Imagine a custody battle, in which the father hires a private investigator to get a mother's genome. With two variants that yield a 15 percent higher risk of schizophrenia, will the mother's genetic risk be held against her? Or think of corporate boards, looking for a way to dismiss a CEO without paying that golden parachute. Could a genetic test result showing a higher risk for early Alzheimer's give them a reason to invoke a "health" clause in the contract?

If you find yourself saying, "No matter how hard I try and try, I can't make my kid do X ..." or "No matter how hard I try, I can't make my kid understand Y ..." it's usually a clear sign that expectation and enforcing that expectation are a significant part of the problem. Your expectation may in fact accurately address the mean—that is, you may expect a behavior of your 9-year-old that most 9-year-olds can do—but remember the range of human variability and try to structure antecedents (the things you do to encourage a behavior to occur) with room for that variability.

I am confident that if we recommit ourselves to discovery, if we support science education to create the next generation of scientists and engineers right here in America; if we have the vision to believe and invest in things unseen, then we can lead the world into a new future of peace and prosperity.