"Certainly not. For while it is always tempting to opt for any kind of uniformity which would automatically reduce human conflict, only a fool would reach into some giant computer that nobody understands and start yanking out transistors." - Researcher C A. Tripp, author of "Homosexual Matrix," on being asked whether he would eliminate homosexuality, given the power, from future generations of humanity.

C. A. Tripp's seminal text, The Homosexual Matrix, was published in 1975 and sold over 500,000 copies, It was also one of the first books published in America to describe homosexuality as a normal, naturally occurring human variation.

Although the metaphor employed by Tripp in the above quotation may seem quaint, I don't think anyone could do a better job of warning us about the danger of "messing around" (to use another dated metaphor from the decade of the 70s) with Mother Nature.

If people are worried about parents designing their own babies now, just wait until people start asking for new therapies to insure that they won't end up with homosexual babies. It's not as if leaving these decisions to our fellow humans has worked out that well so far. Ask all the Chinese men who will never get married because Chinese parents have been aborting female children over the last two decades, thus producing an unnatural over-supply of males in China today.

Do we really want to head down this road? What unforseen consequences await us when we decide we're going to re-design humanity?

eric2500be:

Ask all the Chinese men who will never get married because Chinese parents have been aborting female children over the last two decades, thus producing an unnatural over-supply of males in China today.

Great post, Eric.

Don't look now, but China is about to have their very own Stonewall.

It would be interesting to speculate on what potential unforseen consequences might arise to bite the hormone tinkerers in the butt.