Harvard Geneticist Making Genetics-Based Dating App Thinks It’s Ridiculous That We’re Comparing It to Eugenics – Jezebel

Photo: Craig Barritt (Getty Images for The New Yorker)

Harvard geneticist George Church thinks its ludicrous to compare his dating app that uses genes to pair adults together to eugenics. Its ludicrous to think thats what Im doing, but it makes good clickbait, doesnt it? Church told The Daily Beast.

Churchs dating app would stop people from matching with potential partners with similar genetic mutations that could result in conditions like Tay-Sachs, according to The Daily Beast. It would be a premium service on already existing dating apps. Eugenics is coercive. Rather than restricting peoples options for their health and their families, were expanding them. Were not going to be forcibly sterilizing people, if thats the business model they think were up to, Church said. Thats as far from what we intend to do as can be.

Hes painting the idea as a way to help people create families. If you know what youre doing is the right thing to help families have healthy children, I dont think you need to worry whether somebody somewhere has been associated with you in a way thats less than ideal, Church told The Daily Beast.

Curious about person associated with it whos less than ideal? Church used the interview to distance his connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein, who at one point proposed inseminating hundreds of women on his New Mexico farm. Just because they hung out with me briefly doesnt mean I bought into their malarkey in any sense, just like geneticists today dont buy into the eugenics of the 1920s, Church told The Daily Beast.

Epstein was one of the funders of Churchs lab at Harvard, and Church maintained contact with the convicted sex offender after Epstein registered as sex offender. In fact, Church went to Epsteins private island, Little St. James, in 2007. But dont worry, the scientists in attendanceslept on a separate island. Scientific meetings take place all over the place, and usually youre so wrapped up in the meeting that you dont take advantage of the place youre in. This was one of those cases. We did our science nerd thing and left, Church said.

Church said doctors will be the people drawing the line about what is acceptable to weed out of offspring, likely genes that produce illnesses that cause very premature deaths, often with pain and a lot of medical costs, he said. There is no line, just as theres no line with what speed limits should be on the road, but you have to draw one, and medical doctors are very good at drawing practical lines.

The only good part of this interview is his assertion that hes open to suggestions! If any doubters, after they see whats actually there, make a compelling counterargument, I may change directions, Church told The Daily Beast. Im very open to suggestions, and Im very interested to hear what everybody has to say once they see whats really there.

My compelling counterargument: Being casual about eugenics has never ended well.

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Harvard Geneticist Making Genetics-Based Dating App Thinks It's Ridiculous That We're Comparing It to Eugenics - Jezebel

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