PHOTO: Ask Brian Jones --"Hey, Mr Jones, would I make a good Gigolo?"
"Uhhhh, I dunno -- let me check your jeans."
Chicago (IL) - Researchers are beginning to identify the genes which makeup a person's physical traits, including facial structure, skin tone, hair and eye color and more. The technology could be employed in the future in a Gattaca-like way, allowing a genetic approximation of your true appearance merely from a DNA sample. (HERE)
With one eye on his dream of working in outer space, a genetically flawed "In-Valid" (Ethan Hawke) hires a DNA broker (Tony Shalhoub) to help him obtain more desirable genetic material from a paralyzed man (Jude Law). In the process, he meets and falls in love with a beautiful "Valid" (Uma Thurman) with a heart defect. Screenwriter Andrew Niccol also directs this futuristic thriller, which marks his debut in the feature-length realm. GATTACA/ 1997
(TG Daily: Retrieved HERE) An article appearing on the Wall 
Street Journal today suggests this technology could be used by police to create a physical description of a criminal when only a DNA trace is left behind. However, I believe this story has far broader implications.Scientists discovering more about genetic cues and a person's physical traits
General Sciences, | By Rick C. Hodgin | Friday, March 27, 2009
In the movie Gattaca, DNA was used to classify individuals into their capabilities and limitations before birth. It was already known, based on their DNA profile alone, how much potential a given individual had.
A weak heart, for example, might limit their abilities to be strong laborers. A shorter individual might not do so well in sports, etc. All of these cues were taken by genetic markers -- and in the movie the entire society had been adapted into this way of thinking. They even had a term for people who stepped outside of their genetic profile illegally -- they were called broken ladders.
The technology is still very primitive compared to that movie. In 2004, police used a
crime-scene DNA sample to correctly identify a black man who had been described by eye-witnesses as white. In England, forensic services has a similar "ethnic inference" test for murders and rapists. [MooPig would like to add here: "...and Ellen DeGeneres."]
Are we the sum of our genetic code? Or is there something more?
My fear is that when science identifies the genes which mark an individual's traits to a sufficient degree, the answer to that question will no longer matter as scientists and politicians will be unable to stop themselves from categorizing people based on their genetic markers alone -- rather than accomplishments or worldly influences or circumstances which might encourage them in alternate directions. (IBID)
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