definition of what “intelligence” is. Ask 25 psychologists, you will get 25 different answers.
Also, as PZ is always saying, genes don’t work separately, the Mendelian model is quite discredited. Genes shape the environment and the enviroment shapes genes. It’s more a matter of complex neural networks, which can’t be gentically selected, interacting with each other and the environment. Also, anything can happen during fetal development, no matter what “genes” are there, developmental events decide what neural networks you end up with. Moreover, the networks are almost infinitely plastic most of people’s lives.
I think that we’ll never get to being able to select fetuses for “genetic” traits (at least, I hope so!) This company is a scam, and I hope that they con a lot of rich and snobby suckers into shelling out vast sums to them. And, after all, once the child is born that they’ve “genetically” selected as the best at everything, the parents can’t give the child back or sue for breach of contract.:)