<Gattaca points out that our so-called "objective selection" is only a reflection of the bias-du-jour.

True brilliance among the Unchosen will be filtered out. True courage will be filtered out. True vision will be filtered out. Except for the perverse tendency to fight the system that would manipulate us by a few heroic individuals, all that would be lost if eugenics becomes a policy rather than a debate.

Just a couple of other thoughts:

People with naturally (not responsive to dietary therapy) high cholesterol are considered bad health risks these days, because they tend to have more heart attacks and strokes in middle age. But they were very viable individuals earlier in our species's history. Why? Because we had no trauma centers or emergency medicine. Those whose blood clotted at the drop of a hat were more likely to survive wounds and internal injuries, like falling off a horse. High cholesterol helps with blood clotting. But these days, it's no longer considered a good gene because our social circumstances have changed.

Fair-skinned and blue-eyed people had an advantage in the low-light Antipodes because of the ability to absorb more sunlight to metabolize Vitamin D. Now, though, with the ozone question, the fair are at greater risk than ever for aggressive forms of skin cancer. The positive benefits are not as positive as before.

The sickle-cell gene protects the bearer from malaria (unless there are two, one from each parent, producing sickle-cell anemia). Has that malaria protection been made unnecessary by modern medicine, and the gene turned into nothing but a liability?

Warfare, as Lee points out, has been killing off the brave and strong in disproportionate numbers for a while. I would stipulate that this observation has only been valid on a broad scale since about the middle of the 19th century, though. This was when modern warfare, and modern artillery, made random mass killing on the battlefield more efficient. Until then, the cleverest and the strongest had, in fact, a more than even chance at survival. Earlier warfare may even have acted as a kind of evolutionary mechanism the same way battles among other male animals cull the weak from the gene pool. So should we have gladitorial combats for mating rights? (We already have economic combat. Women, by and large, are the referees.)

The same might be said of the high maternal death rate connected with childbirth in the past. Only the strongest, whose blood clotted properly after birth and whose immune systems fought off childbed fever, and the luckiest, whose birthings were uncomplicated by breach presentation, placenta previa and other problems, survived. Yet I don't know of a single individual who thinks that returning to the bad old days of orphaned children and filthy childbed conditions should be even considered.

Things change. We live longer now due to scientific and social advances. Our perception of the value of genetic differences changes before our eyes, even though the differences themselves don't change. What changes is our social situation. It will change again, and faster than biology. Our gene pool as a species provides us with a biological hope of surviving environmental and social changes our grandchildren will face that we have not even imagined.

We had better not be too confident in our ability to predict. It's not like we've got such a good record.

Regards--
Mary Anne