A company in Boulder, CO is offering a genetic test to determine what kind of sport your child is most genetically suited for. For $149, with the swab of a cheek your child will know if he or she would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two.
These seems like a terrible idea to me. First of all you are possibly pigeon-holing your child into a specific sport when he or she could excel at any number of activities. Secondly, this is frighteningly a reminder of our eugenics past. Where will this drive for genetic advanage stop?
Also as many of the Dr.'s in this article point out. Everything we know about genetics is pointing less and less to the isolation of certain genes causing certain traits and more towards a combination of genetic and environment causes.
Seems like a new snake oil salesman if you ask me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
It is interesting that one of the first mainstream uses of genetics is finding out how athletic your child is. I would have though our first break throughs available to the public would be more important than employing a device to make a child a successful athlete. I guess in our capitalist society, this is a quick, relatively cheap test that a lot of parents want. Yet we rarely hear about Alzheimer's or parkinson's break throughs. If I was a scientist who developed this, I would be ashamed that I was using my talent and resources for such a frivolous use.
I think this is a very dangerous idea as well for the same reasons you do. I am also highly skeptical that this "swab" test would actually be accurate. While athletic ability can be measured in numbers - strength, speeds, etc - one's ability to really succeed in a sport also depends so much on determination, mental toughness, and other intangibles that wouldn't register in your cheek.
As a high school and college athlete myself, I have to admit I would like to have this done just to see what my analysis returned. It is interesting. However, I'd never want any child to have this done and then be told he or she "should" do anything.
I also think that this test would be completely inaccurate and would likely reinforce stereotypes. I don't know the scientists can correlate to any degree of certainty that a certain variant could produce an Olympic athlete, as stated in the article. The article even conceded that an Olympic long jumper from Spain lacked the variant(that allowed their muscles to make quick, forceful contractions) but still managed to be a top athlete.
There are just too many factors at play here. It seems silly to profit on a test that supposedly predicts success in individuals.
Ellie
Post a Comment