Designer Babies

[bobkakes]

What if you could pick and choose what you wanted in a baby? Eye color, height, hair color, gender, IQ. We now have this technology. It won't be too terribly long before we start building our own children, just like today's children build their own teddy bears in a Build a Bear workshop. The human race seems to have evolved enough to guide our own future evolutions.

"Genetic modification can be used to alter anything from gender to disease, and eventually appearance, personality, and even IQ. Another controversy facing the advancement of genetic modification technology is the price of such procedures and its ability to create a gap in society. Altering embryos is fairly recent technology and as it develops is a very costly procedure. With only the wealthy being able to pay for the modification that will eliminate disease for their children and eventually choose traits such as personality and appearance will lead to an elite race, far more advanced than the poor who cannot afford such technologies."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_baby



So what do you think? Should we design the next generation? I'm in the middle of this one. Leaning towards no... We could save them from having some genetic disorder or stop them from having some life threatening disease. But isn't that how populations keeps itself in check? People die so that the planet doesn't become over crowded.
To quote one of my favorite movies ever...

"So why care for these petty obsessions?
Your designer heart still beats with common blood
And what if you could have genetic perfection?
Would you change who you are if you could?"

[azruelli]

Realistically, I'm not for it unless it's to prevent genetic diseases.

Edit: But if we fix all of those, we'll have the issue of overpopulation even more persistent than it normally is, even though for the west and european populations it's for the most just a shade of gray on the horizon.

[ScienceFairy]

I would say no, just on the grounds of people being crazy enough as it is. Kids nowadays have diseases, they get injured, they might fail a test if they don't study. Mostly, I don't want to deal with the whiny-ass generation after me complaining that their super-baby scored less than a 98% on their last school exam, and I most certainly do not want to deal with parents freaking out (even more) over the common flu, saying that 12-year-old Tommy's never gotten sick before. Also, if technology and schooling is getting better, then why are people getting stupider? Changing your IQ doesn't change the fact that you'll still probably act like a dumbass. Ummm...I'd better stop talking...

[azruelli]

That's a good point, too, once we start changing genetics to make people better we raise the standards for those who don't want to alter their children.

[bobkakes]

One word. GATTACA!

Okay, maybe it's more of a movie title. Good movie. Hell it's a great movie. It deals with this subject.

[azruelli]

Wait, isn't that a protein sequence?

Honestly? I didn't pay much attention in biology, god some damn good test grades, though.