In a review of Redesigning Humans the NY Times quotes the author, Gregory Stock:

Stock's overarching claim is that germ-line modifications will ''write a new page in the history of life, allowing us to seize control of our evolutionary future,'' an echo of the classic eugenicist dream. New technologies will allow humans to make fundamental alterations to their individual genetic compositions and those of their children. The net effect, he says, will be to draw ''reproduction into a highly selective social process that is far more rapid and effective at spreading successful genes than traditional sexual competition and mate selection.'' In the future, he claims, we will be ''much more than simply human.'

I fail to see how anyone can argue with a straight face that allowing rich people loose in the human genome is going to improve the species at an accelerated rate. What, pray tell, counts as "successful" to those folks? Big breasts? Height? Intelligence? Alpha-instincts? What?

With luck, natural selection will just have a bunch more mutations to choose from. Without luck, we'll all end up with snub noses because Richy Rich thinks they look better, and you know what a trend-setter he is.

The good news is also that I think we're a long way away from really understanding what does what at a fine level in the genome. The bad news is that our ignorance won't prevent a whole bunch of people from mucking about with it anyway. The results are bound to be messy much of the time. (Can anybody say "thalidomide"?)

I do agree with Stock that this change is coming. I hope that, initially, we can find a way to legislate that it be used only to cure genetic diseases, not to "enhance" or "tinker," at least for some appropriate moratorium period, while we try to get a grip on what it is we're actually doing.

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