This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Ever feel like life has passed you by, that you have failed to live up to your full potential? If so, I have good and bad news for you.
First, the bad. You HAVE failed to live up to your potential. You're almost nothing like you could have been. None of us is.
Now the good. It's not our fault. Personal failure can be blamed entirely on someone else. In this case, scientists.
I have proof. Speaking to the Hollywood Academy of Medicine in Los Angeles, Dr. Edwin Vincent Askey, president-elect of the American Medical Association, said America could expect to see a race of supermen within 50 years.
According to Dr. Askey, within five decades human beings could develop into a race of supermen with perfect health, high intelligence and a life expectancy of 125 years. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want to be superhuman?
But there's more bad news. Dr. Askey predicted this astonishing advance in 1960, or roughly 56 years ago. Even with the fudge factor of six years, we're not even close to being superhumans.
Fifty years. That means I'm 13 years past becoming a superman. According to Dr. Askey, I should have another 62 years of enormously intelligent and healthy life to live. What went wrong?
I'd sue Dr. Askey if he hadn't died in 1974 — 46 years before he was supposed to croak. If he'd been right, he'd still be alive and sue-able until 2020.
Enough with science. The real question is, would you want to be superhuman and live until the age of 125?
If I'm honest with myself — and it's rare that I am — I would have to say no to being superhuman. I think mainly because I'm easily bored. Why would I want to spend another 62 years wondering what else there is to do?
Science has gotten us closer to something else Dr. Askey predicted: the ability to upgrade our progeny. No more having to settle for the standard models. We can soon order upgrades from the factory.
Want your children to be blue-haired and brunette-eyed? Well, science is not far from messing with our chromosomes and DNA to the point we can treat our unborn like tiny Mr. Potato Heads.
According to Dr. Askey, we'll be doing it with radiation. With enough radiation, it's possible to have a baby with two heads and 16 ears. Just ask the people living downwind from Chernobyl.
Again, the question is, why would anyone want to pre-order a baby? I say this because of the human tendency toward shallow and idiotic whimsy.
I'm serious. Think hard and see if you can come up with another species on this planet capable of paying a complete stranger to inject construction silicon into their asses as a way of becoming more desirable.
Unchecked, we could produce an entire generation of baby girls with Kardashian butts, trout lips and headlight eyes. They might grow up and even the score by murdering their parents. Hell, I would.
Maybe it's good that things didn't work out quite the way Dr. Askey predicted. There's still time for us to figure out whether they should.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley