Darwin's Wolf
Sam Aurelius Milam III
 And this is what happened, and this is why the caribou and the wolf are one; for the caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf who keeps the caribou strong.—Ootek, an Inland Eskimo in Never Cry Wolf, 1963 by Farley Mowat |
We're presently doing everything that we possibly can, as a society, to
sustain the survival and improve the prospects of children who're the victims
of genetic defects. That seems like a good thing. Who could object
to the medical help that those children receive? The giving of such
help doesn't end with the children. Adults with genetic defects also
get some help. Infertility is one such problem. In fact, it seems
to me that fertility treatments have become somewhat of a (dare I say it?)
growth industry. Sad, childless couples or even sad, childless single
women can be made happy by artificially induced pregnancies. We're a very
humane and helpful bunch of people, and who could possibly object to that?
Farmers, maybe. Why farmers? Many people might not realize it, but (as an example) commercially produced turkeys are often incapable of reproduction. The species has been
selectively bred to such an extent, to provide delicious Thanksgiving dinners,
that the ability of those turkeys to reproduce has been impaired. Such
turkeys must be produced by artificial insemination. Lacking technology,
that species would probably become extinct. Anybody who's worked with domesticated animals or food plants, like farmers for example, will understand that the characteristics of a species can be significantly changed by how the species is managed. Almost everything that we eat comes from species that have been artificially managed for decades, for centuries, or, in some cases, maybe for millennia. In every such case, individuals within the species that were selected for breeding were selected to perpetuate useful traits within the species, or to eliminate
undesirable traits. A species that's managed by natural selection will
tend to be more robust, but less useful as food. A species that's artificially managed will tend to be the opposite. Traits that aren't relevant to the breeders of an artificially managed species are likely to be ignored, and the consequences merely accommodated, as with the turkeys. It's possible for seemingly irrelevant genetic defects to accumulate in such a species. We, as a species, are not managed by either natural or artificial methods.
In fact, we're not managed at all. I'm not aware of much rational thought, if any, that goes into our selections of our mates. For the most part, with maybe a few exceptions, we don't select for intelligence, health, strength, resistance to diseases, or anything else that might actually have some survival value for our descendants. If there was any selection at all, then it
would most likely be for superficial things like pretty women and handsome men. Since everybody, attractive or not, reproduces, even that selection doesn't happen. Selective breeding improves a species only if it's used
for that purpose. We seem to have a cavalier disregard for the condition
of our descendants. The selection for or against any particular human
trait seems to be entirely random. After our randomly produced offspring
are born, we don't do much to preserve useful traits that might somehow have
slipped through the process, or to remove undesirable ones. Diseases
kill people who're weak or susceptible, but we do everything that we can
to keep such people alive, and reproducing. We send our best and strongest
people off to wars, to be killed. Whether such behavior is commendable
or reprehensible isn't my point. My point is that we might be making
some important changes in our genome, on the basis of good intentions, without
having considered all of the likely consequences. As Robert A. Heinlein
noted in Glory Road, in 1963, good intentions are the cause of more
folly than all other causes put together. So, farmers, if they think about it at all, might notice the direction in which the human species appears to be moving. It seems to be moving in the direction of the turkeys. Every infertile couple that reproduces by artificial methods is passing on to future generations the inability
to reproduce. If the fertility treatments continue for long enough,
then the inability to reproduce might become widespread within the population.
It might even become universal. That's a strange possibility in a world that presently has a human popula- 
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