Aidan Haines - The Prospect of Future Technologies

The Study of Homosexuality

On the topic of my final report presentation, I focused on a chapter that talked about some of the issues people who are transgender face in the medical field, as well as a certain study that was done to find differences between the heterosexual brain versus the homosexual brain. There were some differences, such as clusters of neurons in different areas that correlated to different processes in the brain. I talked about this in another class assignment, so I will bring up some of the ideas I talked about in that assignment, that was based on the experiment.  
 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84496-z  
This is the study, if anyone is curious, it contains a lot of technical and scientific jargon which I personally find hard to understand, so I will try and summarize what it means here. 
 
Different parts of the brain in this study were studied in people who were considered homosexual and heterosexual. Different brain structures associated with differing gray matter concentrations and densities included the putamen, precentral gyrus, hippocampus, and thalamus. There was also a study done to indicate that the precentral gyrus has been implicated to control imaginative behaviors during arousal.  

I’m not here to talk about the science behind this all, because to be honest a lot of it goes over my head, but the fact that there are significant differences in the brains of both heterosexual and homosexual people is interesting to me, especially as someone who is bisexual. A lot of people, I have realized, tend to not really want to think about the science behind why the brain feels this way, which is totally fair in my eyes, a lot of people just want to live and let be. However, what if this information gets in the wrong hands?

The Ethical Concerns

I more so want to talk about what studies like this mean for those who are wrapped up in conspiracy and prejudice.  

As an ethics class, every bit of science should be thought of not just for its face value, but the impact it will give to those who see it. What could we take away from this study? Well, it is my belief that some people will look at this study, or could or have looked at this study, and thought that there is something inherently wrong with the brains of those people who are considered homosexual or not heterosexual. Several people have tried to claim that there is something wrong with those people, but who are they to say what is wrong or not? 
This harkens back to a discussion we had on trying to edit out genes that we consider to be disabilities. I do not disagree that there are some genes that we could edit out to improve our lives. One, for example, is Alzheimer's disease, which causes the brain to consume itself until there is barely anything left. That is a disease that I feel everyone can agree would be fair to be edited out, considering it actively deteriorates someone’s way of living. Some people, however, are perfectly fine with removing things like autism from the genome.  

I can understand the sentiment, considering that some people that have autism have a hard time communicating, or simply cannot communicate, with those around them. I know it’s hard having someone who is considered low functioning on the spectrum, and if I had to go through with having someone like that, I would probably feel the same way. However, trying to remove autism from the genome would create adverse effects. Say we could, theoretically, remove it. That would remove a whole spectrum of neurodiversity from the human genome. Several people have autism to some extent, and many of those people think very differently to the average “neurotypical” person, and it allows them to achieve things that nobody would have expected. It is also some of these mentalities that allow for a more expanded view and allow people to question authority and not bend to the will of those who are oppressing them. 

So, how does this connect to my initial points? 

Say someone had this idea, saw the study with homosexual versus heterosexual brains, and decided “Maybe we could do that to remove homosexuality from the genome.” The problem is, maybe they could, but this presents a whole other moral dilemma stemming from a standpoint of simple human rights. It’s a terrifying thought that there are people out there perfectly fine with destroying these bits of humanity, simply because they find it personally gross. There also seems to be a rise in complete and utter apathy towards other people, so the chances of a scenario like this seem increasingly likely.  

There is a problem with the “genetics” way of thinking. It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, you could eliminate some diseases that humans have been blighted with since the beginning of our evolution, on the other hand, you could destroy diversity and use it for political gain to make a more complicit populus. This sort of notion is presented in stories such as brave new world, which tend to be pretty good cautionary tales. 

What do we do with the prospect of these technologies, though? Do we stop the progression of this technology to stop a few bad apples from ruining the bunch? Do we stop possibly centuries worth of progress due to a bigoted view or political affiliation? Our generation has the power to make these changes, and I think that it’s important that we do allow these technologies to progress, but we must keep people from using it for the wrong devices. 

I hope for a future where we use genetics for the better, while leaving other fields untouched. A future where we use genetics to eliminate the blight of cancer on humanity, eliminate Alzheimer's. A more promising outlook could also look to eliminate some of the problems faced by people with Down’s syndrome as well, allowing for a higher quality of life and an increased capacity to be able to learn, but we must do it without stunting their individuality and happiness.

Thanks for the good conversations, and for a good semester.