It’s hip2b2

I just read an interesting little tidbit from October 2006’s Newsweek. Yes it is quite old but interesting never the less. I can’t find a web copy so here is goes.

Is screening embryos for potential diseases a good idea? More than 3 million children worldwide have been born through in-vitro fertilization, but nearly 50,000 embryos have been rejected in the United States alone. The practice originally targeted fatal diseases, but now includes low-risk illnesses like arthritis. Others, such as leukemia, have no clear genetic cause, and 42 percent of US IVF clinics allow parents to select for gender.

So if slowly by slowly parents are now able to choose their children will it mean an end to survival of the fittest? It may start with choosing gender now but in the future it could include choosing hair and eye color, complexion and others. So instead of the classic Darwinian Natural Selection something or someone else does the choosing. Maybe, human evolution will be driven by something unnatural? It might be driven by the desire to become what marketers say you should become. Is this the beginning of market-driven, photoshop-altered and commercially-motivated evolution? Scary!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 12:01 am and is filed under Musings and Speculations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.