From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed Jul 12 2000 - 08:34:09 MDT
Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> At 03:27 PM 11/07/00 -0400, Mike wrote with keen 20/20 vision:
>
> >since the advent of health insurance and scientifically based health care,
> >the percent of the population with poor eyesight has increased dramatically.
> >Such people would have previously died off early due to accident,
> predation, or
> >battle.
>
> Yep, all those feeble 4-eyed Nobel prize winners and their
> spectacle-equipped postdocs would be expunged from the gene pool. What a
> pity the uberhealthy have to put up with the presence of those wimps!
Taking things out of context as usual.
My point is not to object to this phenonmenon on an individual basis, as you so
'knee jerk' defensively seem to assume, but to point out that this trend in and
of itself is also on an exponential curve toward a genomic singularity, where
eventually the entire human race will devolve into rather wasted, malformed,
stunted individuals unless we DO push for allowing individuals to practice
genetic therapies on the fetuses they choose to bring to term, and on the
children they already have. This is a very good argument to use in support of GE
and GM technologies against the luddites. Those that refuse to practice these
technologies in the future doom their descendants to an eventual gnomish/morlock
existence, while those that do will maintain and improve they health and
vitality of their bodies and genomes.
I fully understand that your fears are that I was espousing some sort of
eugenics to 'wipe out' 'your kind'. That is not the case, as you should know
that I highly respect your writing. My position is that parents should be able
to fix recessive defects like eyesight deficiencies in vitro. I would love the
idea that you could have had the chance to enjoy the world without dependency on
an inhaler or glasses. It might even improve your writing as good as it is
already...
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