“If you can repair your future child's myopia with preemptive genetic tinkering, you might also want to increase her I. Q. by a few dozen points. Will it lead to a world as utopian as Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average? Of course not. It will just add genetic manipulation of embryos and child cloning to the means by which affluent, fussy people try to distance themselves from bad luck, disappointment, menial work, death, and poor people.”

—  David Quammen

"Clone Your Troubles Away: Dreaming at the Frontiers of Animal Husbandry" http://www.genetics-and-society.org/resources/items/200502_harpers_quammen.html, Harper's Magazine (February 2005)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If you can repair your future child's myopia with preemptive genetic tinkering, you might also want to increase her I. …" by David Quammen?
David Quammen photo
David Quammen 2
American science author 1948

Related quotes

Garrison Keillor photo

“That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

See also the Wikipedia article on the Lake Wobegon effect.
A Prairie Home Companion, News from Lake Wobegon

Warren Farrell photo

“All of this is men’s genetic heritage. However, men’s genetic heritage is in conflict with their genetic future.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Q: Why is America the land of the overrated child and the underrated adult? Q: How can children grow up in a world in which adults idolize youthfulness? Q: What happens when the ad makers taker over all the popular myths and poetry?”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 141

Tania Raymonde photo

“I find it very scary that people try to profit off of things like genetically manipulating things. For what? There’s a fine line between progress and cruelty. If you change something in nature can you ever really go back and have we already crossed that line?”

Tania Raymonde (1988) American actress

Source: An In Interview With ‘Deep Blue Sea 3’ Star Tania Raymonde https://horrorfuel.com/2020/07/31/an-in-interview-with-deep-blue-sea-3-star-tania-raymonde/ (July 31, 2020)

Dana Gould photo

“Q - If your children ever ask you, “why do bad things happen to good people?” what will you tell them?”

Dana Gould (1964) Comedian and comedy writer

“Genetic engineers are powerless in all of this without some cooperative effort from people working in allied fields.”

Richard Bergland neuroscientist

The Fabric of Mind (1985)

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“It’s bad advice, he believes, “because if you want your child to have a financially secure future, they can’t play by the old set of rules. It’s just too risky.””

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Rousas John Rushdoony photo

“… there are sometimes [in mixed marriages] some genetic advantages, there are sometimes genetic disadvantages, but there are generally markedly social disadvantages which tend to warp the child’s entire life. And these social factors are extremely strong. So in countries where you do have this kind of group, they do represent a rather bitter and an unhappy group, a rebellious group.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

Richard Dawkins photo

“No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 3. Immortal Coils
Context: Genes do indirectly control the manufacture of bodies, and the influence is strictly one way: acquired characteristics are not inherited. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.

“'Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S. Q.!' And poor S. Q., he just kept arguing that 'this boy was especially average-looking.' " ~ Kate Wetherall, The Mysterious Benedict Society”

Trenton Lee Stewart (1970) Novelist

Related topics