Slashdot Mirror
My Genome, My Self?
theodp writes "After baring his DNA for the world to see, Steven Pinker follows up in the NYT Magazine with his take on the coming era of consumer genetics. Pinker comes away less wide-eyed than Time Magazine about the current predictive ability of $399 genetic tests, but is convinced enough to opt out of learning whether he has a gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer's and believes that genetic-testing-for-the-masses may hasten the arrival of national health insurance ('piecemeal insurance is not viable in a world in which insurers can cherry-pick the most risk-free customers'). Pinker believes that personal genomics is just too much fun to ban, but for now suggests: 'if you want to know whether you are at risk for high cholesterol, have your cholesterol measured; if you want to know whether you are good at math, take a math test.'"
Hoo boy! You didn't read the article, did you. Reading the 8 long pages takes a while, given that the language isn't designed for the illiterate. I'd recommend page 5.
The basic message is simple - the DNA tests are slightly better than horseshit, and nowhere near as good as talking to some gossipy individual (prejudices and all) who knows you and your family. He quotes horrible stats like a study of 16,000 people for DNA contribution to IQ which managed to explain 2% of the variance. So if you are going to spend $400 to $100,000 per individual on outcome info, the best way to do it is to pay dear old ladies to babble to someone typing into a database. Saying things like, "Yeah, that family were often off to the library and that's why he had to get glasses aged 14." Such a database would be a huge heap of social venom but it would work better than genome testing.
The downside is that it would lack the aura of technology and be difficult to persuade funding for.
There are a few rare conditions worth testing for, but those are in the main an irrelevancy. They are rare, and usually the family history is already really informative.
If you don't want your tax dollars going to needless medical costs, then genome testing is not a good approach. Try persuading people not to eat high salt fatty food. Pay for TV ads for this. It will be a total waste of time, but so is playing with eugenics. At least you will know in advance that you are wasting your dollars.
the fact that you can boil a person down to 'non-viable' is fucking disgusting.