A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Yesterday, I got an ad for the Gattaca (Special Edition) DVD. I watched the trailers and spots and got to thinking about the movie and what it says about potential. Originally released on DVD in 1998, the film is about genetic engineering and its effects on society. Once people can have their children engineered to be what they want them to be, very few parents opt to have God children. God children are simply children who have not been engineered and are a random mix of the parent’s DNA. Vincent, a God child, has a dream and does all in his power to achieve his goals in a society that sees him as a lesser human. His younger brother has been engineered and is a police officer. Once, as children, Vincent and his brother had a competition/race — the result has haunted Vincent’s brother. Why? Because, Vincent won. There’s a lot more to the plot of the movie but what I want to discuss is the underlying theme of potential and capacity for growth.

Earlier, my husband and I got to talking about the big fish in a small pond phenomena for students and how it effects their college years. For example, in high school I got decent grade by just going to class and listening to the teacher. I read a lot outside of school and skimmed the textbooks and did the homework (sometimes without actually reading the books). In other words, I never learned how to study because I never had to. Then came college. All the students were smart. I had to read all the assignments, sometimes more than once to understand them because the lectures built on the readings rather than, as they did in high school, simply hit the high/important points of the readings. So, I had to learn to study. First semester was a disaster as I scrambled to keep up, with no clue how to study, outline, highlight material, pick out the important points of a lecture. I was totally lost because I was beyond my native intelligence to where I really had to push to reach my potential.

Now, in Gattaca, everyone is genetically engineered for abilities. There are no interviews for a job, they take a blood sample and see what you are capable of. So, why push yourself to go beyond what you can comfortably do? Why struggle to be more when your DNA has already given you everything and you can’t be more than that anyway.

The key to the movie is someone who pushes to grasp a dream. Someone who knows what they want and is willing to push themselves to the limit to get that dream. There is no magic bullet that can make people better, they have to strive to be better every day. You have to reach beyond yourself and push yourself to achieve. Expecting that you will have, or get, anything you want simple because of who you are or what you are — that is the first step towards a stagnant society. Right now we have a lot of people who feel they deserve things (the thing changes with the person) but they don’t want to work for it because they feel it’s owed. I’m not talking about Equal Rights, that’s just leveling the playing field and erasing the barriers, you still have to work to get the job or whatever. I’m talking about those who feel they are owed just because they exist. I’m sure we all know people who feel they are owned respect, not because they have earned it, but because they are better dressed, richer, more educated, whatever than someone else. On the other hand, there are people who are given respect from others because they just do what they do to the best of their ability while respecting others. Sort of a Golden Rule result.

Everyone has potential. Yes, disabilities can limit the range of opportunities, but there is still potential. On the other hand, there are groups, laws, etc. that limit potential. For example, people on welfare are often not allowed to own cars or can only own a car worth less than a certain amount of money (a clunker lucky to move at all). Therefore, while forcing them off welfare and to find work, they are artificially limited in where they can look and what they can do for work. There are always problems trying to live up to your potential — money, physical defects, environment, education, and location. But usually, there are ways to achieve your dreams against the odds even then.

However, there is little support for those on the lower end of the economic scale to achieve their potential. I have to wonder why. Right now higher education is out of reach for many from middle income to poverty level. Students from poor families are just as likely (and often more likely) to be motivated to succeed in education — yet their potential is limited by income. There’s something wrong with a country that has no real mechanism for those with lower incomes to attend colleges while high income students don’t even have to actually make the grades if daddy can endow a chair or building.

So, maybe it’s money more than DNA that determines potential. It’s a thought anyway.