THE GENETIC FUTURE OF MANKIND

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It is said that Homo Sapiens first appeared more than 1 million years ago. Since then, various races have popped up or been exterminated according to the law of the survival of the fittest. Climate, geography, duration of sunshine and cultural differences were the principal factors for making various races on earth. Geographically isolated, people were prevented from mixing up, so that distinctively different present varieties were formed.

But now, thanks to the development of transportation, people gradually began to exchange their genetic storage. Only a few decades ago, international marriage was rarity in most countries except Latin America, because some conventional cultural differences hindered stubbornly loving couples from producing their new type of descendants.

Today the circumstances are quite different. The difference between living standards has made two groups; so called Northern countries and Southern countries, or rather, developed and developing countries. People in a country where per capita national income are so low are eager to get a job in affluent countries; the internationalization of 'Dekasegi!, the practice of Japanese peasants seasonally working in urban areas in search of higher pay.

This global shifting of the population can be seen all over the world; from African countries, which used to be colonies of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal or Holland, to major European cities, from agricultural south European countries to industrial north European countries; from communist east European countries to capitalist western countries, from Latin America to USA or Canada, and from Southeast Asia to Japan.

This large scale emigration may lead to hosts of chaos, urban slums, crimes and numerous social problems derived from racial conflicts, but somehow these people must be ultimately assimilated in the society in which they are to settle down.

On the other hand, in advanced countries especially affluent people would rather look for places where living cost is reasonably lower than paying extravagantly heavy tax or leading an expensive retired life at home. The steep appreciation of key currency has caused these people to seek tax haven or pension village in developing countries.

They may contribute to intermingling of different cultures, though not bringing forth their children. Though seemingly slowly, this trend is increasingly holding on. Children born to multi-racial families are said to be more intelligent and healthier...girls not less beautiful than those born to single-racial families. This may be groundless speculation, but the mixing up of the people of remote origins is very helpful for re-vitalization of the whole species.

But there seems to be presented a very serious problem at hand most people are apt to overlook; the development of medical science. The danger lies, very ironically, in the radical decrease of mortal rate, especially in infanthood.

A century ago, a premature baby would have been sure to be dead instantly. Now almost all the babies survive. Is it a blessing or curse? True,it is heart-warming to hear of the stories about a baby being saved from death thanks to the complicated life-sustaining equipment or a boy with serious heart disease being able to play football with a pace-maker built in his limb, and from humanitarian viewpoint newspapers always praise this kind of episode for victories of medical profession.

But the facts remain that more and more mentally or physically defected people, who would not have been saved without special treatment of modern medicine, are living happily and to our anxiety, making their descendants come into the world.

I don't mean to say that all the unhealthy people should be forbidden to become parents, let alone be exterminated as Nazis actually had done so. ( This is why trying to solve this problem is often regarded as taboo. ) But the fact is that we mankind neglect the laws for the fittest; the very thing which has made the prosperity of living organisms what they are today.

We HAVE neglected the laws by killing numberless youths in wars and today we do so owing to our total indifference to our genetic future. If we want to wrap our life with humanistic cellophane, then what the future should have in store for us?

We have made ourselves so completely domesticated that there seems to be no point of return now; most of us can no longer get back to wilderness and lead a savage life, letting ourselves at the mercy of literally 'the law of the jungle' nor can we abandon those who are suffering from illnesses. We have been stuck in moral swamp.

It is next to impossible to expose ourselves to the every competition for survival, but where no natural selection works, there is no evolution, but only a regression. There seems to be only three alternatives.

First, we let things go and see the humanity deteriorate as it is. Overprotective medical and hygienic care and mechanized life would sure to deprive men of their vitality, the most fundamental thing to life. It may be the twilight for the whole history of mankind; people languishing in highly advanced civilization.

Second, an authoritative choice, mandatory selective childbirth, regulated by the government. Geneticists would examine the genes of the parents and decide the feasibility of their giving birth. All the births and deaths are strictly controlled, and above all those who have defective genes would not be allowed to bear their descendants, say, by means of sterilization.

The scene reminds us of Huxley's 'Brave New World'. The criteria for making decisions would be, of course, arbitrary and serve only the contemporary rulers, as seen in most science fiction story tellers' accounts.

The third option is making up the two world, the one in which people having defective genes are protected by advanced medicine and enjoy all the blessings of enhanced society, and the other in which people live in primitive conditions, at the mercy of elements and diseases, only to succumb except for the strong or fortunate few.

People in the former society despise those in the latter and the communication between them would be non-existent. In the end they will have become two different species.

All of them give us gloomy prospect, but there is no other way but to go on. The best way to keep the genes healthy may be found, but to enforce it means breaching fundamental human freedom. It's not in our position to judge between what is healthy and what is not. This very contradiction only leads to either lessez-faire policy or authoritarian rule or both.

The third option seems a little better than these formers, but most people know too well that once Eve knows the tastes of a forbidden apple she cannot forget the pleasure it has brought. History is irreversible.

WRITTEN IN FEBRUARY 1987
REVISED IN OCTOBER 1999

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