What will happen when genetic engineering becomes commonplace? Will it be the end of evolution?
No, it will be the merger of genetic and memetic evolution.
For a glimpse of the future, look at China. Or baby names. Ideas are subject to fashions, and balancing selection is ubiquitous - one reason why fashions change every year. But what will happen when fashion is written in our flesh? When all babies are blond and blue-eyed (the girls,at least) I strongly suspect that the result will be their unexpected devaluation.
Not only that, from the point of view of a professional coder (computer programmer), the genetic code is the worst imaginable spaghetti. It is an axiom of good programming that code should minimize "side effects" i.e. it should do "one thing". But the genetic code is all side effects, meaning that our explicit selection for one feature (e.g. blondness) will inevitably select for other things as well (e.g. Belyaev's foxes).
Personally, I am not looking forward to it. But it certainly will be interesting when we attempt to encode memes in our genes.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at August 4, 2005 10:28 AM | TrackBackshmmm...reduction in genetic variability leads to increased sensitivity to environment--is that true of memetics also?
Posted by: nellodee at August 11, 2005 04:35 AM PermalinkDavid!
please explain me in simple words (and hebrew translation) what is "memetics" and explain also the first comment of nellodes. why reduction in genetic variability leads to increased sensitivity to environment ?
would you consider the future people products of DNA altering as part of evolution itself ?
Haim,
Memes are the cultural equivalent of genes (see here).
What Nellodee is referring to is the fact that when you reduce genetic variation, you reduce the ability of a population to respond to changes in the environment. Let's say, for example, that there is a famine, in which only small people who have low calorie demands can survive. Well, if everyone is big, then everyone will die.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at August 22, 2005 09:03 PM Permalink