Special Interest Group on CRAP

I recently signed up for 23andme.com. I was motivated in part because I don’t know the genetic background on my mother’s side (she was essentially a stolen baby, without any knowledge of her parents). I’m optimistic about science being able to make use of genetic information to improve the human condition in the future, but it’s not clear when or how that will play out. I suspect that I’ll croak before science figures out how to use genetic information very effectively, but I figured it was worth investigating.

Sometimes it’s difficult to predict what the future has in store. I’ve said several times that I came of age in the information age, and our kids will come of age in the biological revolution. So far all I have discovered is that I have a slightly elevated likelihood of some kinds of cancer, I’m lactose intolerant (duh), and I have a few favorable characteristics in my genetic makeup. I hope that at some point in the future, we’ll see a net benefit to society.