Introduction: Bio and tech
Since the discovery of genes and DNA, the idea of genetic engineering has been a staple of science fiction. We see it in novels, movies, television, anime, and video games—in short, everywhere there's a need for an author. In recent years, we've also seen it become more of a reality, with inventions such as CRISPR and vaccines of dubious efficacy based on messenger RNA. So it stands to reason that genetic engineering will only grow in scope, but this relatively young field still has a lot of unknowns that provide fertile ground for an author's imagination.
Before we get into some of the possibilities, we need to go over the realities. All living organisms on Earth are built on DNA, with many viruses (which are or aren't truly alive, depending on who you ask) instead using the simpler RNA instead. Chemically, DNA is a twin strand of bases, forming the classic double-helix shape we've all seen; RNA, by contrast, has only a single strand.
These bases form the lowest level of the genetic code. Every aspect of our biology ultimately boils down to them. For complex organisms like us, however, there are intermediate levels. A large string of bases can form a structure that is conceptually, though not physically, self-contained: a gene. Genes can then be collected into chromosomes, of which humans have 23 pairs. (That's why the site is called 23AndMe, after all.) These chromosomes thus encode all that makes us, well us. At least physically. Hair color? Eye color? The length of your nose? How much melanin your skin contains? It's all in the chromosomes. And the genes.
Note that I said "pairs" above. As humans, like most multicellular organisms, reproduce sexually, we are born with genetic material from both of our parents. It's a very efficient way to speed up evolution that has worked for hundreds of millions of years. You got 23 chromosomes from your mother and 23 from your father. (Unless you were born with certain disorders, but that's neither here nor there.) Those chromosomes will have identical copies of most genes. They're the ones that make us human, so we all have them. The others, the ones that encode more "personal" features like eye color, can appear in different forms. Some of those forms are more likely to be expressed—they're dominant, as we learned in high school biology. The traits created by dominant genes tend to spread, while recessive ones are muted and show up more rarely in the general population.
All well and good, but how did these differences come about in the first place? Well, that's evolution for you, and the power of mutation. Movies would tell you that mutation can make a turtle speak or give Hugh Jackman superhuman regeneration, but the reality is a lot more subtle. Quite a few mutations are neutral, just stray DNA "bit errors" that either don't affect anything or get covered up by biological error correction. Others are negative, causing anything from mental disorders to susceptibility to disease. Some are beneficial, granting resistance to disease or better adaptation to one's environment. And all too many are hard to classify, because they have good and bad parts. Natural selection, remember, has no guiding principle except fitness for survival and reproduction.
Artificial selection
But we humans are curious creatures. We like to experiment, to tinker, and it's only natural that we do so with biology itself.
When you think about it, we've been doing that for millennia. Domestication of animals and plants is a kind of genetic engineering. Although it's far from scientifically rigorous, the process created dogs from wolves (10,000-20,000 years ago), made wheat into a crop suitable for agriculture (8,000-10,000 years ago), and allowed us to breed tame silver foxes (60 years ago). Likewise, farmers and herders have been performing artificial selection since before the dawn of history. All breeding programs are exactly this, and you don't have to know about DNA to understand that.
Modern times have given us a more powerful tool, allowing us to get right down to the building blocks of biology, and that opens up whole new avenues of research and experimentation. More importantly, it allows us to do so at a much faster pace. Evolution, remember, is all about reproduction, so it necessarily works on the scale of generations. For humans, a new genetic mutation can't be passed on until its original carrier is old enough to able to reproduce—biologically speaking, not socially. If it's a mutation that renders a person infertile, it can't be passed on at all.
If we could isolate the beneficial mutations, though, and replicate them in vitro or even in utero, that changes things dramatically. Most birth defects could become a thing of the past. Genetic disorders? Gone. This is the "designer babies" future, best known to the public from movies such as Gattaca.
Now, can we take it a step further? Adjusting a person's DNA on the fly probably won't have the desired effect, as most of our traits are fixed early in our development. A series of DNA-altering "vaccines" given to children might change how they grow, however. That's still faster than natural selection.
Of course, humans don't have to be the only target for genetic manipulation. We're already seeing the fruits of such research (pun fully intended) in the form of genetically modified crops. Plants have had their DNA altered, sometimes splicing in genes from other organisms, to make them more productive, more resistant to the elements, or immune to pesticides. Animal "modding" is at an earlier stage, mostly due to ethical concerns, but we've made some advances on this front, too.
Cloning is yet another possibility that arises. It wouldn't be Hollywood-style "you now have another you" cloning, but an exact clone of you would have the same DNA as you, and thus grow into the same physical form. Accounting for the nurture factor, that is; if 45-year-old you grew up on fast food and sugary sodas, while the clone you had a decade ago sticks to a healthy diet, the two of you are going to look very different. But you'd still have identical DNA. Genetically speaking, you're identical.
We've already cloned animals. A sheep named Dolly made headlines in 1996, and the science has only progressed in the 25 years since. Now, we're looking at ways to take any DNA sample and clone an organism from it. Pets are a popular choice—my aunt has tried to preserve hair from her last two dogs in case she could have them cloned. Extinct organisms are more fun from our perspective. You only have to look at the success of Jurassic Park for that.
Yes, it's theoretically possible to clone dinosaurs. And dodos and mammoths and all the rest. We could turn a few uninhabited islands into ARK: Survival Evolved within a hundred years.
Stop to think
Ending hereditary genetic disorders. Cloning our lost pets, and perhaps even people. De-extincting the dinosaurs. Engineering human-animal hybrids that look like anime characters. Could we do these things? Probably. Should we, though?
That is the great debate when it comes to genetic modification. Detractors of the science say that we're messing around with forces beyond our comprehension, that we're trying to play God. Supporters will argue that we have the technology and the knowledge, so it would be wrong not to. If we have the ability to cure a disease, for instance, is it not morally imperative that we do so? (Cynics, myself included, would counter that we already don't do that, because continued treatment is more profitable than a cure.)
At its heart, this debate is about the limits of human ambition, and there are numerous facets. Rather than a simple rift between faith and science, we have to look at multiple angles. For example, what are the economic factors involved in radical life extension? If everyone can live for a thousand years thanks to genetic engineering, how does that affect a social structure built around present life expectancies that are in the upper 70s and even declining in some parts of America?
If modification of embryos and fetuses is allowed and commonplace, what about the people who don't opt in? They have their reasons. Maybe they really are devout. Or they might not be able to afford the treatment. Or a woman doesn't want a DNA test that might reveal the true father of the child she's carrying. Whatever the reasoning, it's entirely possible that some parents would prefer "natural" births. Their children would likely be at a genetic disadvantage, but does that become a social disadvantage? This was the primary conflict in Gattaca: unmodified people, seen as imperfect and thus inferior, were treated as second-class citizens.
Conversely, if genetic engineering of humans remains too expensive to gain that kind of traction, two possibilities emerge. One, it's only used in extreme cases, to eradicate certain disorders or keep a fetus viable. That's the humanitarian option, and it fits a more utopian setting. The dystopian counter to that is a kind of transhumanist aristocracy, where the rich and famous have access to all the treatments and cures, looking down on us common citizens and our defective DNA.
Attack of the clones
The other types of modification bring their own potential concerns—in other words, they're own sources of drama. Human cloning is a popular one in fiction, especially film; examples include sci-fi dramas (Orphan Black), action flicks (The 6th Day), and even rom-coms (Multiplicity), so don't think you're limited in genre here.
Limited in science, on the other hand, that one's possible. Remember that, barring some kind of "indistinguishable from magic" breakthrough, cloning works by taking DNA from one person and using it as the basis for a new person. In other words, a baby, but one who has all the genetic markers as the (presumably) adult source. For all intents and purposes, that person now has an identical twin, with all that entails. DNA tests, paternity tests, fingerprint scanners, and any other form of biometrics will see them as essentially the same.
Others might disagree, and here we return to theological implications. Does a clone have a soul? Would a dead person who is cloned be reincarnated? It doesn't matter if you, as the author, believe in any particular religion. What matters is whether the characters in your story do. That's what you need to think about. Looking at other transhumanist works—Altered Carbon, to name one example—is a good way to get a feel for the controversies, but simply reading the news helps just as much. After all, a significant fraction of Americans believe stem cells are an affront to God, and I know far too many who refuse mRNA on the basis that it would stain their souls and prevent them from entering heaven.
Now, you might think religious objections are the only sort, but they're really not. They're just the most prominent, and that's because the others are only now beginning to reach the public eye. Outside of sci-fi circles, we haven't had time to discuss and debate them yet.
Government regulation is the big one, obviously. A repressive state may make genetic engineering illegal. An overly progressive one may make it mandatory. But social factors also come into play. Environmentalists have argued both sides of the issue, as they often do, opposing GMOs while approving of human modification to lower birthrate. Biological sex is determined solely by genetics; whether a modification treatment that changes it is universally loved or hated is a mystery worth exploring, I think.
Further consideration
That goes for everything, but never as much as when you're dealing with a new technology or science whose effects on society remain unseen. Because we simply don't know what would happen if DNA became as changeable as the apps on your phone, our collective imagination has room to explore. And explore it has.
There's even a time dimension to it, and that's the last thing I want to touch on today. At first, you'll have the great debates, the protests and competing journal articles and shortsighted laws. That's where we are with stem cells and CRISPR right now. Once we develop more robust techniques for genetic engineering, we'll only see the arguments grow louder.
But they'll eventually plateau, and what then? There will always be a rejecting minority. That's true of any science. How big the anti-GMO minority grows in your story is up to you, but it will most likely diminish over time until it reaches a low, somewhat steady level on par with anti-vax, anti-transfusion, and people who unironically wear face shields while alone in their cars. How vocal this minority is will fluctuate. Sometimes they'll get louder, especially if a newer modding technique is announced.
Long after that—I'm talking decades or even centuries here—it's possible that society will have completed its transformation. It won't look like Cyberpunk 2077, as real life doesn't crash quite that much, but you might see a few similarities, depending on what's possible in your setting. For instance, if death from old age (and old age in general) has been all but eliminated, you'll see a lot more experimentation; it's easy to imagine a future where "transgender" doesn't exist, because drugs and genetic modifications let everyone transition at will, and there's no reason not to. Besides, if you decide you want kids in your late 240s, you can always have the doctor grow a new womb from your DNA.
Writing that, it makes me realize that I completely forgot to mention organ harvesting, and this column is already getting long enough. Okay, I'll make it quick.
You can't throw a rock on the internet without running into a debate on the ethics of animal products. (By the way, if you can find a way to throw a rock on the internet at all, let me know. There are a lot of people I'd be aiming for.) With even near-future genetic technology, we may reach a point where we can grow meat in labs; we're almost there already, but the early products aren't quite edible. Since lab-grown beef, pork, or poultry is just the meat, with no animal involved except to provide the initial DNA, would it count as vegan?
A simple question, and one sure to get a thousand different responses from ten different people. Now, if we can grow meat from animal DNA, what's stopping us from growing human organs? Labs could create new skin, new lungs, new kidneys, even new sex organs. They would be derived from your DNA, so your body would never reject them, but genetic engineering would allow you to customize them—if you're a man, I already know the first mod you'd want to get. Unlike breast implants and Botox injections, these "cultured" organs would be perfectly natural, too. Well, as natural as anything completely made by human ingenuity.
So how does that fit into your story? With the ability to regrow organs, people may become more reckless. I'm sure you know a smoker who's had lung problems. Would they keep up their habit if they knew they could just get a new lung whenever one of the old ones fails? On the positive side, some would be more apt to heroism; rushing into a burning building, for instance, is slightly less harrowing if you have perfect skin grafts available. And even if you can't cure some diseases, the possibility of replacing the organs that fail would give many people a new lease on life. That's the last debate I'll leave you with: is ending the need for dialysis worth the price of removing a major argument against alcohol and tobacco?
This one turned out to be a lot of debating, didn't it? In my opinion, that's where some of the best stories arise, when an author looks at the controversy and says, "This is how I think it would go." I know I've done that before. While genetic engineering isn't one of my favorite story topics, it's of such growing importance in our world that I felt I had to give it its due. Who knows? It might even be the first thing I revisit in the future of Hardcore Worldbuilding. All I'd need is one major news article to get my mind on this track again.
Thanks again for reading. If you like the article, let me know with your comments. I'm also looking for more ideas for future entries, so feel free to toss them my way. And don't forget to share Hardcore Worldbuilding with your friends. Remember, keep reading!