Dogmafood writes:
As we gain the ability to manipulate genes, will we be able to effectively hyper accelerate the evolutionary process?
We will effectively hyper-accelerate genomic change. I don't think we can call it evolution at that point. I think we're taking about generations, not decades, before it happens.
Are we becoming the stewards of our own genome?
Yes.
Are we up to it?
What would be the standard? Genetic surgery on germ cells will eliminate most birth defects and inherited disease, though some will still occur de novo. This seems an unblemished good--if it is widely available.
Ultimately, it will be a political decision, and politicans will have difficulty denying genetic cures--and even greater difficulty permitting genetic improvements. But think of abortions: the wealthy were always able to get those discreetly and as safely as their era's medical care permitted.
Perhaps parents will buy genetic insurance for their kids to use as adults, just as parents once commonly bought small burial insurance policies, or we now buy long-term care insurance.
Again, I think we're a few generations from effective practical genome management, but I don't think the gene is going back in the bottle.
I suspect that, at least at first, only the richest, most industrialized nations will be able to offer this genomic service to only their most affluent citizens. Perhaps the poor will sell their sperm and eggs as raw material the way they now sell their kidneys and half-livers. Perhaps being born with a superior mutant allele will be the new Powerball lottery.
Will the rich become a superior subspecies, or even species? We've always lived with the rich getting richer--can we live with them getting better?
That may destabilize the world more than any disparity of wealth. I'd probably be on the barricades if my descendants were being left behind:
Everybody mutates or nobody mutates.
Edited by Omnivorous, : *Add a nod to the original Tupamaro.
Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!-Gogol Bordello