The moral manipulation of Gattaca

A man is given strong medical evidence that he will die from a heart attack if exposed to the exertions of space travel, thus risking his own life and the lives of his crewmates. Ignoring this evidence, he fakes his way into astronaut training - and inexplicably, we cheer him on. How did the makers of Gattaca steer us towards this bizarre response? Philosopher Neven Sesardic explains, in a fascinating essay (PDF) that touches on issues highly relevant to personal genomics.

One quote to chew over:

Contrary to what the movie is trying to tell us, a more detached analysis leads us back to the common sense belief that a more detailed knowledge of our genetic predispositions would indeed severely narrow our choices. Were this kind of information to become massively available, it would be rational for many people to abandon their previous career plans and reconsider what they want to do with their lives.

Obviously we don't know enough yet about genetics to be advising people on future careers based on a genome scan - but at some point, it's likely that we'll be able to make at least some probabilistic inferences about predispositions and skills very early in life based on genetic information. So long as we ensure that we rely only on accurate information, this isn't a bad thing. It simply means that people will have more information with which to make important decisions.

HT: Black Belt Bayesian.

Subscribe to Genetic Future.