Question: What are the main risks posed by the genomics
revolution? Juan Enriquez: So, anytime you bring a really
powerful new technology to market there are multiple
implications. You start changing the relative position of
countries. When you brought the Industrial Revolution in, all of
a sudden India and China went from being the dominant global
powers to being powers dominated by those who understood how to
apply this new technology. When you brought the digital
revolution in, all of a sudden, you could build a country like
Singapore and take that country, which had the income per capita
of Ghana in 1965, and make it something similar to the United
States in one generation. As these things roll through the
economy, who’s rich and who’s poor can shift very quickly
depending on who is literate in this stuff. So, one of the risks
is, our educational system doesn’t adapt, our society doesn’t
adapt and we become illiterate in the world’s dominant language.
The second risk that you’ve got to think about is, the