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News that Chinese researchers have successfully created mice with mothers but no fathers has resulted in predictable shock/horror headlines. According to The Daily Telegraph, “Never has a major scientific breakthrough carried such sinister implications for mankind — specifically, for men: The end of men is at hand as mice are born with two mothers.”
In fact, mice with a mother but no father, or father and no mother, have been around for decades and indeed led directly to the formulation of the imprinted brain theory in 2000 (left). Father-only embryos were found to be larger, except for the brain, and to have large placentas. Mother-only embryos were the opposite: smaller except for the brain, and with tiny or absent placentas. Growth-enhancing paternal genes explain the former, growth-restricting maternal ones the latter.
The new research confirms this pattern, but breaks new ground, if only in the manner in which the bi-maternal/bi-paternal embryos were created (below).
It is also notable for the way the technique worked well in the bi-maternal case, but not in that of the bi-paternal embryos, which died soon after birth. Mothers do these things so much better!
OK: I know that such comments are taboo and that in today’s world everyone and everything is equal, inclusive, and non-discriminatory. But it is precisely this which I strongly suspect will make mother-only children a reality before long—even if father-only ones remain off the menu.
The reason—apart from the obvious fact that all mother-only children would be female—is that anyone who opposed the desire of a pair of married women to have their own children together as bi-maternally-engineered embryos would invite accusations of sexism, homophobia, and—given that the child’s gender would not have been determined in the normal way by a sex chromosome from the father—anti-transgenderism, or some such. At the very least, they would be indictable on charges of being against Diversity. Indeed, as I have learnt to my personal cost, even advocating a scientific theory based on parental/sex differences invites similar charges (and so much abuse I have had to stop readers responding).
So, I personally expect mother-only designer babies to come, and will welcome them with open arms as an experimental test of the imprinted brain theory. Although I doubt I shall live to see it, given my current age and poor state of health, I will take this opportunity to predict that, no matter how skilfully genetically-engineered the bi-maternal progeny may be, they will almost certainly be found to be averagely underweight and to have an enhanced risk of a psychotic spectrum disorder in adult life—even if they avoid Prader-Willi and other syndromes associated with dysregulated genomic imprinting. Bi-paternal children, by contrast, I would predict would be averagely heavier and have an autistic cognitive configuration, even if avoiding Angelman and similar syndromes.
Such eugenic epigenetics is not something I would want for any of my own descendants. But if the wisdom of the crowd dictates that such experiments must take place, I would welcome it as the acid test of the imprinted brain theory, and would regard the banning of such procedures because the outcome was as I have predicted as its ultimate vindication.
In any event, congratulations to the researchers for a landmark achievement, however you interpret it.
