Reflection on Cracking the Code of Life Movie

          So far, this movie has taught me a lot about genetics, and since it's pretty interesting, what I learn sticks in my brain.  One really important thing that I learned from this movie is that even just one wrong letter in your DNA can decide whether you will grow up to have schizophrenia, a deathly disease, cancer, or some other horrible illness.  Just one out of all the millions of A's, C's, G's, and T's in your DNA can determine how your life will end.  One example of a rare but horrible disease that is caused by two parents passing two of the same recessive alleles to their child was showed in the movie.  One pair of parents each had the Tay-Sachs gene in their bodies.  Both of them passed this gene on into their child, and their child developed this disease.  The father's identical twin brother had just resolved that he had to be his brother's rock and support him, when he discovered that his child, too, had Tay-Sachs.  It was such a sad story because Tay-Sachs is such a rare disease.  Even if one parent has the allele for it, they won't be able to pass it on so that it harms their child, and if both parents have it, there is only a 25% chance of their kids getting the disease. 
          The movie then discussed how scientists may be able to map one person's entire DNA, and tell them which diseases they may develop, how long they may live...everything about their future.  Personally, I think this is a great idea if you are only doing it to stop yourself from passing illnesses on to future generations.  However, I feel that if we have this ability to map out peoples' lives in our hands, our world will become kind of like the one in the movie GATTACA.  You will only be able to do a certain job because of the DNA you have, and you won't be allowed to do other things because of your genes.  I don't think that this would be such a great thing, and I hope that if our planet does become like GATTACA, it doesn't happen in my lifetime.