When I watched the PredictionX interview with George Church, I was surprised to learn the reasons why people may or may not want to learn more about their genomes. While I can understand why it might cause people stress and anxiety if they know more about their genetics, I agreed with Professor Goodman that if someone else knows about my genetics then I would also want to know. Further, I would want to be able to conduct additional research on any genetic diseases that I had and contribute to the development of new medical findings by participating in medical studies, as Church also suggested. One specific piece of information that I found surprising is that 80% of the families who influence the gender of their child decide to have girls. I found Church’s comment that this fact is not consistent in all countries interesting and I would be interested in learning about how that statistic might vary across different countries.
Although it might seem that different fields of science might have different modeling techniques, Professor Goodman suggested that methods of processing and understanding information are consistent across different fields of science. Therefore, I found it surprising that genome modeling and astronomy can have similar methods of 3D reconstruction.
Just as a side note, I was interested in watching the interview with George Church because I recently read a Wall Street Journal article that discussed a recent World Health Organization report on the origins of COVID-19. The article, linked here, explained that genome analysis revealed that the COVID-19 virus was not purposefully developed in a lab.
Here’s the link to the interview with George Church!
As someone who would love to learn more about my genome, I also find it surprising that many people would not want to gave their genome mapped and studied. It seems extremely compelling especially given the selfish reasons of wanting to find out about genetic predispositions for certain diseases. However, I think one consistency in these prediction interviews has been a sense that large segments of the population don't trust scientists or the scientific community. Because things like climate change and vaccinations require collective action, people who study the climate or epidemiology recognize the need for creative public outreach that meets people where they are. Maybe the nature of genome research, which doesn't involve any potential catastrophe on a global scale, gives scientists like George Church less incentive to get creative about involving the public and trying to gain their trust. I'm not sure exactly what this would look like in his case, but I feel like it would involve people who are not entirely involved in research and have more of an expertise in public outreach.
I also find it fascinating that 80% of Americans who influence the sex of their child choose to have girls. Those decisions are so intimate and personal that they give a genuine insight into our culture in a very interesting way.