The Ultimate in Artificial Selection

Incest and designer babies make a fantastic sci-fi/horror/comedy/social commentary theme for any sort of media. Both generate deep emotional objections from most of us regardless of whether the feelings are rooted in religion, philosophy, or ethical science. A question which begs the asking is if designer babies are a possibility, why can't kissing cousins make a product of pure geneology that won't have three heads? The stigmas for each of these subjects are tucked deep into human culture that makes it difficult to see why both can't be mutually acceptable. Humans have had a basic understanding of the source of birth defects for millenia but with an ample helping of concepts such as sin, suddenly new agency is developed as an opposition force to incest. When "real" science gets thrown in, the stigma intensifies - some say they already new this: God told them so, others advocate relearning the forgotten teachings of the ancients. With Genetically Modified Humans (GMH) a possibility the ethical debate continues based on the paradigms established by the previous lesson. Evolution is dependent on one key ingredient: variation. GMH allow for an increase in the variation needed for our species to continue it's temporal march (for better stewardship or destructive domination, depending on your point of view). As we've stated in class, it's a difficult thing to undo thousands of years of culture but sometimes one needs to ask whether our current viewpoints are the best in terms of the longview.