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- The 'Designer Baby' Myth
- Places & Culture
- July book blog
After a month of mapping change in the world (see parts 1, 2, and 3), some healthy humility about our ability to predict global change may be in order. A recent op-ed in the London Guardian by MIT professor and Blank Slate author Steven Pinker is a provocative counterpoint to the frightening conventional wisdom that "designer babies" are just around the corner. Parents, we are led to believe, will soon pick and choose hair colors and personality traits for their offspring as though at a salad bar. "Not only is genetic enhancement not inevitable, but it is not particularly likely in our lifetimes," Pinker argues—not when you consider 1) the limits of futurology, 2) the science of behavioral genetics, and 3) human nature itself. Although Pinker completely ignores the more pertinent debate about using genetic research to identify and eliminate birth defects, his well-argued and clearly written piece deserves a closer look.
1) Presuming that current genetic research necessarily portends designer babies is a case of "climbing trees to get to the moon," Pinker says. Generally, the fate of futuristic fantasies such as the domed city and robot maid should instruct us about their reliability. Futurologists "routinely underestimate the number of things that have to go right for a development to change our lives. It takes more than a single eureka!; it takes a large number of more boring discoveries," Pinker says. Besides, futurologists tend to see only the benefits of technological developments, "while actual users weigh both the benefits and the costs." We want to know that the computer won't crash before we let it run our refrigerator.
2) Not only is futurology problematic in general, but blind spots of genetic research in particular seem to doom the designer baby idea. "We may have mapped the genome, but we have a long way to go before we understand how genes relate to each other and how they can be manipulated," Pinker says. The act of assembling genes like salad ingredients to get an expected effect remains well out of our reach. "The human brain is not a bag of traits with one gene for each trait. Neural development is a staggeringly complex process guided by many genes interacting in feedback loops…. . Most genes have multiple effects."
3) Even if an exotic genetic cafeteria were to come about, it's not clear that many people would go for it. Parents tend to obey the "first do no harm" principle when considering their children, and may not warm to the idea of genetic manipulation replacing the natural method of reproduction. "It is misleading," Pinker says, "to assume that parents will soon face the question, 'Would you opt for a procedure that would give you a happier and more talented child?' When you put it like that, who would say no? The real question will be, 'Would you opt for a traumatic and expensive procedure that might give you a slightly happier and more talented child, might give you a less happy, less talented child, might give you a deformed child, and probably would make no difference?' For genetic enhancement to 'change human nature' not just a few but billions of people would have to answer yes."
Pinker concludes that these doubts about genetic advances should quiet pleas for a ban on genetic research. Since its results are so limited, he says, we should let research proceed without fear that it will outrun our discussions of ethics; "designer babies" won't arrive before a long talk about whether we should have them. This conclusion seems too laissez-faire, and ironically serves to motivate the scientists whose ambitions the article devastates. But overall, Pinker brings the often far-flung debate over bioethics back down to earth.
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