Newest Form of "Gattica"

I commute about an hour to and from work every day.  This gives me A LOT of time to listen to the radio.  In the past few months, WPTF (yes, that's AM) has added a show on Saturday nights called the Allen Hunt show.  He is a former pastor and his show advertises that they are more about "right and wrong than right and left".  They still touch on political issues from time to time but take a moral view of whatever the topic may be.

This past Saturday he was reporting that a team of scientists had found that 40% of men carry a "cheating gene".  His question then to his listeners was this.  To the women, he wondered if they would want their potential mates screened.  And to the men, he asked if they would offer up their screening results as a qualifier of their worthiness.

As you would expect, the callers called in with all sorts of crazy stuff.  One guy even tried to tie it in to Usama Bin Laden.  They really came down all over the issue.  His take was that you should control your thought life and fill your mind with the Word.  That sounds like sound advice from a religious/moral standpoint.  

Here's where the movie "Gattica" comes back to haunt me.  How much does our genetic code really play into our life outcome?  Sure, they say that tall men make it further in their careers than shorter men.  But what happens when we start looking a little closer?  Does IQ replace aptitude?  I've known some really smart people I wouldn't trust to get me across the street.  I hear all the time from school teachers that kids are really smart and can succeed in their studies but they are just too lazy to do any work and end up failing.  

I went to high school with a guy in a wheelchair.  He was only 3 feet tall, his head was over sized and he had some different operation almost every year.  He started out life on this track.  What if he was determined from birth to be potentially ineffective at life?  Certainly on a daily basis he requires more care than he can give.  Or does he?

I peeked in on my friend a few months ago on his Facebook page.  It seems that he has a Master's Degree and is working as a social worker.  I wonder if he is in his own way trying to pay back to others for all the help he has received in his own life.  

Now obviously this gentleman is intelligent or he could not have achieved this level of education.  How did he make it with such a genetic flaw?  I think it's what people call the "X Factor".  Describe it as you will... motivation, will, soul, cajones, or mojo.  There is something in a person that drives them to overcome when all the cards are stacked against them.  It isn't always their education, upbringing, or social status.  How many "they overcame" stories have we heard?  

I guess the measure of a man is the measure of the whole man.  Just because one part may be deficient doesn't mean that the man is left unwhole.  There are so many times that there is more to a person than meets the eye.  I would hate to start handicapping people just because they don't measure up on some scientist's scale of success.  I hope that mankind grasps this because mankind will in turn be judged by the same unrealistic set of qualifications that it imposes.