2 ms·
I see it as helping myself future-proof myself. If I know I have inherent risks as I age, or worse, genetic mutations that could passed to my children, personal
by nathas 11y ago
I see it as helping myself future-proof myself. If I know I have inherent risks as I age, or worse, genetic mutations that could passed to my children, personally it's worth the possible data abuse to me.
It would be very unfortunate if this turns into Gattaca though.
- op00to 11y agoThis is a great idea, but the general advice you get is the same thing your doctor is telling you - lose weight, lower blood pressure, wear sunblock. For specific issues you could pass down to your kids, there are physician-ordered genetic tests. The real "killer app" right now for personal genetics has to do with pharmaceuticals - how well does my body handle Warfarin, etc. That's a great application, and something that I think is better ordered by a physician at the point where you'd need to know that information.
- lordCarbonFiber 11y agoThis is tangential to your post, but, everyone that watched Gattaca in high school and remember it as a good, thought provoking movie needs to sit down and watch it again. Gattaca is a terrible movie both from a general plot and from a scientific perspective. When the "hero" of a movie is the jackass that cons his way onto a crucial role in a space mission knowing it will kill him and leave the crew a man down, it's probably prudent to start asking questions about the other aspects. As far as we can determine the genetics for ambiguous traits like intelligence or physical ability are deeply complex and cross coupled things and it grinds my gears to have the "but Gattaca" crowd crawl out of the wood work everytime for topics like research into preventing recessive diseases like cystic fibrosis comes up.