TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Sunday, April 18, 2004

I found an interesting article at The Atlantic about genetic engineering that used baseball as a metaphor for part of it. The immediate question was:

Which would be more disappointing, learning that Pete Rose or Joe DiMaggio used performance-enhancing drugs/technology?

The idea being that Rose represents effort, and DiMaggio natural gifts, in the arena of athletic success.

There's a lot of existential freight in the article that I'm going to pass over unless specifically requested to comment on it, but I found a couple of things striking, and grounds for rather strong disagreement.

1. The author definitely takes pains to make a distinction between therapy and enhancement. As I see it, the only real difference is the "DC level" at which you start the procedure. Why is going from -1 to 0 OK, but 0 to +1 bad? The author never really answers this question, though he does spend a lot of time on the "ethic of giftedness." The basic idea here is that if we enhance ourselves or our offspring, we somehow run the risk of losing the ability to consider life as a gift. But again, the question arises, why is it OK to fix up a "substandard" gift but not OK to soup up an "average" gift?

2. The article is heavily flavored towards genetic determinism. I think the counterargument is abundantly clear just by looking around, and maybe by reading Moneyball. Would you want your kid to have half his/her genes (but none of the riches or other advantages) from Donald Trump? Bill Gates? Oprah Winfrey? Heck, it's widely acknowledged (at least by the family) that Bobby Bonds Jr. is more athletically gifted than brother Barry, but it ain't Jr. that's just passed up Willie Mays on the all-time homerun list and was a mortal lock for 500 dingers well before any real suspicion of steroid use.

The main thesis boils down to people becoming less natural if we tinker with the germ line. This rests on the unspoken assumption that technology is somehow unnatural, at least when applied to human genetics. Let me end with another thought question. Suppose Kerry Wood comes up in May of '69 and leads the "Miracle Cubs" to a World Series appearance, but blows his arm out in the process, ending his career. Is this situation more or less natural than the career arc that Wood has actually had since 1998? And if more natural is better, shouldn't we insist that Wood retire, or damage his arm so that he can't pitch anymore?

posted by Tom Renbarger 4:36 PM