Eugenics, yet again
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2003 9:55 am
DNA Discoverer: Use Genetics To Improve IQ
Feb. 28, 2003 - The scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA stirred a row on Friday, the 50th anniversary of the breakthrough, by saying he backed genetic engineering to make people smarter and better-looking.
The remarks were criticized by other experts, fearful of plunging gene research into a fresh storm about eugenics, the Orwellian pseudo-science about selective breeding of humans to "improve" the species.
"If you really are stupid, I would call that a disease," James Watson, 75, the American biologist who in 1953 co-discovered the structure of the molecule for life with Britain's Francis Crick, was quoted by The Times of London as saying.
"The lower 10 percent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 percent."
Molecular biologists have a duty to identify the genes that affect low intelligence and to develop gene therapies or prenatal screening tests to prevent it, Watson said.
"It seems unfair that some people don't get the same opportunity. Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no-one can stop it. It would be stupid not to use it because someone else will. Those parents who enhance their children, then their children are going to be the ones who dominate the world."
Watson added that he also supported genetic engineering to enhance looks.
"People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
Watson made the remarks in an upcoming documentary, due to be screened by Britain's Channel 4 television on March 8, The Times said.
Watson is president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and helped launch the Human Genome Project, the international effort to map mankind's genetic code. A draft of the genome was unveiled in 2000.
DNA is the inherited template for life β a molecule that lies at the heart of a cell's nucleus which provides the code for building, repairing and destroying tissue.
It has a structure of a double helix, joined by chemical rungs called bases.
Watson and Crick won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine, along with a third associate, Maurice Wilkins.
Tom Shakespeare, a bio-ethicist at Britain's University of Newcastle, criticized Watson's remarks.
"He is talking about altering something that most people see as part of normal human variation, and that I think iswrong.... I am afraid he may have done more harm than good, his leadership of the Human Genome Project and his discovery of 1953 notwithstanding."
John Sulston, a British genetic professor who was co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Medicine Prize, said Watson was exploring an "extremely dangerous area" but had not been wrong to speak out.
"It is foolish put our heads in the sand," he said, referring to the attraction that human genetic engineering would have in some quarters.
The Discovery Channel On-Line
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20030 ... enics.html
Feb. 28, 2003 - The scientist who co-discovered the structure of DNA stirred a row on Friday, the 50th anniversary of the breakthrough, by saying he backed genetic engineering to make people smarter and better-looking.
The remarks were criticized by other experts, fearful of plunging gene research into a fresh storm about eugenics, the Orwellian pseudo-science about selective breeding of humans to "improve" the species.
"If you really are stupid, I would call that a disease," James Watson, 75, the American biologist who in 1953 co-discovered the structure of the molecule for life with Britain's Francis Crick, was quoted by The Times of London as saying.
"The lower 10 percent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 percent."
Molecular biologists have a duty to identify the genes that affect low intelligence and to develop gene therapies or prenatal screening tests to prevent it, Watson said.
"It seems unfair that some people don't get the same opportunity. Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no-one can stop it. It would be stupid not to use it because someone else will. Those parents who enhance their children, then their children are going to be the ones who dominate the world."
Watson added that he also supported genetic engineering to enhance looks.
"People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."
Watson made the remarks in an upcoming documentary, due to be screened by Britain's Channel 4 television on March 8, The Times said.
Watson is president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and helped launch the Human Genome Project, the international effort to map mankind's genetic code. A draft of the genome was unveiled in 2000.
DNA is the inherited template for life β a molecule that lies at the heart of a cell's nucleus which provides the code for building, repairing and destroying tissue.
It has a structure of a double helix, joined by chemical rungs called bases.
Watson and Crick won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine, along with a third associate, Maurice Wilkins.
Tom Shakespeare, a bio-ethicist at Britain's University of Newcastle, criticized Watson's remarks.
"He is talking about altering something that most people see as part of normal human variation, and that I think iswrong.... I am afraid he may have done more harm than good, his leadership of the Human Genome Project and his discovery of 1953 notwithstanding."
John Sulston, a British genetic professor who was co-winner of the 2002 Nobel Medicine Prize, said Watson was exploring an "extremely dangerous area" but had not been wrong to speak out.
"It is foolish put our heads in the sand," he said, referring to the attraction that human genetic engineering would have in some quarters.
The Discovery Channel On-Line
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20030 ... enics.html
Of course, I live in Louisiana, the bottom of the intelligence scale state. 
Here we might all benefit from some improvement in any number of traits, except the ones having to do with cooking high fat but utterly wonderful food.