^I think it was his idea, though. I vaguely remember the sword stuntman guy being kind of pissed, too, although that might be just my supposition overlaying on factual memory. I mean, I'd be pretty upset.
I actually went back and watched "Bashir, I Presume"--no great sacrifice, since this is one of my favorite episodes, and it came off as even better this time though--but some things really hit me this time.
Wait, what kind of genetic engineering is bad?
I had thought about before, but my thoughts about it sort of coalesced on today's rewatch--Bashir wasn't really subject to genetic engineering as the term is usually used.
Bashir was subject to
somatic gene therapy. That is the rewriting of adult cells with new genetic information to improve the functioning of organs or the organism as a whole. It is widely considered to be dangerous, and in any even it is very difficult. However, it also raises
none of the questions that germ-line genetic engineering does.
Germ-line is of course engineering at or near conception, affecting all cells in the resulting organism, inserting, removing, or altering code in a manner that will be passed on to descendants. The main problem with germ-line engineering is explored in Gattaca and to a much simpler degree in Space Seed. That problem, basically, is that germ-line engineering pits its children, these new, improved organisms, against the existing population of normals and their unmodified children. The problem is thus essentially a class and race conflict, and is best understood by analogy from those contexts.
Somatic gene therapy, by contrast, is potentially available to anyone. It does not connote an otherness to its recipients, because whether they wind up awesome like Bashir or just have a functioning liver, anyone can potentially get the treatment and have the development of their cortices critically accelerated ("the technical term," sez Bashir
). Thus the aspects of racial (or even interspecies) conflict inherent in germ-line engineering is absent.
In a society such as the Federation's, it doesn't even make sense as a class conflict, between those able to afford it and those not, because there is no discernible economic division between people that would preclude one man from getting somatically engineered while permitting some more fortunate other.
So really what we're left with is an unexamined ideological problem with transhumanism, manifest as ancient and apparently well-settled law, embraced by not only humans (as we are wont to do with mystical notions about the specialness of humanity) but the aliens in the Federation who surely must outnumber us and could override such luddism through the democratic process if they wished.
At least the Federation can't be charged with cognitive chauvinism
Because being mentally retarded is just a different way of perceiving the world in the Federation. I guess the cognitive diversity people won in the future.
Bashir points out that genetic engineering is legal to repair serious birth defects. He also speaks of his childhood memories, when he was unable to distinguish a cat from a dog, or a tree from a house (!)... at age six. Also notable is that few scenes later he mentions how his IQ rose five points a day for over two weeks. That is x>70 points (I'm no lightning calculator like Bashir, but I can do that
). Just to make a rough estimate of his current IQ, I'd put it around 150 at maximum, and more like 130 or 140. (His weird powers, like the aforementioned lightning calculation, are not really indicative of intelligence--indeed, some of the world's foremost lightning calculators have been of average cognitive function, autists, or just plain dumb [of course, others have been excellent mathematicians].) Anyway, this would put the initial IQ somewhere near or below Forrest Gump range. In any event, a kid who cannot tell a tree from a house at age six and is not blind is probably best characterized as seriously mentally retarded. I find it fascinating that someone who is genuinely confused over the taxonomical classification of felis catus and canis lupus familiaris, about four years after he should have sorted this problem out, is
not considered to have suffered a serious birth defect.
There really is a nascent cognitive diversity movement, pioneered by Aspergers' sufferers and autists--who may have a point. It's sort of like champions of deaf culture, with inability to hear being painted not as a disability, but as a different way of living, worthy of as much respect (and protection) as race or sexual orientation or mutant powers or whatever. And hence not amenable to a "cure." Same deal with cognitive diversity supporters. These sort of people are easily identifiable as sort of deluded, but their arguments have enough merit to them to be considered, and people who have lived with such conditions/ailments for their whole lives are obviously very susceptible to being told that they are special and not only worth saving but worth deliberately
replicating. Really, I could actually see the diversity-directed liberal culture of the Federation embracing this kind of thought, even if it is after a fashion abhorrent.
For the record, I know where I stand with the militant deaf culture guys--they're pretty much deranged. If there are militant blind culture guys, they're even crazier, because it is beyond obvious (not to say "easy to see") that blindness is a disability. Low-functioning autists should also be cured, were it possible. Asperger's presents a more difficult case, as a more viable candidate for "simply different" rather than "obviously ill," and maybe even a potentially viable adaptation.
I've been told we're severely underquota for this month, Doctor, so you stay
Yeah, the legal deal struck at the end struck me as bizarre. "Your dad agreed to go to prison, so you're allowed to stay in Starfleet"?
So, it's okay that Bashir is violating and will continue to violate legislation or administrative regs--as long as his dad goes to prison. Maybe there's some stop-loss provision that allows the Starfleet JAG to blithely ignore service requirements. I mean, this is like someone on your submarine crew turning out to have a vagina, but the USN JAG is like, "Well, since your mom's going to prison for a crime unrelated to you lying (under oath) on your application forms, you can continue to serve on the USS Ohio."* It's just... weird.
*Yes, I know they're doing a pilot program starting soon. Good for them. After all, submarine life is long and hard and full of seamen, and female officers aboard would no doubt be a welcome change of pace.
What would you have liked them to be? Normal, sweet and perfectly adjusted? Well, then they certainly wouldn't prove that genetic engineering should be outlawed, would they. 
No wonder I liked them so much, I'd fit right in.
), you get some ugly dude's mug because that's the least impressive set of eye sockets and noseholes that still functions according to Federation minimum facial guidelines.
)
I didn't know that was an improvisation by Ford.
