Sunday, August 10, 2014

Frankenstein Meets The Human Genome Project

Social progress, counting back the last arm load of centuries, might be compared to science fiction.  Suppose that science is a sort of Frankenstein movie, in which vaccines and weapons both get made up at once.  There is a geometric progression to the sciences, which is much like Son of Frankenstein, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman,   Dracula, Son of Dracula, Lon Cheny Also Meets Bela Lugosi Somewhere Else,  and then we find splinter groupings and mutations, all forming more sci-fi flicks.  Meantime, scientists work their wonders.

In hard science terms, there was popular bombast in the media over The Human Genome Project.  The cover story was that science was to discover a pattern in the DNA that was to enable quickie cures for all that ails ya'.   Ya' gots' a medical woe,  bearded wonders will find it on their big chart, and select a course of treatment, tailor made for you.   The Project gave me the willies because I tend to think it's also the stuff ethnic cleansing is best informed by, like a blue book for inferiority.   These sorts of things can go either way, in terms of helping you or killing you off.  But I haven't heard much about the Human Genome Project these last few passing years.  I wonder where it went.

Maybe the Project escaped.   Maybe it's devolved into hundreds of failed human experiments, and they managed to get out of their cages.  Some of them may have run for public office, and, heaven forbid, won.  Others are working on Wall Street.  Their flat heads shiny with hair gel, clever accessories strung from the bolts in their necks.  They are in a merger with Dracula and the Wolfman.   So much for better living.

No comments: