Welcome to Genetic Crossroads, a new blog at the Psychology Today website that will explore the social and psychological meanings of genetic, reproductive and biomedical technologies.
Why does our name refer to a crossroads? Because collectively, we are now facing important decisions about how to use and regulate an array of powerful biotech products and tools. The road we take may reshape how we think about ourselves and each other. The course we set can safeguard or threaten the future of our families, communities, and society.
Some of the questions before us:
- What is now understood about the relationship between our genes and who we are? What's the connection between genes and personality, health, intelligence? Is race clearly defined by genes? For that matter, what do the words gene, intelligence, and race actually mean?
- What are the advantages and pitfalls of gene tests? How can we use them to promote health and well-being? Is there a place for so-called "recreational" genetics?
- How is assisted reproduction affecting the well-being of those involved - parents, kids, and providers of eggs, sperm and wombs?
- Is it ok to pre-select a child's sex? Should we think about sex selection differently when it happens in the U.S. or Europe than we do when it takes place in India or China?
- What about pre-determining other traits by selecting from among IVF-produced embryos? And what about the prospect of manipulating the genes of future children? How real is that? Should we worry about a new eugenics?
- Is DNA the ultimate forensics tool, or is it prone to misuse and abuse?
- In an era when scientists are both academics and entrepreneurs, how can conflicts of interest be prevented? How do we balance the potentials of biomedical research and the need to protect research participants? Should we allow human genes to be patented?
Unfortunately, media coverage of these topics is sometimes sensationalized and often overly simplified. Scientific findings are regularly over-interpreted and social consequences under-examined. The complexity of human beings and society is too often reduced to a simple gene "for" this or that. And the effects of particular tools and procedures are too often presented as inevitable, even when the science is preliminary and the range of policy options and social uptake is huge.
