Hacking Darwin

Interesting step into the “future” as envisioned by Metzl.

I thought the concepts in this book were good ones to discuss and to cover. My biggest issue with it, however, is the presentation. The author chose not to present possibilities in an even or unbiased fashion, clearly siding with the “if we don't allow genetic manipulation of humans, we will miss out on everything possible in the future” side of things. Further, he repeatedly makes statements that the only reason one would have to be cautious in this regard is if you're one of those backwards, barbaric, bible-thumping Christians, grouping all such people into essentially the same category of deplorables whose ideologies are so outdated that their concerns should be completely disregarded. The clear attitude is “those people are so wrong it's not worth considering their concerns at all.” It's a shame that the author has taken this tact instead of answering any such concerns with level-headed logic, because the remainder of the concepts discussed are important and need such discussion.

This book illustrates many of the ways that genetic engineering can help humans (and through them, the rest of the world but less so). It offers up a repeated narrative through time of a woman seeking to have a child through IVF and the options available to her as technology becomes more advanced. The technology and genetics explored include: preventing serious disease, improving immune response, selecting for physical traits, identifying personality, etc. Some of this technology is already here, and saving lives: like identifying life-threatening recessive genes in early stages of development. Some of it is already here and can be used for “designer” babies: like identifying deafness or dwarfism. Some of it is postulated - like identifying genetic markers for intelligence, kindness, strategy, etc.The author spends a little time talking about ethics throughout, and legality and policy considerations in the last part. However, this was my greatest discomfort with the book. It seems to me that Jamie missed some very real ethical dilemmas in the woman-visiting-their-fertility-doctor narrative throughout. The “choices” of genetic combinations never discussed the likelihood that the “smartest, kindest, most something or other” embryo might also have the weakest immune response or any other sort of contrary combination. Let's ignore all of the physical appearance space (like eye and skin color). Sure, if we first eliminate the possibility that you could pursue further development of embryos that will develop into humans whose lives will be incredibly short and/or painful, some of the moral divergence is reduced....but it there is a whole lotta grey between “definitely gonna have a terrible short life” to probably going to be healthy. That grey area is where I think most of the moral ambiguity resides (assuming that embryo selection were to be a generally accepted practice). Back to the connection between science, health, policy, and morality - what kinds of incentives will these hypothetical future mothers face? Are there incentives to raise certain types of children over others. Who structured those incentives? Who is responsible for making those choices, or changes to them?Interesting book, nonetheless. I'd also recommend [b:Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow 31138556 Homo Deus A History of Tomorrow Yuval Noah Harari https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1468760805l/31138556.SY75.jpg 45087110] for readers of this one.