New Dating Sites Match People Through DNA Tests

The Installer writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press report: "A couple of genetic testing companies are promising to match couples based on DNA testing, touting the benefits of biological compatibility. The companies claim that a better biological match will mean better sex, less cheating, longer-lasting love and perhaps even healthier children. 'How many dating services can you think of where they can suggest you might have better children?' said Eric Holzle, founder of ScientificMatch.com, one of the first online dating sites to use DNA. ... The idea is that people tend to be attracted to those who have immune system genes that are dissimilar from their own. Biologists say the HLA genes of the immune system — which are responsible for recognizing and marking foreign cells such as viruses so other parts of the immune system can attack them — also determine body odor 'fingerprints.' And people tend to be attracted to the natural body odors of those who have different HLA genes from their own."

Comments

The company name is kind of disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

"Incest Is Best Inc"

Re:The company name is kind of disturbing

[Foobar of Borg]

"Incest Is Best Inc"

Well, at least it's better than the company that uses exact matches, called "Go Fuck Yourself, Inc."

Hey baby...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice genes...

Hmm...

[shrtcircuit]

Yeah... Submit your DNA profile to a for-profit corporation that lets you do things with it through a web interface. Your info will never be hacked. Your info will never be sold. Your info will never be given to government agencies. Trust us.

What could possibly go wrong here?

Re:Hmm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While the science is still in its infancy, there are already a fair few bits of genome that your insurance company would probably enjoy having a look at.

Re:Hmm...

[Rob Riggs]

It's OK, a democracy will keep you safe. The voters always make intelligent & informed decisions!

Re:Hmm...

[commodore64_love]

>>>DNA info? What's it good for?

Watch the movie GATTACA where people were denied jobs (or vice-versa promoted) strictly based upon their DNA. The ability for bosses, politicians, whoever to just look at your "program code" and filter for the best candidate is dangerous. It takes away opportunity who may be slightly dumber, but with more determination and focus to get the job done. (Again I recommend watching gattaca... one of the best science movies of the last two decades.)

Re:Hmm...

[ikegami]

But what about the idea that information MUST BE FREE?

Information wants to be free. The claims refers to any and all of the following facts:

• When information is shared, the sharer loses none of the information.

• The cost of sharing information information is next to nil if not nil. It is an infinite good. In a free market, it's price WILL go down to zero (regardless of whether you think it SHOULD or not).

• Information sharing almost always benefits society.

But must information be free? No, not always. There is value in privacy, for example. So while your DNA information "wants to be free" doesn't mean you should "let it free".

-----

You might be wondering how there can exist privacy if information wants to be free.

Notice that I said the cost of information will drop to nothing in a free market. Privacy can exist by hindering the market for information deemed private. One means of achieving this is through the creation of laws that (artifically) raise the cost of the information (by imposing penalities for inappropriately sharing and using the information).

Unfortunately, the legal landscape has not yet dealt with DNA sharing in any serious manner. For now, all you can do is hide your DNA. Once it's known by someone else, it's outside your control.

Re:Hmm...

[khedron the jester]

I agree that it's not a science movie, but for different reasons: the moral I got from the film is that you can't sum up the whole of a human being by his genes, but that his will plays a part too.

Hence (IMO) it's an anti-science film, since it tries to show the shortcomings of science and the problems of over-reliance on it.

Re:Hmm...

[halcyon1234]

So... my DNA is information... and information wants to be freely shared and spread around?

I think I've seen websites that have videos of that...

...

They weren't free, though.

Bias Filtering

[decipher_saint]

It's bad enough that I'm legally blind but now I can add it to the list of attributes that might reduce my chances of procreating (as if analyst and programmer weren't bad enough).

Enjoy your gene pool, jerkwads!

Untrue

[Mikkeles]

'The companies claim that a better biological match will mean better sex, less cheating, longer-lasting love and perhaps even healthier children.'

They're lying.

Re:Untrue

[tonycheese]

Here, Discovery Channel did an article focusing on Scientific Match and another company doing the same thing that talks more about the science behind it. But, like the Komo News article, it points out that it's not very likely to work with such a small sample size of both people and genes.

READ THE ARTICLE

[gurps_npc]

For those of you that continue to think they are matching similar DNA, if you read the article you will find that they are doing the opposite.

That is, they are trying to create "Hybrid Vigor" - matching people whose DNA matches the LEAST. Among other things this should reduce recessive traits. No more blond haired/blue eyed children, but also no more hemophilia.

Re:Offspring

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed - Wikipedia states that the US was one of the first countries to start sterilizing "undesirables", all the way back in 1907. Heck, Oregon had a Eugenics board until 1983...

Building up a smell/looks/DNA database

[viking80]

I would like to see the result of this study:
-Take the DNA of all freshmen
-Let the males and females smell each other one by one (in rooms so dark that beauty could be eliminated) and have them rate each other.
-Let the males and females see and rate each others looks (like a criminal lineup)

Now throw all that into a computer to find correlation between DNA / smell / looks.

Now you can build the database to match couples based on DNA. A lot of interesting research could come out ot it too. Exactly which genes likes which genes, and which detest each other. Are there some universally unlikable genes, and what do they code? Are there some universally likable genes, and what do they code?

Selective quotation

[Kell Bengal]

And people tend to be attracted to the natural body odors

I think slashdotters would have this market cornered.

I didn't RTFA

[MaXintosh]

I didn't RTFA, because I can proudly say that I was involved in the group that produced MHC mediated sexual selection studies that ScientificMatch.com uses to claim their rationale. A few comments: First, if Scientific match has any wits about them, they'll also consider other information. I don't think anyone's stupid enough to think there's a single correlate to mate selection. But the worry about people who are too different is poorly founded - MHC diversity is strongly retained throughout most human lineages. We've had negative frequency dependant since we were swimming in the ocean, and as a result, if you sequenced any given allele, you'd find that it's just as related to Gorilla sequence as it is another randomly chosen allele. My ex-boss used to have students do this as an exercise to illustrate the point. Because of this, you're just as likely to find someone very MHC (or in humans, HLA) dissimilar next door in these modern, mobile times, than you are in, say, in a distant country.

Second: They're only (to my knowledge) matching at MHC for disassortative matings, not the rest of the Genome. How is this better than picking someone based on hobbies? Because research actually shows that mating patterns in humans follows this pattern. It is a bit of a crock, since the odds of you picking two people at random with similar MHC complements is low, but let's not get into that. ;)

Finally, let me just say, I'm proud that so much scientific blood, sweat and tears into understanding the maintenance of the immune system, and what drives host-parasite co-evolution, has been distilled into an online dating site. Forget having worked with a Nobel laureate, this the highest honour a scientist can know. ;)

Re:I didn't RTFA

[mrsurb]

I don't think anyone's stupid enough to think there's a single correlate to mate selection.

I think you underestimate the market-share of stupid.

Alcohol is the best environmental chemical.

[Behrooz]

In similar news, I'm starting a match making service based upon environmental chemical exposures.

Hey, exposure to ethyl alcohol is strongly correlated to time of conception for a majority of slashdotters.

Re:So they Suck your Dick first???? PERFECT!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Now *that's* marketing!

Re:oh and

[umghhh]

why would anyone want a lifetime membership if the company were successful?

Re:Offspring

[jcr]

There's a lot of potential good that can happen from deliberate changes to how we select mates.

The key word is "we". WE choose, not anyone else. If you're talking about individuals picking and choosing their spouses, that's their own business. Once you move from that to outside forces choosing for them, it's evil.

-jcr