National Public Radio reports on the dilemmas of deciding whether or not to sequence a baby's entire genome -- it can be done, and will get cheaper as time passes.
There are things about my own genome that I'd rather not know. Do I have a predisposition for Alzheimer's? I hope not, but I'd rather not know that, I guess. Or at least I would have rather not know that when I was a thirty-year-old.
Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but it always brings more responsibility. Perhaps we should never sequence anybody's genome, unless there is a compelling medical, judicial or scientific reason for doing so.
Thanks for reading. Read the article.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
License
I have written an e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which is free to anyone. To download that book, in several formats, go here.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
To sequence a baby's genome, or not?
Labels:
baby,
gene sequencing,
genetics,
knowledge,
responsibility
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment