Human Genome
Autor: 思嘉 杨 • May 7, 2015 • Research Paper • 841 Words (4 Pages) • 905 Views
Suppose it were possible to improve the quality of human genome. delete any bad version of all other human genes, and to replace them with good versions, without any risk to health. Would that be the right thing to do? Everyone would like to have children who are healthy, beautiful and gifted. But people vary widely in all these qualities, depending on their parents' genes. Most human genes exist in several different versions in the population: some of them are great to have, some so-so and some downright deleterious. Then everybody would like to have perfect genes and there will be no variations in EQS, IQs, behaviors etc. With reduced genetic differences, we risk turning the human population into one giant clone, tedious to meet with and bereft of the variation. The pursuit of perfection, if carried to extremes, is a sure recipe for extinction. Human are always evolving and without various traits, there will be no evolution. Environments are always changing, and there is no optimal perfect genes that most fit the environment. Because people lost ability to adapt to the new environment, they will become unfitted. In the long run, loss of variation will lead to extinction one day.
Without government funding, most people can't afford the genome improvement except for the rich. Those babies who have already born in a wealthy family are lucky enough not to suffer the genetic disease and have those imperfect genes to be improved into perfect genes. With many perfect people, there will be more competition and this is unfair to most imperfect people. There will be lots of discrimination. Some people will not be willing to make friends with those people who don't have their genes improves. In working places, companies must prefer to hire people with perfect genes and discriminate people who don't have genes improved. Schools may refuse to accept children without improved genes because schools want smart and perfect children. Insurance company may also refuse to cover for those people who don't have their genes improved. The world will become a place full of discrimination
How sure are scientists about the safety of the procedure and technique of improving genes? Gene is so small that it is difficult to change the specific gene. How could we make sure that improved genes that worked on rats will work on human too? Many genes have more than one effect, and swapping out the bad version of a gene can have unpredictable complications. The new gene, may interact badly with the person's other genes because some
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