The World in 2030

310 The World in 2030
The drug, known as PTC124, has already had encouraging
results in patients with Duchenne muscular
dystrophy and cystic fibrosis. The final phase of
clinical trials is to begin this year, and it could be
licensed as early as 2009. 537
As such gene-based and gene-focused treatments become
accepted across society doctors, parents and scientists may
begin introducing improvements to the germline that society
perceives as beneficial – for example, one study has shown
the increase in income from only a single additional IQ point
to be 2.1 per cent for men and 3.6 per cent for women! 538
So even relatively small increases in mental performance
will have a huge impact on how well a child will do in life,
and if a nation state were to consider the economic impact
of a collective rise in national IQs… well, thankfully, that’s
something only a totalitarian state would contemplate.
More mundanely these ‘enhancements’ could also include
screening embryos against colour blindness, tone deafness
and other ‘defects’ not normally considered diseases. From
there it is a small step to making human enhancements.
Imagine two successful painters – visual artists – planning
to have their first child, a girl. ‘Shall we improve her colour
vision, darling?’ would be a very hard suggestion to turn
down. And, as research published in March 2007 suggests,
‘an almost instantaneous upgrade’ to human perception of
colour may become available:
Although mice, like most mammals, typically view
the world with a limited color palette – similar to