4 ms·
I know Gattaca is a favorite of many people I had a fairly negative reaction to it. Vincent has bad genes and he's trying to get in to the Space Program. That'
by greggman 10y ago
I know Gattaca is a favorite of many people I had a fairly negative reaction to it.
Vincent has bad genes and he's trying to get in to the Space Program. That's not Sci-Fi, that's the actual Space Program, at least NASA's and always has been. As one example, bad eyes genes? No space travel for you!
And why shouldn't it be that way? It costs billions of dollars to put people in space. Seems like it would be irresponsible not to stack the deck toward success from every possible dimension. Sure some guy with a genetically diagnosed bad heart has some chance his heart will hold out but it seems practically criminal for him to risk the mission and all his fellow astronauts lives on a known diagnosis of high risk.
Even today AFAIK US fighter pilots also effectively have gene based selection.
Although hey, to keep it relevant it sure would be awesome if they could correct the genes as an adult. Need 20/20 vision get this gene therapy. Need a good heart get that gene therapy...
- dragonwriter 10y agoActually, the real current space program doesn't exclude people with bad genotype, it excludes people with bad phenotype or inadequated demonstrated abilities. (Which are more or less loosely correlated with genetics, but not the same thing as genetics.) > Even today AFAIK US fighter pilots also effectively have gene based selection. No, again, its phenotype and abilities, not genotype, on which selection is based.
- fapjacks 10y agoNot just US fighter pilots. In the US Army infantry, as well.