The film Gattaca provided a potential idea of the
path biotechnology is headed to. It showed a society of people with “perfect”
genes, which had been chosen at birth to create the healthiest, smartest, and most
beautiful individuals possible. In the movie this theoretical situation brought
about new discriminations as well as a completely redeveloped society. It
focuses particularly on the social connotations of such a theory and how it
would affect criminal investigation and identification of individuals.
The criminal investigation industry is constantly trying to
improve their data analysis in order to catch more guilty people. The future of
biotechnology is pointing in a positive direction for investigation. Having a
society of genetically programmed people in which everyone’s everything is in a
computer system allows for a criminal to be identified easily from evidence.
Investigators would be able to take a hair from a crime scene and know exactly
whose it is rather than having to match it.
However, in terms of using DNA for identification purposes
on a daily basis, I feel that the biotechnology in Gattaca is very
unlikely to be successful in reality. It would be near impossible to
differentiate every little speck of DNA all the time because there is so much
of us we leave everywhere. Especially in public places there are dead skin
cells and stray hairs from millions of people all over the place. Nothing would
be as clean at the movie portrayed and those stray bits of DNA would infect all
kinds of identification processes.
Looking at the social aspects of a genetically programmed
society, in my own personal opinion, there would be nothing interesting.
Diversity (as in those that aren’t perfectly sane or healthy) is what leads to
the most creativity in our world. For instance, in Gattaca, the man with
the genetic disorder polydactyly (having extra fingers—in his case 12) was able
to entertain with his advanced piano playing skills. His genetic imperfections
are what bring about interesting music to society.
Currently this idea of genetically programming an entire
society is still just that, an idea but the fact that we have the technology to
splice genes and toy with what had previously seemed impossibly means we may
someday get there. It may not be a world just like that in Gattaca,
which wouldn’t be a very desirable kind of society, but it would allow for some
improvements in various fields and some downfalls in others.
