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Zygotic Social Networking?

Almost missed in reading through the NYTimes Magazine annual special ideas issue: Zygotic Social Networking or tying genetic testing results to social networking. The idea shared and exploited by Ancestry.com, GeneTree.com and startup 23andMe is that you can connect with people who are like you — at a DNA level of some sort. This takes friend-of-a-friend to a different depth. It also assumes that you will want to make friends or mate with someone a lot like yourself. So much for genetic diversity. Or will our already confusing diversity confound the companies who are building on research that is so new and undeveloped that the answers are only slightly more reliable than say a Chinese horoscope?

2 Comments

  1. Steve B

    The sarcastic answer is “I already have a zygotic social network – I grew up with them.”

    The non-sarcastic answer is I can see this being adopted with great speed by various groups who care about “purity”.

  2. raleigh classifieds

    I guess soon we will starting putting babies in prison based on their DNA. If their DNA is similar to Charles Manson then they get an automatic pass to jail. Seriously, I can honest see this catching on. DNA-match-making! The DNA centers are going to busy in 2008! 🙂

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