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Designer Babies, Version 1.0
Stickerboy writes: "A 30 year-old woman in Chicago gave birth to a pre-pregnancy genetically screened and selected baby 17 months ago, which is being reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association today. Doctors at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago took 23 eggs from her, screened the eggs for a gene that causes an early form of Alzheimer's, and then fertilized and implanted the eggs back in her womb. Shades of the movie Gattaca - this is a good specific development, but the start of a very controversial trend. Read more about it in the Washington Post or read the abstract in JAMA."
Yes,
Perhaps they could screen for the 'first post' gene as well...
Sigh...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
>Why didn't they do anything else interesting.
They were going to, but they forgot. If only the early Alzheimer's detection had been available a generation sooner...
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Why didn't they do anything else interesting. If you are going to screen for something, why not go all out?
Read the article - her family had a history of very early alzheimers, where they would be in the full stages of it by age 40. This was an attempt to prevent the 50% likelihood of the offspring having alzheimers by age 40 as well.
I think we can sum up the solution to this debate relatively easily:
Babies free from disease == Good
Babies who look like Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver == Bad
-Sean
All doctors did was select an unaltered embryo that had a better chance of developing into a healthy adult. They didn't change the embryo in any way, nor did they give any advantage to the mother or embryo.
Some doctors encourage people who are at risk of genetically transmitted diseases to have their unborn fetuses screened for those same diseases so that they have the option of aborting early in the pregnancy.
This merely takes that practice a step further, while eliminating the controversy of abortion.
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Even St. Thomas Aquinas can't object to this. The discarded eggs were not fertilized. Of course, he might have been upset that he missed out on the fun part...
Believe nothing -- Buddha
For you and your families sake, I really hope you are a troll.
-Sean
Natural evolution (random genetic drift/mutation generation of species and natural selection for survival) works but only up to the point of reproduction - the bad things that happen (like old timers disease) AFTER reproduction don't get weeded out but are passed down from generation to generation of sufferers. Things like this would be helpful to improving the quality of life AFTER childbearing, which is becoming the biggest part of life, in the developed world anyway.
Of course, anytime humanity plays God, there room for abuse and evil (breeding sex slaves, mercerary warriors, etc).
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
From the article:
"Without the screening, the newborn would have faced fifty-fifty odds of becoming hopelessly senile by the time she was 40."
This is a terrible thing. I am really sorry to hear that this *might* happen by the time she/he is 40.
Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life. And in this case, the weakness is basically being forced out of the child. I don't think this is a good thing, and here is why...
What happens when the governments start screening every child that is born for any inherent form of "weakness"? Will those children never receive the chance to live? Will they be branded "inferior"? This has the potential to be an extremely bad thing.
If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.
There are literally thousands of unwanted children out there that need and want a family.
What is so wrong about going this route as opposed to paying thousands for a procedure like this? You help a child already alive, and more importantly, you give that child a chance to have a better life, and that is what it's all about.
of course, this is my opinion, and I am sure I will be slammed most heartily....
*cracks open a beer and waits*
Sent from your iPad.
I hope you're not serious. To choose one egg over the others rather than letting nature (and I might add, natural selection) run its course just because you always wanted an athletic son is ridiculous. How egocentric is that? Wow.
I couldn't quite tell by the tone of your post if you were really serious, or just being sarcastic. I hope it was the latter.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Unfortunately, natural selection is no longer capable of weeding out medical weaknesses on a large scale needed to make evolutionary progress. Most diseases are cured, instead of killing the patient, which would remove the defective genes from the gene pool (sorry that sounds so cruel, but it's true). I think this application of science is a very good thing, because it plays with disease prevention. No human being is harmed in the process, and the result is a healthier baby, and improved genetic quality in the species as a whole. Who can argue?
The speed of time is one second per second.
I don't mind what kind of genes they are screening, Alzheimer's, cancer mutation gene, or whatever. As long as they don't try to make babies with IQ of 200+ by genetic engineering.
Look, I don't want to be the last generation of dumb humans, ok?
Not only the diseases, but when (and if) we can pre-screen for intelligence, strenght, certain characteristics, won't we be creating a 'super human-race'?
Very simply, you can't screen for most human traits. Period. Sorry, go to the back of the line.
Besides the fact that most traits are caused not by one gene, but by the interaction of dozens of genes and the proteins they create, you have to consider that almost all human traits develop in accordance to someone's environment.
Thusly, if Albert Einstein had been raised in an environment where he wasn't exposed to mathematics or the written word until he was 30 years old, he probably wouldn't come across quite as bright as he was. If he had been raised in an environment where he was not exposed to speech-- The so called 'Forbidden Expirement'-- he probably would come across as being pretty retarded.
If Michael Jordan had not had the opportunity to work hard in his youth and become athletic, he probably wouldn't be the sports superstar he is today. He couldn't just 'develop' those traits and skills later in life.
Say you're an intelligent but pudgy software engineer/couch potato type and you actually manage to get the doctors to screen embryos and sperm most likely to create an athletic individual. If the child created may have a better chance of becoming atheltic, but if he follows his parents example, he will probably be just as pudgy.
Now the one trait that you *can* screen for is gender, mostly because the relationship between X and Y chromosomes has been fairly well observed even if the science behind all the related protein interactions has not been fully plumbed yet.
This raises some scary possibilities, especially in parts of the world where reproduction is controlled by government (China) or families are encouraged to have male children. (Quite a bit of the world, actually.) Having a gender imbalance will do a number on women's rights.
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Speak for yourself, those of us who are losing their hair see it differently, ease of hair care aside. ;)
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Think of all the famous people who made great contributions to humanity who wouldn't have even been born if we do this nonsense widely in the future!
That's not a meaningful argument unless you include reasons why genetically selected or modified offspring won't make at least the same contributions as the people they are displacing. Just because mankind starts selecting against disease or for intellect and atheleticism, doesn't mean that these children would be less capable of making great contributions to humanity. In fact, many advocates of GM would argue that they would be more likely to make great contributions than their randomly created counterparts.
That's not insightful, that's silly. Think of all the famous people who could have been had we started this screening sooner. This could be an entirely different world, for better or worse, whichever way you look at it. For all you know the contributions of those selected could dwarf the ones of those who had not been.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Okay, two immediate thoughts come to mind with relation to this.
/smart/ and /strong/ and /useful/. Not pretty.
First off, with the way that human mating works nowadays, there really isn't much evolutionary motivation. You date people who you find attractive for whatever damn fool reason you have rather than for the purpose of creating healthy offspring. I, for instance, tend to prefer dating women who find fat, bearded computer geeks attractive. That's not an evolutionarily sound move on my part, but that's not going to make me dump my lovely girlfriend. So this development makes it possible for Humans to actually take control of evolution and start breeding out diseases and infirmaties.
However, the problem that immediately comes to mind is something that dog breeders have found over the years. People started breeding for certain traits such as soft coat, ears that are floppy in exactly the right way, short tails, etc. While this makes for very pretty dogs, it leads to the problem that the average Dalmation, far from rescuing its brethren from Cruella DeVille, could just barely rescue itself from a small, wet paper sack. And that's only if it had 100 other dogs helping it. And the wet paper sack also had food in it that they wanted to get to. And maybe was perforated. Which is why sheepdog owners are, last I heard (which was, admittedly, years ago), fighting tooth and nail to keep their breed out of competition. They raise sheepdogs to be
The point I'm trying to make is that genetically manipulating which kids we have to screen for diseases is fine by me, but I'd hate to live in a future where people start screening their reproductive cells so that they only have pretty babies. They'll probably be able to play games with Dalmations on the same intellectual level.
--AC
I think that designer babies are ok as far as eliminating disease but could hurt genetic diversity and cause genetic elitism if used to try to get the perfect baby.
Tread softly, you're walking down a dangerous path. If genetic diversity is considered an absolute "good" the next logical step is to be against inter-racial reproduction. It causes the same result, though it decreases genetic elitism.
That being said, I should point out that genetic diversity is a good thing health wise. It's what stops diseases from running rampant through the whole of humanity.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
There was one which was part of the The Genomic Revolution at the The American Muesum of Natural History where a couple chose thier baby based on its ability to provide a necessary blood or marrow transplant to thier already born daughter that really struck me. Interesting but somewhat scary stuff.
Government is the abdication of your responsibility to a faceless bureaucracy. Anarchy(absence of government)is the a
I want to see genetic engineering just take off crazy and unregulated. Seriously, there are enough of us here, that the only way we'll REALLY fuck up is if we keep going the way we are.
I want to see athletes engineered to run 25 miles an hour for hours on end.
I want to see people with IQ's off any scale.
Hell, I want to see decathalons with supped up athletes where half the contestants explode before the end.
Bring it on, I like it and we need it. Fuck all you Naysayers in your nice comfortable existence.
I have to say this is one area of technology I'm a little bit uncomfortable with. But then again, my family doesn't have a history of any genetic diseases.
I think it's going to be a *long* time before we can screen for things like intelligence, the genetics behind such traits is too complex for the forseeable future. There is no geek gene.
As long as this stays within the realm of selecting against life-threatening genes, I don't see too much of a problem.
I'd also like to know why so much effort is spent on reproductive medicine for rich nations with near zero population growth and near zero infant mortality. couldn't our resources be better spent helping out the rest of the world control their populations, and improving the (shamefully poor) infant health services in those regions?
I know it comes down to money, but still...
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
You go on, but your point is pretty incoherent. Let me address several of your points: 1. This is the best type of natural selection. You say it "goes against" it, but this is the most aggressive type of weeding out bad genes. I can assume you mean that "naturla forces" should decide which traits are bad and not the parents, but you don't explicitely say this. 2. The issue here isn't government intervention. What if the governemnt waited for children to be born and *then* killed "undesireable" ones? It's a pretty stupid postulation, since it's simply not happening. 3. Adoption. There's a huge difference between being infertile, and potentailly passing a debilitating disease onto a child. Yes, there are many children up for adoption. But that doesn't mean someone wanting to have a biological child can't. Anyways, wouldn't adopting be going against natural selection in a MAJOR way? Some things to think about...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Who's to say that this isn't just another phase in our evolutionary process? How many of these great contributors have died from diseases that we may be able to screen for in the future? Had they lived on would they have contributed much more? Having lost my grandfather to Alzheimers and having watched the mental pain that he and our family went through, I can't see how this could be unethical or immoral. On the contrary, I could see it as unethical to prevent people from persuing this preventative measure.
Obviously, there are those who will abuse the technology, since that's true for anything that's great, it's really a mute point.
I dunno about you, but I don't release a version 1.0 until I test the completed product for deficiencies. So, we probably won't be hitting 1.0 for at least 20 years (post-puberty functions have to be checked into).
In other words, right around the same time Mozilla and OpenOffice hit it!
My understanding of this process is that multiple eggs are fertilized and then screened and the best is selected. That means multiple human embryos are being discarded. Those are all unique human beings, you know.
Who are we to say the one discarded wouldn't have been the next Beethoven, and the one kept won't grow up to be a drug dealer? I'd rather see such decisions left to nature and chance.
Why not focus our genetic engineering efforts on something much less controversial and useful to those imperfect humans already born and find a cure for cancer, aids, etc?
Just wanna give a little HELL YEAH, and ask you to e-mail me, I know a great website you should visit, but if I post the link here we'll end up with more ppl posting trollish pics on it and other crap. My above e-mail is correct.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
So the mother has an ailment which means by the time she is 40 she will become senile. The child will just be 10 years old at that point. How is a senile mother supposed to raise a 10 year old child? Once again selfishness of the parent seems to have won out over long term best interests for the child.
Many people seem to think that this is the first time preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) had been used. I will quote from the first paragraph of the JAMA article to clear this up:
According to the most recent review, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been applied to at least 50 different genetic conditions in more than 3000 clinical cycles. In addition to traditional indications, similar to those in prenatal diagnosis, PGD was performed for an increasing number of new indications, such as late-onset disorders with genetic predisposition and HLA testing combined with PGD for preexisting single-gene disorders. These conditions have never been an indication for prenatal diagnosis because of potential pregnancy termination, which is highly controversial if performed for genetic predisposition alone. With the introduction of PGD, it has become possible to avoid the transfer of the embryos carrying the genes that predispose a person to common disorders, thereby establishing only potentially healthy pregnancies and overcoming important ethical issues in connection with selective abortions.
Basically, it says that PGD has been used for predispositions to diseases that come later in life before. This is just the first time it is being used for this particular disease.
The thing that possibly makes it more controversial is that not all of the people with the genetic mutation they "weeded out" go on to develop Alzheimer's, for reasons that are unclear. So maybe they trashed some perfectly OK embryos?
OR
Think of all the famous people who will make great contributions to humanity who wouldn't have even been born if we don't use this in the future!
Maybe the reason that if there is intelligent life out there among the stars that they haven't found us is because they didn't genetically engineer themselves?
Its a hard issue, what if this allows you to be sure a child won't have the same genetic heart problem his father has.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Adoption isn't as easy as you think.
Try and adopt a healthy, White baby and you can expect to wait in line for years. And even then you better be a straight, financially stable, heterosexual couple, otherwise, forget it.
Now, if you want a Black or Asian child, homegrown or imported, there are plenty to be had.
But people don't seem to want those kind...
Moderators: This should be modded down as Offtopic, even though it isn't, really. Troll or Flamebait doesn't apply because what I said is completely true, and you know it.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Just using that phrase "designer babies" determines the conclusion. Put out a poll...
"are you in favor of designer babies" - no
"should potential parents with inheritable diseases have the right to pre-screen their embryos for those diseases" - yes
Then we get the "look at all the wonderful cripples like Hawkins etc...." argument. Well, the foetuses you discard have at least as much chance of turning out well as the ones you keep. There are plenty of great humans who have nasty genetic diseases, but we have no way of telling what geniuses we've missed because the lack of screening meant some doomed half-wit runt got born instead.
And while I'm ranting... Gattaca wasn't that scary. I'm in favor of a world where more people look like Uma Thurman.
Anyway, I better quit before I start proposing full scale eugenics and saying "just because Hitler gave it a bad name doesn't mean it's wrong, after all, if his policies had been implemented Hitler would never have been born in the first place..." that would ruin any credibility I have. Oh shit, too late, just kidding, but I do have a gut reaction against the "this is what nazi's wanted = bad". Decent roads and punctual transport would get discarded too with those arguments.
Personally, I have more faith in nature combining things in the right way than a bunch of fuckwit genetic engineers. But, I don't think it's fair to tell people "it's illegal for you to try and avoid having a child who dies early - I'm not comfortable with that". You know what - nobody asked you to be comfortable with it, it's none of your business.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Yeah, yeah, the gentic superclass of the wealthy. Big deal, they're already a superclass in terms of quality of life and survival due to simple wealth. And remember, they're still confined to the leash of their personal genetics.
We don't know nearly as much about genetic impact on traits and development as we sometimes like to pretend. It's highly likely that more devlopment occurs in the womb than many people acknowledge - pure environment, and the kind that is hard to account for in the kinds of population studies that end up defining our assumptions about what traits are genetic.
"It's against evolution and/or natural selection!" It's amazing, I've heard it a million times and it still makes me laugh. No baby, it is Evolution AND natural selection if anything is. Evolution occurs on a time scale that, whatever we may say, defies our attempts to truly understand the consequences of our present actions. There's no such thing as a bad or good adaptation in it: some individuals pass on their genetics and some don't: end ah' fuckin' story.
In the Gattaca world I probably wouldn't exist, what with the bad eyesight and predisposition for substance abuse and all the rest. I'll be passing on my genes anyway if I have anything to say about it, the old-fashioned way, thank you very much, and another fucked up kid will come into this world. I'll put mine up against a superbaby any day.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
By the same token, who are we to say that your (say) twelve year old daughter's next ovum wonn't contain the best genetic material on the planet?
You're letter her *not* have sex? How dare you waste such potentially valuable genetic material? The second she gets gives birth to her first baby, make sure her boyfriend starts going for number 2. One of her fifteen kids might be the next Beethoven, after all.
I realize I'm being inflammatory, but I'm making a serious point. Every menstrual cycle wastes an egg. Every ejaculation wastes billions of sperm. I don't see a whole lot of difference between wasting them a few seconds before conception and wasting them a few seconds later.
(Yes, yes, I know that some people believe that a single cell can somehow possess an invisible, incorporeal, supernatural entity which they term a 'soul', but that theory is every bit as plausible as saying that the zygote possesses an invisible super-powerful wombat. They might, but considering there's absolutely no evidence in favor of it...)
And we *are* focusing our efforts on curing AIDs and cancer. Solving these problems does not require every single human on the planet to devote 100% of his or her effort to their solutions. That's a pretty inefficient way to operate. For that matter, what are you doing here on Slashdot? Why aren't you working on something more important?
The human race multitasks. Nobody complained about Linus Torvalds writing the Linux kernel instead of working on a cure for cancer. Why are you complaining about fertility doctors working on this rather than a cure for cancer?
I'm sure a lot of people will be pissed off by my opinions, but at least we can all agree on one thing. Super-powerful wombats would be *damned* cool.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I think being able to adjust ourselves genetically is a good thing on average. We just have to be careful that we dont:
1) Decrease the overall genetic diversity of the population. ie. Mass produced specific genes are probably a bad idea.
2) Create people that can't mate with "normal" humans.
As long as (2) applies we are adding to the gene pool, and it think there are enough people having kids the natural way out there that (1) will be very difficult to make happen (gene-implanting virus epidemics aside).
The possibility exists that a modification could be made that ends up having bad consequences for the recipient decades later. This is the nature of reality. The risk means that people will think twice before doing it, which should provide some handy negative feedback. You have to consider the probabilities.
Would I be willing to make this choice for my offspring? Yes. I indirectly make this choice by picking a mate anyway. I won't make a choice carelessly, and I would only do it if I saw real benefit for my kids. Many choices you make in your lifetime have a significant impact on those around you. It's the nature of life, rather than the nature of this particular problem.
For those that would point out that my children would bear the lifelong burden of my choices, I agree and say "So what?". It would be one of many such choices, and I feel no moral qualms about making them. It is my responsibility to do so.
Just to be clear, I know we are currently in the "remove things we know to be bad" stage rather than the "designer water-breathing" gene stage. I'm just looking ahead a bit.
I find most of the complaints against this sort of thing to be in the gut-feeling-looking-for-a-pseudo-logical-argument category. The remainder have so far made points that haven't convinced me.
---
we do not know enough about the genetic code to determine what is and isn't a weakness in the long term gene pool. this is very dangerous for the species. or at least any of the species rich enough to pay for such procedures... hmm.. this problem may correct itself.
While the Post article states:
"He used molecular tests to identify which eggs were free of the genetic mutation, fertilized them with her husband's sperm and transferred four of the resulting embryos to her uterus."
the JAMA abstract (which is likely correct) states:
"Analysis undertaken in 1999-2000 of DNA for the V717L mutation (valine to leucine substitution at codon 717) in the APP gene in the first and second polar bodies, obtained by sequential sampling of oocytes following in vitro fertilization, to preselect and transfer back to the patient only the embryos that resulted from mutation-free oocytes."
This means that fertilized eggs were destroyed, which meets most definitions of abortion.
The real difficulty you're going to have is that the number of usable gametes you're going to get falls exponentially with the number of chromosomes you're trying to select for. After you get to four or five traits you've got a choice: either you're going to have to be able to pick individual chromosomes and build custom nuclei, or you're going to have to select a "best-of-N" instead of a pure optimum. The "best-of-N" preserves large elements of chance.
This is still not bad. If it gives parents a shot at having a child who'll do best in their environment, or allows parents the knowledge that their child will do best if they provide a certain environment, it's all for the better. The same tests which show what environmental influences are best will help children who aren't specifically selected for certain traits to get the best out of what they've got. This is coming whether you want it or not; the technology is essential to tell what drugs will benefit individuals and what side effects they might have, and the other knowledge will follow behind it. Soon we are going to have the knowledge once reserved to deities, whether we want it or not; we had better be prepared to act on it humanely.Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I invoke Godwins Law.
Slashdot is now dead.
--
E_NOSIG
I think all of us agree that the government shouldn't be force a manditory DNA screening for everybody, and to be honest I don't really see that happening in my lifetime. I would pray for the poor SOB politician who even decided to bring something like this to the floor.
However, I can see screening becoming more and more popular for those who choose not to procreate naturally (having sex) to gain the benefits of potentially avoiding a limiting precondition.
You wrote:
What happens when the governments start screening every child that is born for any inherent form of "weakness"? Will those children never receive the chance to live? Will they be branded "inferior"? This has the potential to be an extremely bad thing.
As far as your scenerio is concerned:
* Why do you mention screening of children *after* fertilization when we're talking about screening eggs *before* conception even takes place?
* What value would it be to the government to screen children for weaknesses after the fact if you can't change it?
* Why do you conclude that screening before conception will result in manditory DNA screening?
* If a child is intentified to have a "weakness", how is this a potentially bad thing?
* Wouldn't discrimination laws apply to genetic predispositions?
* Wouldn't intentifying the weakness allow health professionals to make provisions for that child?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Now I'm no Scientist (upper S), but "helping" natural selection seems like a pretty dangerous idea.
How do we know that a "bad" gene isn't a "good" gene under different circumstances? i.e. Sickle-cell anemia offering resistance to malaria.
I haven't been actively involved in mapping out the Human Genome, but I'm pretty certain that we don't know what all of the genes and combinations mean just yet.
What if the next few generations carefully weed out genes that cause moles and 300 years from now a mutant Neue Spanish Flu comes along and BAM! the entire human race is gone due to an inability to synthesize protiens that could have only been generated from the now-extinct genes?
An extreme case, indeed, but you get the picture
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
Lets recap some of the big concerns.
1. Insurance companies not insuring norms. (I hate the term, but it fits)
2. Low-income families cannot afford screenings, genetic divide.
3. Normal People replaced in the workforce, 2-3 generations from implementation.
4. Screenings will filter out "Genius" and "Artists"
5. Unseen effects after multiple generations of "Altered" humans.
6. Altered humans breed for specific tasks.
7. Rights for Altered and Normal humans.
8. Social interactions between enhanced/altered humans.
9. Economic benefits for enhanced/altered humans.
I think if we could have 3 rules/laws, there would be no worries.
1. DNA Privacy laws.
2. DNA Discrimination laws.
3. Free screening and genetic altering.
Would really be a bitch that my kids cannot get into college, or find work because I could not afford these screenings. They are denied life/health insurance, or any other things we become accustomed to in our daily life. While there are some DAMN good uses for this, this is a very fundamental change to our existance. We need to have basic protections put in place.
Or maybe, we are all over-reacting?
-
Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Behold! One day, my parents had sex. No egg was fertilized. As a result, my sibling has never been born. How do you think my sibling feels about this?
On another note, I've managed to inherit clinical depression from both of my parents. Am I proud of my genetic diversity? Fuck no. It's a huge pain in the ass, believe me. Besides, why should I be proud of my genes? It's not like I had anything to do with the planning or implementation of my beautiful green eyes; taking credit for them would be pretty tacky, don't you think?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
>next you're going too be able to determine the sex of your child.
You already can. There are now machines that will seperate sperm cells that have either an X or a Y chromosome... because the Y chromosome is so much smaller than the X, the machines are able to shine a light through each individual cell, and with a decent degree of accurateness, decide which it is.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Heh, allready thought of that. If I were a religious man it wouldn't matter, the shell would be different but the soul inside would still be the same. I'd still be me, but a me with hair ;) :)
Of course it would be interesting to see how different I'd turn out. Of course who knows what other "defects" I would have, maybe I'd have huge ears, or wouldn't be able to fill out my boxers as well, or at all I coulda been a chick. I think I'll be happy with my genetics, if for different reasons than you suggest.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
2) Test for other traits such as height and eye color, etc.
3) Profit!!!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
We draw the line at wiping out diseases that are potentially harmful.
I was taking the opposite stance than this guy above but let me reverse things for a second. Proud may not be the word, but liking who you are is a pretty good idea, seeing as how there's nothing you can do to change it. Though people are proud of things that they have no control over all the time. I'm proud of my intelligence for instance.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
>To word it differently, what if we mistakenly classifly a positive as a negative based on our perception of it,
A classic example is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). If you look at highly succesful doctors (and those in other demanding professions), a very high percentage of them have a detectable level of OCD... in very tiny amounts, it can be a really helpful thing. But it doesn't take much at all before it can quickly turns into a very BAD thing.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
But what makes a gene that is against the norm a defect? Extreme intelligens is against the norm. Is that too a defect?
As I pointed out in another post, the question is whether something is functioning in the way it was intended. Note that a defect can be beneficial... for example, if I was born with 4 completely functioning arms, that might be a benefit as a piano player. But it would still be a defect.
Put it this way. Let's say I was going to have a child, and there was a genetic defect that caused the "switch" of whether to be attracted to the opposite sex to be switched wrong. Let's say there was a simple procedure to fix the problem. Should I do it? I would say, definitely.
The reason is because the mechanism is not functioning the way it was supposed to. Am I supposed to tell my child that they are doomed to not have children of their own (or at least with great difficulty) because it was politically incorrect to fix that particular genetic defect?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Oh, well if you mean "do I like who I am?", then by all means, yes! Depression, green eyes, and all, I wouldn't trade me for anybody else on earth :)
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Hmm. There's no evidence that you have a soul either.
Quite correct. I do not believe that souls exist, given the complete lack of evidence in their favor. That of course means that I do not believe that I possess one.
Does that make it OK for me to kill you?
Most Christians don't believe that animals have souls, either. Do you run around killing people's pet dogs and cats and then claim that it's okay because they don't have souls?
The Mona Lisa doesn't have a soul. Is it okay to break into the Louvre and torch it with a flamethrower?
The presence of absence of an invisible, incorporeal, supernatural being hovering around a material body is not what causes murder to be wrong. Murder is "wrong" because it has been defined as such by society.
The fact that murder's wrongness is defined by society, as opposed to the presence of a soul, is quite clear to an objective observer. Strangling a happily sleeping baby is demonic. Shooting a godless infidel heathen soldier from whatever country we happen to be at war with today can net you a medal and a promotion.
If you believe that both the enemy soldier and the sleeping baby have souls, your decision of whether it was right to kill them clearly hinges on something other than the presence or absence of a soul. Thus, you clearly do not believe that the presence of a soul is what makes killing wrong, no matter how you rationalize it to yourself internally.
I don't know why I'm wasting my time responding to an AC troll, but whatever. Still hoping for my super-powerful wombat of doom...
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Evolution is actually based on ability to reproduce. Seriously. When someone talks about "evolutionary fitness", they're talking about how well that animal can pass along it's genes. Brighter colors, a better way to get food, and other positives can enhance that. And negatives like weakness, blindness, etc. can decrease the ability to "get with the ladies".
The real problem is that there are conditions like Alzheimer's, MS, and others that aren't normally detected (outside of genetic screening) until AFTER the organism has had a good chance to pass on their genes. In a way, they're the "super-defects" - evolution is kind of powerless against them. By the time the chicks figure out that there's something wrong with you, you've already turned out a whole bunch of young 'uns to keep the family legacy alive...
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Basically, I completely agree with your post, however, there is a slight factual error, namely that Sickle-Cell Anemia is caused by an "unlikely mutation." Let us say that the gene that causes Sickle-Cell Anemia (SCA) is S, and that the lack of that gene is A. Any given person gets one allele (the varient of the gene that causes or does not cause SCA) from each of their parents, with the four following genotypes:
AA, no expression of SCA
SS, complete expression of SCA
AS or SA, partial expression of SCA
In other words, you do not get full-blown SCA unless you inherit the S allele from both parents. However, if you inherit the S allele from only one parent, then you are affected by SCA to some extent. Generally, there are enough healthy cells in the body to prevent the partial expression from being a problem. In addition, blood cells affected by SCA are virtually immune to Malaria, thus people with a partial expression of the gene are less likely to get Malaria.
In regions where Malaria is a problem, natural selection favors a parial expression of the gene. Those born without it die of Malaria and those born with the full expression of the gene die of SCA.
In fact the gene that causes SCA is not that rare, as you state, it is quite common in Malarial regions. There are as many people born in those regions with SCA as not. It is not rare, and is not caused by an "unlikely mutation." SCA is rather uncommon in regions where Malaria is not a problem and there are few breeding people from Malarial regions (i.e. the "Western World"), but (to beat a dead horse) it is quite common in regions where Malaria is also a common problem.
However, the rest of your comment is right on.
Rhapsody in Numbers
And while we're at it, AIDS appears to have made a jump from other primate species to us.
But why to chimps get SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) and not die from it?
The same reason a small percentage of the human population can contract (and carry) HIV and yet not die of it, nor even show symptoms.
In any population, some individuals will be resistant. The other primate species went through this a few million (or even hundred-thousand) years ago, and the resistant primates outbred the non-resistant ones. Voila, a population of chimps that carry SIV, but don't die from it.
Barring a cure or vaccine for AIDS, the same will happen with homo sapiens. The goal of developing a cure/vaccine is to avoid the economic impact of a disease-induced population crash.
Side note: There's anecdotal evidence that resistance to smallpox and AIDS is somehow related to what happened during the Black Death. The lack of resistance to smallpox to native North Americans is well-documented. This may be due to their isolation from all the diseases that have traipsed across Europe and Asia and Africa for the past 10000 years.
Molecular biologists are going to have some fascinating stories to tell, not the least of which is that our present modern culture may owe its existence to accidents of time, geography, and biology.
Because so many girls in china are aborted, killed at birth, or abandoned, there already is a huge discrepancy in gender there. Which is making things very difficult for men in China. They've taken to seeking wives out of the country quite often. I suppose women have no trouble finding a mate, but it may be that they are excessively coveted and pushed into politicized marriages as a result. I suppose the easiest way for the gov't to take care of the excess male population is to go to war, killing some and letting the rest steal/rape women.
Boo fucking hoo. They screwed themselves with their gender bias - the one child policy was just a catalyst. The Chinese government routinely screws over their people, but this time it's really the people's fault (won't stop 'em from blaming outsiders as usual though, I bet).
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I don't follow your logic here -- if genetic diversity is an absolute "good", banning same-race reproduction would be the more logical alternative.
(Actually, neither alternative would maximize genetic diversity -- the alternative that maximizes genetic diversity would be to ordain that all mating pairs must be selected at random. This would seem to be a contra-evolutionary strategy, however, as the point of selection - both natural selection and artificial selection - is that the more-fit genes propagate, and the less-fit genes don't.)
Given that human tastes in fashion and culture change on a 20-50 year timeframe, I'd say designer babies aren't a problem.
Just a few hundred years ago, we'd have been selecting for "fat chicks", because of that Reuben guy (where do you think the word "Reubenesque" comes from?) and the notion that being fat meant you had enough food to eat (and were therefore a "good catch"). In the 70s and 80s, we'd have sprogged a generation of anorexics with big hair. 30 years from now, fat will probably be "in" again. (rejoice, potatoes of the couches!). Maybe people will get fed up with having to wash and style their hair and a "baldness" fad will set in.
If we allow culture and fashion to dictate which genes reproduce... oh, wait a minute, that's what we're doing at the high schools, the dorms, the workplaces, the nightclubs. Designer babies will merely accelerate the process.
It could even be a Good Thing. Consider that with all the experimenting, evolution might find something interesting and worthwhile in all the mistakes that'll be made. (Some parent who thinks synesthesia is fun, and who asks for it by design because there's a correlation between synesthetes and great artists...)
Speaking as a parent who's about to have a baby girl added to our family, I have to ask a very pointed question to those who oppose any sort of genetic "screening". If you have a child, would you not do practically anything on this earth to prevent that child from having to suffer from diabetes, Alzheimer's, or hundreds of other genetically-linked diseases? If you have a child and answer "no", then perhaps you ought to take a good, long look at your child and imagine him/her hooked up to machines, wasting away in a hospital bed. It can happen. It does happen. I hope it never happens to myself, my wife, or any of my children.
We have it within our power now to take a preventative stance towards genetically transmitted diseases. Undoubtedly this system will be abused, as any system can and is abused, but are not the gains worth it? Early last year I lost both grandparents, both of which suffered long bouts of Alzheimer's. It was horrific to watch as the people who I knew and loved forgot who I was, who they were, and regressed to an infantile state. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. If I can prevent my great grandchildren from one day viewing my children in a similar manner, I'm all for it.
Are we playing God? That depends on how radical you want to be about this. I firmly believe that we've been given cognitive abilities that have lead to the discovery of genetics. If God didn't want us tinkering with ourselves, why does he allow us to do so? I'd also love for someone to find some good biblical references that say we shouldn't be doing this.
And, yes, I've seen Gattaca. I know what the consequences of genetic "super babies" might be, but that's just it -- what it MIGHT be. Here's a solution: if you want it, you should be able to have it. If you don't, don't. Your choice. That is what freedom is about, after all? Choice?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
There should be some slight selection against such traits since the older family member isn't able to help, and in fact can become a burden on, the younger members who still haven't stopped reproducing.
I suspect that there are some kind of positive effects early in life, even if very mild, that are associated with the same genes that cause the late-in-life diseases.
Woa, hold up there on the contrafactuals.
You are exactly the sum of all your experiences,
and memories. If you hadn't have gone bald, you
wouldn't be the you,that you are now, someone
very similary possibly but not the same.
The thing with contrafactuals (those objects and
events that could have been but aren't), is that
as soon as how change one thing, you have many
other chooses that just weren't there before, e.g.
If you weren't bald, how many grey hairs would you have?
Give all the new possiblities, you can then try to
"best match" one of them with you, to say, "that
is what i want i would have been like if i
hadn't gone bald", but even if such a best match
exists, this in no way is a unique match.
All your base pair are belong to us!
--
The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
This is no more playing God than deciding whether to have a child or not in the first place. If Hawking's parents had not had children, then he would not have contributed to science. All our choices have consequences we cannot foresee, not just the ones that use fancy new science. Get over it, and try to make the best, most ethical choices you can.
That said, there may be other good arguments against gene screening. But this one just doesn't hold water.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
A very long time ago, Robert A Heinlein wrote a book, Beyond this Horizon, where superior babies were produced by screening the entire parental genomes to pick out the best combinations. It's like this, on a much larger scale. No genetic modifications, no splicing in foreign genes, just picking out the best eggs and sperm. That's a whole lot less likely to cause unintended consequences than tossing in new genes, and if the genome was well enough understood, it should be good enough to nearly eliminate double-digit IQ's, chronically ill, and the genetically criminal within a couple of generations.
There were "control naturals", people whose ancestors had never used this genetic filtering. They received a governmental stipend to compensate for their disadvantage. Heinlein never really discussed _why_ they existed, perhaps he thought it was too obvious. Sometimes those genes you would normally filter out might turn out to be strongly advantageous in different circumstances -- heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia are virtually immune to malaria, for instance.
Finally, note that this book is the most utopian of all Heinlein's work, and the most boring. A perfect society is one where "interesting" things don't happen to people, so getting a story out of an almost perfect society is difficult... 8-)
Even that noble goal is a slippery slope to tread. What diseases do we screen for? Cancer? Diabetes? Sickle Cell? ADD? Psoriosis? Dandruff? Halitosis?
Dandrif? Nonsense. There's no way you could possibly screen out dandruff! Dandrif is a disease against which we are powerless. It is only when we put our faith in a power greater than ourselves, such as Head and Shoulders, that we have the strength to overcome it. Yes my friends, there is hope. But you will not find it through such worldly means.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Right.. What's next?? Women, mandated by law to get pregnant each time they ovulate, so as to not deprive that egg of it's chance at life?? What a cruel fate for a potential child, so be soaked up by a tampon... How inhuman!!
Or better yet, picture this: Late evening, quiet suburban neighborhood.. Suddenly a SWAT team bursts through a second story bedroom window, laser targetting dots panning around the room.. A voice booms outside: "EM Emalb!! Put the sock down son!! Step away from the semen, and for God's sake, don't wipe your hands!! That's a potential human you've got there!!"
Depriving unfertilized eggs of the chance for life?? Get real!!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Two, in fact. But if I'm you, then who are you?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Don't forget backlash - imagine paying megabucks for your perfect child only to have them hated and feared because they're different, or an abomination against god. Imagine children screened for disease suffering the same fate because of people abusing the technology.
And no, we are not over-reacting. Are there any big advances that haven't had negative side effects which weren't predicted? Even penicillin (the most beneficial advance I can think of) has been responsible for the evolution of super-bacteria and allergies in humans.
The only comment I want to make on this is that Michael Jordan didn't start playing basketball until high school. No doubt, he did other athletics prior to that, but obviously nature vs. nuture is a sticky argument indeed.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
They do metaphorically. When discussing evolution the intentionality metaphor is a pretty powerful one and making deductions via the use of such a metaphor often gets you the same results as making a literal argument except in the former case it's easier to think about because humans seem to be particularly good at making arguments about intentions.
-- SIGFPE
Personally, I just don't understand the NEED to have your own kids. In a world where needy kids need to be adopted, it strikes me as more than a little self-centered to see high-tech IVF methods as NEEDED so you can have YOUR baby.
From an evolutionary standpoint, I have to disagree. "Designer Babies" are likely to come only from individuals who are amoung the more successful in society. There offspring is likely to be successful too.
What we should be encouraging, is better birth control methods. Not preventing breeding of the more responsible in society in order to divert resources to the offspring of the less responsible of society. (Please note, yes there are always exceptions yada yada yada, but the above statement is correct for the majority).
It's like the sow in the midwest that had 7 kids, half of them retarded. They weren't a sign from God, sweetie. The infertility was the sign from God. Whatever though. Do what you like. Just don't ever expect my insurance payments to cover it.
Unfortunately, we your probably did do your part paying for it by purchasing the Time magazine they were in or by watching a television show they appeared on.
The real travesty of it all isn't this woman's idiocy but rather all the woman who choose not to have selective abortions in similiar situations (in order to be famous) and end up having kids that die in a few days or live short, painful lives.
I personally think that if a mother makes such a decision, and her children suffer because of it, she should be charged with manslaughter...
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
It sure is nice to think of all those people who would never have been selected as mates simply because one of their chromosomes caused a physical abnormality that will now be given a chance.
Before you condemn the practice, consider that it's only a matter of degree between this and deciding whom to marry. Unless you think people should be paired at random, you've already decided there's an amount of this that is acceptable. The only questions are, do we draw the line, and who gets to decide where we draw it?
-- I come from a very long line of families with children.
One cannot take too many cells from the embyo, have to leave some for the embryo to develop.
Actually, IIRC, up until the number of cells reaches some pre-determined threshhold (I believe it's 2^16, but please don't hold me to that one), each of the embryonic cells is fully capable of developing an individual human being -- that's how identical twins occur. So really, at any point past the first mitosis, you can take a cell or two or even twenty, just as long as you leave one behind to develop.
They that would sacrifice their
Not true. Not that I'm against interacial reproduction in any way shape or form, but it's fairly simple to see: Different races are prone to different diseases, for exampl sickle cell anemia. Over an extended period of time race becaomes less and less of an issue as more and more interacial children are born. Take this to a point in the far future where there is technically only one race. A single disease, or virus, can run rampant through the entire world population because the potential for catching it has been bred into the entire population. It doesn't even have to be an existing disease, say a new type of AIDS appears in 3000 years that by some trick of nature attacks only people of a certain race, or would have if the genes of different races weren't mixed to a point where there is only one race.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
To move to your argument however, why stop there, I am not the same me I was when I wrote the original post, I'm not the same me now at this instant that I was when I wrote the above paragraph. I'm certainly not the same me when you read this. I am someone very similar, but not the same. However, there is a cohesive "I" that I imagine is me regardless that the makeup of me changes from instant to instant. Am I not me now? Am I not me twenty minutes from now. Would I not be me had, on the drive home, took a different route. Yes, at least I would believe that I'm me so I believe that had I not gone bald I would still be me.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Certainly, that's exactly the distinction I was trying to make verses pride, and what I believe the original poster was trying to get at. It's an interesting exercise though isn't it. I've wished I was someone else, but I invariably start adding: "but with this quality (that I presently have)", luckily I, and I'd assume most others would as well, come to the conclusion that percieved flaws and all I wouldn't want to be anyone else.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
It is a sticky subject... and one not many of the posters here seem to gather.
Most human traits are defined by a combination of the two. This is evident in the 'athletic build but lazy' scenario I laid out. My father is a guard at a government facility. He works out ever day in order to stay in terrorist-proof shape for his job. He is lean, mean, and at nearly 50, could beat most comers in a street brawl.
I have the exact same build as my father, but I've always been significantly more sedentary, preferring to write, make art... other sit-down stuff. I try to watch my diet but probably eat more fat and cholesterol than I should. I could still use to lose a few pounds.
We have very similiar builds, my father and I, but he has done strenuous work since he was a child whereas I have not. If I were to work damn hard for the next two and a half decades, I *might* be able to approach the kind of shape he is in at 50, but never quite make the same levels he does.
The argument for mental tasks is a little more clear cut. It's been evidenced by data collected in a few of the more famous child abuse cases that children who are isolate, not exposed to language at all (spoken or sign), slowly lose the ability to use language until about age 14 when they will probably never speak (or sign) coherently. They lose the ability to develop many higher reasoning skills at the same time. Even if a person has an affinity for language, if their brain is put in a vacuum like this, nature determines the outcome.
The most famous case of this kind of depravtion is the 'Genie' story. In 1970 young girl of about 13 was found chained to a toilet in her grandparent's back room. She had had little or no experience with anything other than that room her entire life. (Outraged? If I remember correctly, the grandparents were sent away for a very long time) Despite the fact that her family had *no* history of mental illness or retardation, Genie displayed all the symptoms of either severe mental retardation, autism, or brain damage simply because her brain had nothing to develop against like any kid who hadn't suffered that kind of abuse.
Amoung her other problems, Genie couldn't... and still can't... speak coherently despite intensive tutoring and help. She lost that ability due to the poor environment.
Nature does have a siginificant role to play in determining our traits. The world around us affects us in so many myriad ways that it should not be discounted as so many of the posters replying to this have stated.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Here. Read and be enlightened.
Zodiac Survey
That is about the dumbest argument you can make. Just think of all the famous people who were never born because it happened to be this sperm instead of that one that fertilized the egg. By your reasoning, I am guilty of pushing all my potential fraternal siblings out of existince; shame on me! How about we all have as many kids as we possibly can because if we don't, we'll be dooming potential contributors to humanity to nonexistence.
Dyolf Knip
Say you're an intelligent but pudgy software engineer/couch potato type and you actually manage to get the doctors to screen embryos and sperm most likely to create an athletic individual. If the child created may have a better chance of becoming atheltic, but if he follows his parents example, he will probably be just as pudgy.
Better idea: select for the genes that allow some couch potatoes to stay reasonably slender and healthy.
Why is it, on Slashdot, that when I get moderated as both insightful AND flamebait, that flamebait is what get's shown next to the post?
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
There have been plenty of people who have genetic defects who have made significant contributions to humanity. They would have never been born if we screened them for defects before their birth.
Oh of course. But what about the other 99% of people who had genetic defects but didn't do anything particularly amazing? Oh, well they have to live with their disability for the sake of that 1%. Gee, how kind of you to demand that of them.
there's no need to start deciding what people should be born and not born now.
Really? Funny, my girlfriend and I do that every time we have sex and use birth control. By doing so, we deny the existence of countless children. You are arguing, "Just think of all the famous people who would have been born if nobody ever used a condom." Stupid.
Dyolf Knip
This is a late reply so probably no one will
read it. But, i think my argument still applies
if there is a soul, as long a soul is a stateful
object that changes with time. After all in most
religions souls pick up and lose sin or karma as they progress through time.
I agree with your second paragraph, but the point
is the cohesive I, you talk about is a best match across time, and this gets much more completical
when you include contrafactuals or parallel
universes.
Forget historical figures, you're looking at them with 20/20 hindsight; you know what their disability was and you know how they overcame it and you know what they did for the benefit of mankind. Such knowledge is totally unavailable to us for people being born down the road. Such knowledge has no bearing on the problem at hand.
Now, consider yourself to be a prospective parent. You have undertaken the responsibility of creating a new person and spending the next 20 years raising them to adulthood. At the beginning of this long journey, you are given two embryos. One of them has had blatantly unhealthy genetic problems removed. The other has some unfortunate genetic defects courtesy of your genome. Sure, they might overcome them and do something great, just like any fairly healthy person could. But it might just doom them to a short and miserable existence. Which do you choose?
I am well aware that people with genetic problems have made contributions, some of them extremely significant. So what? If all you know about your potential children is that you can choose between ones with lots of potential medical problems and ones with fewer of them, why would any parent choose the ones with more?
Bear in mind that a person who does not exist yet doesn't actually have a say in the matter. Of course people alive today say that they wouldn't trade themselves in, they're here to contest it. If they aren't, they can't, and the decision is left to the parents.
And I'm going to be very nice and overlook the ad hominem remarks, no matter how inappropriate they may be.
Lastly, birth control is a perfectly valid analogy. There's this potentially great and important person who will not exist because her parents did not conceive her. With screening it's because they instead conceived someone else. Do we actually prosecute Mom, Dad, and the local geneticist for the nonexistence of this person?
Dyolf Knip