Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

Kaz Riprock writes "Mark Baard, author of this Wired article was a recent attendee at The Future of Human Nature symposium (that I helped organize). The talks were held at Boston University through the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. A high profile assemblage of well-known thinkers, such as Steven Pinker, Lee Silver, and Marvin Minsky, were invited to speak at the 3 day conference to examine what 'Human Nature' would be like in 50-200 years. While the article describes a good amount of the 'doom and gloom' which was presented and discussed, it does not quite capture the upside to our potential future aims. One example from the conference was the talk by Christine Peterson, head of The Foresight Institute, on the future use of nanotechnology to better the human condition."

Comments

No.

[sulli]

HTH, HAND.

Re:No.

[Tet]

Wrong answer. It will kill us. There are two methods by which it will do so:

1. We'll modify ourselves to the point where we're no longer recognisably human. At that point, "we" are dead, and a new species will have taken our place. Yes, I mean that -- eventually, the genetically modified will not be able to interbreed with the unmodified.
2. The diversity of our genetic makeup is one of the things that keeps us as a race going. If genetic modification becomes pervasive, humanity will be unable to resist converging on an idealised notion of the "perfect" human being. At that point, there is a much higher risk of a killer disease capable of wiping out the entire population.

As to which of those two it will be, only time will tell...

Re:No.

[cookie_cutter]

Your first point is irrelevant, because even using no genetic engineering technology, our species will continue to mutate and eventually be no longer recognizably human.

Your second point assumes that we will only use genetic engineering to select genes out of the gene pool. Contrary to the beliefs of early eugenicists, this is both undesirable and unlikely, as modern genetics realizes the inherent benefits from having a diverse gene pool(such as the ability to resist killer diseases), and genetic engineering will allow us to further diversify our gene pool by extending it with genes from other species(I wouldn't mind a cow's ability to digest cellulose), and even with artificial genes.

Re:No.

[Pyrosz]

We'll modify ourselves to the point where we're no longer recognisably human. At that point, "we" are dead, and a new species will have taken our place. Yes, I mean that -- eventually, the genetically modified will not be able to interbreed with the unmodified.

We have that now, there called geeks.

Re:No.

[GospelHead821]

The first of these concerns is a matter of semantics. Changing humanity into something other than human - ie: being no longer able to breed with an unmodified human - may be considered an artificial boost to evolution. In other words, the development of a new species by "selection" (albeit, unnatural selection). Whether this is a good or bad thing is open to debate, of course.

The second concern is really very valid. I remember playing Civilization: Call to Power and seeing the jokes that were cracked about various models of children that were parcicularly popular. But all you have to do is look at inbred plant populations to realize that homoginization of the genome is not healthy for a species. Weren't Irish potato blights a particular problem because all of the plants were susceptible to a single disease?

Re:No.

[AArmadillo]

Agreed, especially on the second point. Biohistory has shown that species that are able to mutate quickly and have wide genetic diversity are the ones that will survive in the longterm. Take bacteria for example. Phenomenally fast mutation rate and very genetically diverse. Thats why there are trillions of them, and they are able to survive in pretty much any area of the earth, including areas with extremely high temperatures or no oxygen. With a highly specialized genetic sequence, a disease such as smallpox would decimate human population. Instead of spreading rapidly, killing 20% of the people it infects and becoming endemic, it would remain pandemic until population was too sparse to support its spread. Pretty much everyone understands the theory of natural selection -- woe be unto humanity should natural selection choose a genetic sequence that we engineered out of existance.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Our species isn't going to continue to mutate without genetic engineering. INDIVIDUALS will mutate, but unless those mutations somehow help them reproduce more and survive better, the species will never adapt those characteristics. That's how evolution works.

Re:No.

[cookie_cutter]

That's how evolution works.

Um, never took a course in population genetics, have you?

Because if you had, you would surely know about the neurtal theory of molecular evolution, which "proposes that the majority of nucleotide substitutions and polymorphisms are the result of selectively neutral mutants" ie, most changes in the gene pool are selectively neutral. This theory revolutionized genetics, and led to the development of many useful techniques like "molecular clocks" to determine when two bloodlines split off from each other.

Furthermore, the neutral theory does not require selection on an allele to be totally absent (s = 0), but only that it is small with respect to the effects of random genetic drift ( 4*Ne*s less than 1, where Ne is the effective population size, and s is the selection coefficient).

Which means that even genes which are HARMFUL to the individual sometimes become fixed in all members of the species, becoming more frequent than the less harmful versions.

Over time, this leads to movement of the genepool away from it initial state, even if the environment favours the initial state.

Re:No.

[cookie_cutter]

sorry, that should have read "neutral"

Re:No.

[ParallelJoe]

Even without any technological assistance we will evolve into another species. Species just don't stay static. But I get your point. However, my view is a bit different. I think we will either:
1. Become self-evolving using computer and genetic mods. This is the "cool" future.
2. Die out due to weapons of mass destruction or an asteroid or other cosmic event such as a supernova blowing too close before we can spread out in the galaxy far enough not to get wiped out as a species. This is the "bad" future.

I'm not sure agree with the idea that genetic engineering would make us all too similar. If (when) we get to that point I think there will always be people who want to innovate. I say this writing in Mozilla on Debian unstable.

Re:No.

[g0_p]

We'll modify ourselves to the point where we're no longer recognisably human. At that point, "we" are dead, and a new species will have taken our place. Yes, I mean that -- eventually, the genetically modified will not be able to interbreed with the unmodified.

Who is to say that we may not alter ourselves using genetic combinations from other species to improve ourselves. (Say night vision from the Owl.. )? Probably we might become a genetically blurred species with characteristics of many other species capable of interbreeding with almost anything else.

Afterthought: Hmm. Animal pornos may actually *not* be a perversion in the future!... :-) Weird.. Can't think weird camp movies ("Tiger princess")becoming daily sitcoms and soap operas on TV.

The answer

[Jade E. 2]

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

Not if Nanotechnology gets there first.

Re:The answer

[Blaine Hilton]

We don't have to worry about that nanotech any more. It was slashdotted to oblivion. Pretty soon so will all of this genetic stuff, then we can feel free to live again!

Or perhaps I should go back to calculating formulas.

Re:The answer

[BrokenHalo]

Maybe that is the answer... who knows, the question doesn't sem to make sense. OK, I'm not an expert on nanotech, but I'm getting there with biotech and last time I looked, the two didn't really have that much in common.

Yes, it will kill you.

[Anonymous Coward]

The slightest change in genetics will cause death. Ask any doctor! They'll all say the same! The penalty for living is...DEATH!

*ducks

Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[dtolton]

This is the same line of thinking that many people have followed
for the last century. Every new technology has been heralded
with predictions of doom and gloom. The 70's and 80's produced
volumes of work predicting robots subjugating mankind to their
will. As we progress with work on AI we find we are still a
long way from that type of outcome.

The stories are too many to recount all of them, but a quick
jaunt through history shows that people are resistant to
change. They are slow to adopt technologies that change their
world view, and they often react violently if that change will
alter their religious view of the Universe. As an example look
at the debate still raging over evolution.

That isn't to say we shouldn't be careful of new technologies
and put good safeguards in place, however I for one am tired of
overly alarmist predictions of every new technology. It would
be nice to see some beautiful predictions of how the future
might be better with the technology.

Maybe with Genetic Engineering we'll be able to eliminate the
stupid gene. (That statement may set off a
firestorm.)

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[SocialWorm]

Maybe with Genetic Engineering we'll be able to eliminate the stupid gene. (That statement may set off a firestorm.)

It already did -- James Watson, one of the orgininal discoverers of DNA, said what basically boils down to exactly that earlier this year, and it was quite controversial. See http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 93451

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[TonyZahn]

Every new technology has been heralded with predictions of doom and gloom

I think that a little bit of this can be very healthy though. Going completely gung-ho on new technologies could be dangerous, and having a little caution is a good thing. Genetic engineering, AI, nanotech, the internet, the hammer, whatever, all of these have the potential to become bad things, but for the most part haven't because people were careful. That said, I'm all for any new technology that comes along, with the understanding that any tool can be used to achieve both positive and negative ends.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Eliminating stupid folks. By any chance are you or were you a member of the German Nationalist Socialist Party? Sometime around 39-45 or so?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Joe the Lesser]

I generally agree with you, (creationists drive me mad) but progress is best done in moderation and after it has been debated thoroughly, since what some once called 'progress', others called 'holocaust'.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Science was Innocent before the nuclear bomb. After the bombs dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki science lost it's innocence. We now have the power to destroy the entire planet. In the past if somthing bad happened maybe alot of people would die, but not the entire planet. I think alarmists are more important than ever before. Especially looking at how corporations treat the environment. I can't even eat fish from the ocean without worrying about the mercury content. This is true all around the world. We must be carefull about the use of technology.

I also disagree with your comment that people are slow to adapt new technology. The past 100 years has brought alot of new technology. We have the abillity and time to be carefull. We don't have the abillity to fix big mistakes that we are making. We can't take back nuclear waste, nor mercury in the ocean water. I suggest we go at a walking pace towards technology, not run into it like you suggest.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Alric]

Your points cannot be overemphasized, but your example of AI/robots is a little off. In that realm we are trying to recreate ourselves.

With genetic engineering, we are just trying to make a few improvements to ourselves, modify an existing product. It's a lot easier to tweak an engine than it is to create one from scratch.

However, I do have some fear of where this road leads, because from my experience, one should not go around tweaking a system until he understands it well enough to create it entirely on his own. It often leads to horrible, unanticipated results.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[cemaco]

Ethics and common sense always seem to fall behind tech. The kinds of modifications people will find most attractive are bound to be the ones that will also be the most detrimental to the species. Lets just hope that the dangerous period passes quickly and without doing too much damage before we come to our senses. Look at dogs as an example. We have been tinkering with them for many generations. The results are a bunch of "purebreds" that look cute, but often have associated health problems. Meanwhile your standard mutt is among the healthiest of all dogs.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[ElectricRook]

Doug,

Excellent observation, I agree.

But you are missing the intention of this alarmism. The intent is to sell. It's a sales event for books, seminars, etc.
There are three things that get peoples attention: sex; novelty; and fear. The market for sex is pretty much cornered. That novelty thing takes thought, and can die quickly. But that whole fear thing... Man that stuff can be sold, mixed and resold time and again.

By the way, is that Stupid Gene a double recessive?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[fockewulf]

this sort of luddism seems rather infectious, now it's nanotechnology and gene therapy, a few months down the line someone will come up with another potential (or far fetched) problem with new technology and then the story repeats again.

sure, lots of technologies have potential problems associated with them, but it's not to say that we shouldn't research those technologies just because there might be problems.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

I will be little heretic, but i think genetic enineering is the ONLY thing which can SAVE US. Natural selection does not work anymore (at least in "civilised" world) thanks to progress in medicine. Even sexual selection does not work - in its second-reproduction phase: succesful peopple (whatever does it mean) have usualy less children than the ones which somehow left over to each other. So the the degeneration in western countries is slowly progressing during last 100 years. If the mankind does not want to give up its humanitarian ideas and make artificial selection (sterilisation or even worse...), genetic engineering is the only hope.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[D_Gr8_BoB]

The 70's and 80's produced volumes of work predicting robots subjugating mankind to their will.

And so you want to stop the paranoia that leads to this kind of work? While not all the books you're probably talking about were good, the list of classics written as a response to fear of a cataclysm is pretty extensive: 1984, Brave New World, Farenheight 451, The Martian Chronicles, Canticle for Leibowitz, Cat's Cradle, etc.

So I say if a little healthy mass-hysteria about genetic engineering or nanotech is required to create great apocalyptic literature, it's a small price to pay.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

The 70's and 80's produced
volumes of work predicting robots subjugating mankind to their
will.

I don't think that 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Terminator series count as "volumes of work".

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

stupidity does not see race or sex or sexual orientation. it happens to whites, blacks, men, women, gay, or straight. it is not any thing like the nazi's idea of the perfect blonde, blue eyed man. heck, eliminating the stupid gene might help us all get integrated a little better, cause it seems to me that stupid people are often times the most racist/sexist.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

actually in the natural world the most progress is made in large leaps, note small steps. perhaps we are wrong in holding on to our belief that we are doing things properly by going slow.

then again, i am all for safeguards against any new, untested technology.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier to tweak an engine than it is to create one from scratch.

Um, not if you really have no idea how the existing 'engine' works, so you are basically just guessing.

Your analogies suck. Typical from a socialist /. loser. Go home.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

your dogs example is true, but dog breeds were never "un-naturally" genetically modified. Existing mutations were selectively bred into the "breeds". This is would be equivalent to a human breeding program to select for say athletics or intelligence. i don't think it is quiet the same as genetic engineering as it is currently being worked.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

i agree. cause if we don't research them, who will? maybe someone who really does have malintent in mind for nano-tech or gene therapy. this way, those who wish to do good, hopefully, know better than those who might try and do harm.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

>There are three things that get peoples attention: sex; novelty; and fear.

Gee, haven't we evolved! Ten years ago it was sex, blood and sports!

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[KDan]

There's a far cry from going out and killing all stupid people and/or forbidding them to breed, which is the kind of "low-tech" eugenics that the Nazis were applying, and giving people a possibility to make sure that whatever kids they have kids are clever (through some sort of pre-birth gene therapy for instance).

Low-tech eugenics, ie encouraging the "intelligent" gene by forcefully preventing the "stupid" gene from entering the next generation's gene pool is horrible, barbaric and totally unacceptable. High-tech eugenics, ie encouraging the "intelligent" gene by allowing people to choose to alter their children's genes to remove "stupid" genes, is far more acceptable. There are still issues with that, but it should be considered seriously... after all, there is not much evolution happening for humans anymore.

Daniel

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[JDevers]

Actually, I would say that mankind has been predicting "doom and gloom" for a hell of a lot more than the last century. Look up the history of Copernicus or Kepler. Many thought their work was going to lead to the end of the world because of "God's wrath." Now their ideas are COMPLETELY accepted and no one bothers to say they are "against God or the bible." People, in general, are stupid. However, if even 1 in 10 were geniuses after genetic engineering that would still leave 90% of the population at less intelligence than the geniuses and eventually THEY would be the new stupid people.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

well said. i have been thinking those same things for years. i think humanity is too soft for its own good. humans have basically stopped evolving, i don't think that was supposed to happen.
brutal selective forces were what allowed us to get this far, and now we turn our backs on those same forces. for what? it sure isn't progress. we seem just as brutal today as we did 2000+ yrs ago.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[cemaco]

The point was that there is an observable model.
How does the method make a difference, if the results are the same?

The dogs actually have an advantage because we have had more time to weed out the really bad mistakes.

With genetic engineering we could make a multitude of errors and not catch them, till they have spread.

Not that I am saying the entire thing is a mistake, we could solve a lot of problems with it. Repairing clear genetic errors like blindness or heart defects is one thing. Casually changing hair and eye color is just plain wrong.

The issue as that the moral implications wont really hit us till we have already done damage. Then we will probably go the other extreme and put all kinds of silly laws in place. It will be generations before we strike a balance.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that the only way to become successful is by being genetically superior. Don't most people select their 'mates' in their 20's before most of us really know if we'll be successful or not? What about the cycles of poverty and bad parenting that create so many unsuccessful people? Aren't those societal factors? Your argument is weak, either that, or you're a racist.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[mmol_6453]

then again, i am all for safeguards against any new, untested technology.

Asbestos was well tested. It took a long time before people associated pyrolysis with the production of carcinogens. (For example, cigarettes give you cancer.)

As has been demonstrated countless times in computer applications alone, you can never remove all the bugs in a device. There will always be things you didn't expect.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have no idea how an engine works then it is obviously much easier to make changes to one that's existing then it is to build one yourself. You could bang on it with a hammer if nothing else.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[rizzo420]

you don't have to be a creationist to be against genetic engineering. it's one thing to mess with genes to help find cures for diseases, but to change genes and remove some can be just plain dangerous. the same reasons for this have been made for not killing off things like small pox. you never know what good might come of something bad. evolution is a funny thing. it can go in either direction (good or bad). there is never "de-evolution" as many people on slashdot seem to believe. generally speaking, evolution makes a species stronger. by forcing it to happen, we don't know what might occur. it happens because of natural changes in the environment. if we change something and then some natural change occurs that requires what we just changed to be back the way it was, what happens? genetic engineering could have just caused the extinction of the human race.

it is those reasons that i am against doing anything with gene sequences except looking at them to make better medicine. medicine that won't completely remove the gene, but rather counteract against what the gene does.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been at home occasionally. It never seems to make a difference. :)

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[mmol_6453]

Anybody who says "let us hope ..." in mixed company is guilty of assuming his, and his alone, opinions are correct.

It's the same type of aloofness that you find in fanatics of all fields.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[mmol_6453]

So this mass hysteria about "computer hackers" and terrorism is OK?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[DetrimentalFiend]

Has anyone stopped to think what might happen if we didn't do genetic engineering? Sure, everyone thinks about the moral implications of such topics, but no one ever stops to consider that we have essentially stopped evolution and possibly turned it around. More often, now, people need glasses, have diseases, and other unwanted characteristics because those people don't die like they used to. At the risk of sounding like a flamer, I've also noticed that (typically) it's the dumb people who have more kids. If this process continues, before long, everyone's going to be on medications, need glasses, be allergic to lots of stuff, and so on because we have not replaced the natural selection that we did away with a while ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should start a third riche, but I do think that people need to consider that perhaps genetic engineering is just a continuation of what was done naturally before.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

sex is sex, blood and sports are fear. Novelty is the new one. And I like it.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[wurp]

That link says nothing that could be interpreted to say they've discovered a "stupid gene" or can eliminate it. They list a few diseases that cause retardation that they can identify genetically, but I think you're taking a casual comment by James Watson and making more of it than is there.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could let the retards die.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[cemaco]

There are some questions that only have a yes or no answer. This is not one of them.

You can however bet, there will be a period of adjustment wich is what I am hoping won't be too long or painfull. We have examples of that for every tech, including the car.

The fact is I support some Genetic Engineering, but there should be worldwide regulation. It won't do a bit of good if one country has one set of laws and its neighbor has another. Genes don't respect borders. Ever hear the expresion to many chefs will spoil the pot?

This is not a "Its my body, I can do whatever I want with it" argument. In this case(unless you don't plan to reproduce)it will have a lasting effect on the entire race.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

...cause it seems to me that stupid people are often times the most racist/sexist.

So, Jerry Falwell and Lewis Farakkan are stupid people? How about good ol' Osama? Or Stalin, for that matter?

Nope, my impression is that they are damn smart...and very dangerous.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[JDevers]

Did you and I read different things?? But in a documentary series to be screened in the UK on Channel 4, Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder and that molecular biologists have a duty to devise gene therapies or screening tests to tackle stupidity. "If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease," says Watson, now president of the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, New York. "The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 per cent The lower 10 percent isn't limited to those that are retarded, that would be more like the lower .5 percent. He is basically refering to "common idiots". I happen to agree with him, but just wanted to point out what you didn't notice.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't most people select their 'mates' in their 20's before most of us really know if we'll be successful or not?

Yes and not. Why are you interested in preety girls? because it is a sign of health. Teenagres and yung 20's preopple look for *potencially* succesful peopple, because they look for those of similar age - which did not yet have a time to have a succes. If you are older, then you have to have proven that you are good - in various ways: to be succesful spotsmen, to be a regarded person in your society, or to have money. Different girls (boYS) like different things according to what they think is important.

You assume that the only way to become successful is by being genetically superior

No, but it statisticaly helps. And I do not know what is superiority anyway, superiority is either evolutional category - more abilities to survive - or category defined by human society.
What about the cycles of poverty and bad parenting that create so many unsuccessful people?

Sure, but all factors somehow multiply, and work statisticaly.

Your argument is weak, either that, or you're a racist.

Oh please. I have expected that somebody will call me a racist - you are far from the truth. If racists would come to a power, they probably would kill me. You can then call Darwins theory racistic.

I feel moral dilema for, say, a woomen in a pregnancy when she realises that her child will suffer with a bad desease: should she make an interruption? But asking difficult question is better than denaying its existemce...

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[rabidcow]

Maybe with Genetic Engineering we'll be able to eliminate the stupid gene.

Once again, I believe there was an episode of The Outer Limits that dealt with this.

Genetically enginieered/modified children were illegal (because it wasn't pretty when things went wrong), but because of the benefit that the children born with improved genes, people were driven to order black-market modifications, because otherwise they feared their "normal" children would have a very grim future.

If there's any correlation between economic prosperity and intelligence, the stupid gene will survive, perhaps the species will eventually split.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[jafuser]

Sometimes I figure the reason we don't hear from other advanced civilizations out in space (of which I'm convinced there must be billions) is that our set of physics must have some sort of "trap" in it where we reach a certian point of discovery and we somehow do ourselves in.

Now this could be in one of many ways -- some of which I can think of off the top of my head are:

• Nanotechnology gets out of control
• Some research on a fundamental force in sub-quantum physics causes a cascading reaction which destroys all of the matter in our planet
• One of inventions becomes sentient enough to build a force to "take over" and wipe us out.
• We evolve into a state which is no longer relevant to the set of physics which we are currently familiar with, and therefore "leave" this universe.
• Or just plain old World War III

Sometimes I think there must be a reason we don't see other life, becuase it is the will of life forms to spread out and populate as wide of a habitat as possible. Eventually, the growth should continue unchecked so we should have seen a trace of some other species as soon as we could be conscious of the possibility of their existance.

Another possibility, although quite remote, is that we are the first life forms to have reached this point in self-awareness to even question the existance of others sentient beings.

Why not?.. Somebody has to be first. And whoever they were (if they arent't us), they must have wondered exactly the same thing: "Where is everybody else?".

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Michael.Forman]

It was reported that in a conversation between George Bush and James Watson, the topic of modifying genes to improve intelligence came up. President Bush wanted to know if the genes would come in a boot cut.

Michael.
Let's do a 25% split between funny, troll, offtopic, and informative, shall we?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

brutal selective forces were what allowed us to get this far
Exactly. I feell sorry for my ancessors to suffer so much just to allow me to become such a smatr-ass . So should I exchange it for a little comfort for myself and maybe my children?. But there is no return back to the jungle - there are too many of us. We would also need to give up humanitarian qualities, which also pushed us so far - solidarity etc (we are much nicer to each other than to *other* animals. This also helped us to survive. These exist not because its nice to be nice, but because it helps the kind to survive - otherwise we wolud be extinct long time ago). This would be completely lost of integrity both individual persons and the society. Racists would kill us sooner than slow degeneration.

I do not want anyone to suffer now but neither in the future. I do not pretend I know the answer, but genetics night be that - so we should not a piori throw it away.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[wurp]

That's what I read. I still don't see where that says they've identified genes that cause stupidity. He explicitly says "I would call that a disease." The new scientist article even has another researcher replying to Watson's comments later pointing out that they're more meant to be inflammatory than informative.

However, I did miss the phrase where the article says "Watson says that low intelligence is an inherited disorder". I still doubt that Watson said that they had identified the genes causing low intelligence. I think it's just sensationalism by New Scientist, who in my experience doesn't show the journalistic restraint I expect. The quote that they give from Watson (which you included in your post) absolutely doesn't say they can identify stupidity genes. It says Watson would call stupidity a disease, which sounds like an opinion rather than any scientific statement.

If someone had identified a gene that commonly causes stupidity, we would be seeing information about it in more than just an oblique phrase in a New Scientist article.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[mafeesh]

If there's any correlation between economic prosperity and intelligence, the stupid gene will survive, perhaps the species will eventually split.

That's a good point - but if this kind of genetic upgrade were subsidized by health insurance, or the government it would mitigate this. If I had it my way, it would be optional - so if you're convinced your kids will already have superior intelligence then you don't have to mess with it.

I say this with some trepidation, because I detest government interference, but if they spend my money on public schools, they might as well invest in the future of the country before they're born.

Of course this would have to be perfectly safe and gone through rigorous clinical trials before it could be sanctioned by the government in this way. By that time there's be at least one generation of GM-smart rich kids already out there.

maf

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[HiThere]

Besides, the obvious way to eliminate a gene is with surgery to replace it by the improved model. Of course that's going to require germ-line editing, so it's illegal...

Well, truthfully, it should be illegal *right now*. We don't yet know enough. Five years from now though, may well be a different matter. But getting the law changed could be a bit difficult...

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

You should listen to yourself in the last paragraph more than the first two.

Humans are incredibly complex. And we are nowhere near complete in understanding ourselves. Tinkering with GE is like an inexperience programmer tinking with the Linux kernal source code.
But atleast if you introduce a bug into the system and it get distributed to 1,000,000 computers, they can always do a roll-back.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[shotfeel]

The dogs actually have an advantage because we have had more time to weed out the really bad mistakes.

Then why do poodles still exist?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Hitler would be proud...

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand genetics help, but I think the way modern society works, genetics are dwarfed by other factors.

My racist comment may have been a little ad hominem (sorry), but when your arguments that society is degenerating because unsuccessful people are breeding faster and that genetics tend to mean success are combined with the fact that minority groups tend to have lower incomes on average and also tend to be growing faster population-wise, I don't think it's such a stretch.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Don't be so naive.

You believe that intelligent people are superior, Hitler believed that that Aryon(?) race was superior. The key thing here is not why something is superior. It's the fact that you simply beleive that there is something superior, and that the inferior are better off gone.

Now, since you are not suggesting that we rally up all the "stupid" people and kill them. There is quite a big differece here. But the principle remains, and I'd tread very cautiously with your idea.

Also, exaclty what is supidity? Intelligent people do stupid things all the time.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

read and try to think instead of insulting...

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

If your sig was any gayer, your sig would be gay-o-tronic!

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Since was never innocent, to believe so if very naive on your part.

The first person to forge the better steel to create the stronger sword was not innocent. Neither are you. You are simply naive.

Good day.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[ckaminski]

Not to sound like an ass or anything, but when, in recent history or memory, have humans evolved? Did you see some dude on the street evolve last week? Did I miss some great evolution event in history class? I'm curious, because if anything, the technological revolution is only going to speed up the rate of introduction of nasty shit into our environment to spur evolution.

But seriously, I'm legitimately curious if there are any documented contemporary events of humans evolving.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[trolleri]

> I will be little heretic, but i think genetic enineering is the ONLY thing which can SAVE US.

Maybe so.

> Natural selection does not work anymore (at least in "civilised" world) thanks to progress in medicine.

Natural selection still works on humans.

> If the mankind does not want to give up its humanitarian ideas and make artificial selection

It would still be a natural selection.

Sorry for repeating my self but I really like people to stop believing that "we" are artifical and what we do to be artifical - it's absurd!
And it's also very bad that people often claim natural selection not to work, when it in fact works perfectly, perhaps not in favour to some political ideas, but nevertheless, it still works.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[aziraphale]

Yes, absolutely - people are inherently opposed to change. You, for example, are posting to Slashdot from an 80 column terminal, apparently.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[pyrrho]

you ignore the alarms that went up, and people did things about them, thus averting the real disaster that loomed.

Or the areas where no one warned (or no one listened) and catastophe ensued.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[GigsVT]

Also, exaclty what is supidity?

Too easy. I'll let you off this time. :)

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously failed (or have yet to take) basic high school biology in which they explain inherited disorders.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[ElectricRook]

I will be little heretic, but i think genetic enineering is the ONLY thing which can SAVE US.

From what threat? Lack of touch with reality is the most pressing threat I see.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Gilgaron]

While I agree that measuring superiority is a dangerous prospect, surely you realize that egalitarianism is ultimately false? It is useful doctrine, but everyone should realize that once you apply criteria to two different things one will be superior. It may vary depending on criterion, but there are differences none the less.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that you're equivocating, mistaking ignorance for idiocy.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[freeweed]

from my experience, one should not go around tweaking a system until he understands it well enough to create it entirely on his own

Guess I should stop programming and tinkering with hardware, as I'm way behind being able to take a bunch of sand and turn it into a CPU.

Playing with components of something to make it do more is a process human beings have done since humans started using tools, and I don't think anyone *yet* quite understands enough to create anything entirely on their own.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[D_Gr8_BoB]

First, my post was intended in a lighthearted spirit. Second, a little hysteria never hurt anybody as long as that's all it is. The terrorism thing has gone way beyond hysteria at this point. Hacking paranoia doesn't really qualify either, since it's not really a threat. Nobody's going to write a believable book about the world ending because every website in the world get 0wnz0r3d simultaneously.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[juhaz]

Ah, but it works.

People are always forgetting natural selection doesn't work toward any particular goal of "good (for humans, or anyone)". Only survival. In the world of today, stupid masses are obviously smart and fit enough to stay alive.

Introduce a real pressure that threatens the species and things will start to change.

Thus, depending on the definition of word "SAVE US", genetic engineering may well be the only thing that can make us change towards something "better", instead of staying only as good as we need to be to survive.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

Iregardless folks, stupidity is relative. If you actually manage to raise the bottom 10% it just means who makes up that bottom % will be smarter than the bottom 10% in the past. It will not change the fact that there will still be a bottom 10%. Though I wonder here if what is being discussed is mental retardation.. or simply the dense kid that studies hard but always gets D's because they just don't get it. Reducing genetic disorders would be a great and wonderfull thing. But societally there will need to be a replacement for the 'short bus kids'. A new rock bottom intelligence level will be created. Or those that used to be right above will simply be moved into the already existing bottom level. Either way as I said a bottom 10% will always be defined. Thus Stupidity is a fundamental societal existence. All that varies is what defines being stupid. Is it not being able to read/write ?? Or is it not being able to do diferential equations ?

In other words

Go to a Public Highschool and you will find it has a bottom 10%.
Go to a Private Highschool and you find it too has a bottom 10%.
As do Junior Colleges.
Even Harvard has a bottom 10% not to mention Harvard Law.

In any human environment the lower 10% is defined somehow. Sometimes the differences are gross. Sometimes minute. But we by our nature class and measure ourselves against others. We by default define social pecking orders. We are social animals.

If as a society we raise the overall level of intelligence thats a good thing. But I always have to laugh when people say that by doing so we will wipe out stupidity. That simply isn't the case. All that will truly accomplish is to re-define stupidity.

Good needs Bad to be definable.
Up needs Down.
Left needs Right.
Right needs Wrong.
Smart needs Stupid.

If you truly eliminate people of lower intelligence you also eliminate people of higher intelligence by deffinition. Because Smart and Stupid are relative definitions defined by each other. If you don't belive me then look at in this light. Once upon a time in the US a highschool diploma was more than something you wiped your nose with. Today for your average 'good' job you had best come calling with some form of higher education, preferably a 4 year acredited institution and posses a relavent degree. Is this truly because a highschool education has degraded so far.... or because college educations are more common ? Check the percentage of higher education degrees in the work force in 2003 as opposed to say in 1903.

Its the crux of equality really. True equality can never exist so long as people make value judgements of each other because when as a society we judge each others value in any way we move away from equality. Equality is bland, it is ideal. It is Utopia.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[juhaz]

No. It's the other way round. Time is a disadvantage.

Defects have managed to slip in dog breeds exactly BECAUSE it's happened during a long period of time.

One bad gene from there, another here, none of them may cause any illness on their own, or if it does, it's not understood to be hereditary, so it's not caught and the end result is used in yet another generation, thus, with time they accumulate, and finally reach a critical mass where bad health is the result. We've made multitude of errors and not catch them 'till they have spread.

With genetic engineering, wham, it's ready. No time for small defects cumulate during thousands of years, if you've made "multitude of errors", you can see them NOW, right from the very first "prototype" invidual before you've cursed a whole species or breed with them.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[KDan]

Evolution (in the Darwinian sense) is a really slow process that takes place because of natural selection. Thus, it requires that there be some selection procedure to decide who gets to put his genes in the next generation's gene pool according to some criteria. At the moment there is no such selection - there hasn't really been for thousands of years now, but especially these days everyone gets to put their genes in the nex gen's gene pool.

So no, there are no documented contemporary events of humans evolving.

Daniel

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[mmol_6453]

I didn't catch the lighthearted part. Sorry.

But, in the spirit of honest debate...

In Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg, he mentions that one of the computers he watched get cracked controlled the timings of magnetic pulses along particle paths for a particle accelerator. This computer controlled whether a particle stream went to physics experiments or to a radiation therapy room for cancer. That's some pretty nasty stuff. You don't need to talk about the end of the world in order to get results from hysteria. You need only talk about a few hundred children dying in school shootings.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

no i meant stupidity. people who are ignorant, in a way can't see the problems with their world views, but people who are stupid can and merely ignore them. this is what makes people like Stalin, Osama, and Sadam and others like them so dangerous. it isn't that they don't know any better, cause they do. they just don't care.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

exactly, but having some safeguards will, hopefully, save us from some mistakes. and they would act as checks and balances against technological progress. i think the our current system works very well in allowing progress, yet also checking that progress to prevent some(not all) dangerous activites.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[jpop32]

This is the same line of thinking that many people have followed
for the last century. Every new technology has been heralded
with predictions of doom and gloom.

Unfortunately, the simple facts work in favour if doom-sayers. The probability of the extinction of human race is growing exponentially.

In the past, we simply had no way of destroying the whole human race. The only cause of extinction could be the natural phenomena, such as an asteriod collision, super-virus or somehting like that. We had a very small, near-zero chance of extinction.

Then, some 50-60 years ago, things changed. The human invented the atom bomb. Our chances of extinction shot up. Them a few years later, we invented the hydrogen bomb. Again, the probability of our extinction raised.

As technology advances, the human race aquires new and exciting ways of annihilating itself. Rogue engineered viruses. Nanotechnology. Genetic engineering. All of this adds up. Pretty soon, we'll have hundreds of ways of ending our existance. And the rate of inventing new ways and means is accelerating.

Everyone with a high-school knowledge of math knows what an exponential curve looks like. Well, we're climbing one. Still, one should not lose sleep worrying about human extinction.

Up to the point when the technology to wipe out the entire race gets so advanced so that it becomes accessible to a single determined person. And, basically, that's the point when the probability of our extinciton becomes so great that I would not recommended betting against it.

Nota bene, with great probability, I don't mean 80%-90%. 1% is quite enough. Because, if the probability of human extinction withing this year is 1%, it implies that within the next hundred years, the human race will be no more.

Maybe that's the reason we haven't made any contacts with other advanced civilisations in space. Maybe they all destroy themselves.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[JohnPM]

But if you can identify one or more genes that are actually defective (or inferior to the gene present in the majority of the population) then you can look at it as a qualitative defect, not simply an unfortunate position on an IQ continuum.

Take for example the famous sickle-cell anemia gene. It is generally defective, however the sickle shaped blood cells offer protection against malaria, so this "defect" has been marginally successful in certain populations. That doesn't mean it should not be seen as defective. In the modern world having healthy cells is more important than the extra protection against malaria. Perhaps there are similar issues effecting intelligence, we just don't know yet.

I agree that correcting a number of these potential defective genes would still leave us with a bell-shaped IQ curve. However it would be narrower (smaller standard deviation) and have a higher average. People would be born with a more equal chance in life. Is that a bad thing?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[greenrd]

If you actually manage to raise the bottom 10% it just means who makes up that bottom % will be smarter than the bottom 10% in the past. It will not change the fact that there will still be a bottom 10%.

Thus you display your own stupidity. ;-)

Actually, no, I agree, but it's only conjecture. It could be that cybernetic enhancements could give us all effectively the same level of intelligence, far off into the future. Can you prove that that will never happen?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[VendingMenace]

i disagree. natueral selection STILL works. it has too. it doesn't go, "oh gee wizz, those people, they are too smart now and look at the way they alter then environments. i guess i am no longer needed." it is always present.

to understand that natural selection is still around, we must examine what natural selection is. In essence, the idea is that genes that provide greater fitness to an organism will elevate in frequency in a population over time. well then, what does fitness mean? simply put it is the ability for an organism to pass on its genes to succesive generations. SO natural selection acts so that genes, that enable an organism to more sucsessfully pass on its genes, increases in freqency.

now lets look at the situationj today. perhaps sucessfull poeple do have less children, we will assume that, then there are two explanations as to how natural selection is working...

1) sucessfull peoples children are more likely to live and pass on genes than are the children of non-sucsessfull people, thus natureal slelction really IS selecting for sucsessful people.

2) sucessfull people really ARE less fit than non-secsessfull poeple, due to the fact that they have less children. then we see that natural selection DOES NOT select sucsesssfull peolple. sucssessfull people are actually selected AGAINST.

wild, you say? well, perhaps nature does not value the same things that our westeren socitey does. think back to teh stone ages, what was success then? probably surviving and feeding your family and really basic stuff. Stuff that is nesssary. now adays, people spend effort and time chasing after houses, cars, better food, all sorts of rediculous stuff, instead of concentateing on just surviving and having offspring. is it any wonder that those people are viewed as less fit by nature?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[VendingMenace]

your claim that concepts can only be defined by there opposites is flawed. by your reasoning bad needs good to be definable. thus we find ourselves in a endless loop. "bad is the opposite of good" and "good is the opposite of bad" i do not mean to be mean, but such thinkng displays a not very thought out reaoning process. consider this... you are walking down a street and see an old lady carring groceries. she drops them and they spill everywhere. you stop and help her pick them and and she thanks you for being nice. NOW, i think that we can all agree that was a good thing for you to do. yes? so, was this a good thing, just becuase you did not walk up to the little old lady and stab her to death? not hardly. it was a good thing to do, because it was a kind and decent act. it was not a good act just becuase it was devoid of badness, but becuase it WAS good. similare arguments can be used for bad deeds. good and bad do not need eachother to exist, they are unto themselves. they are concepts that can be positively defined (as opposed to negativly defined) and as such, do not rely on the other to define them. the reason that it is so tempting to assume that good "needs" bad is that they mean opposite things, but meaning opposite things does not mean that without the other, one cannot exist. ps. does something need nothing to be difined?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone else find it amusing that a comment on intelligence begins with "Iregardless . ." which 1)is not a word, s/b either irrespective or regardless, and 2)if it *were* a word, it would be spelled "Irregardless". no elision of consonants. BUT, as the author pointed out, "Iregardless folks, stupidity is relative."

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[sigep_ohio]

This is getting off-topic, but...

the reason dog breeds have so many genetic problems associated with them is from the ignorant mindset of breeders. in humans, having a child with your cousin or even second cousin is considered immoral(and dangerous for the child, genetically speaking), but in dog breeds it is perfectly acceptable and encouraged. this is all in the name of conformance, ie: making a dog that looks like what a judge thinks the dog should look like. this in-breeding compounds naturally occuring genetic diseases, just like it did for european royalty in the middle ages. it also explains why mutts, or mix-breed dogs, are genetically more heathly, seeing as how they have breeding lineages more similar to normal animals and humans. in higher order animals(ie. most vertibrates) it is to their advantage to find a mate that is genetically healthy and not like themselves(ie. not related within many generations).

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Anonymous Coward]

"Iregardless folks, stupidity is relative." The last time I checked, Iregardless is not a word. Who is the idiot who made this word up anyhow? The correct word is regardless. No need for the "IR". Sheesh, talk about stupid people...

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

Yes, as a matter of fact something does need nothing to be defined. At its most baisic deffinition, What is something ? If you do NOT have nothing you must have something if you do not have something ( generic ) then you have nothing. Semantic negation at its finest. Of course you can have something without nothing and nothing without something. In fact you have to. Having something MEANS you have more than nothing. Having nothing MEANS you don't have something... or anything for that matter.

Since we exist in a world with both then it is possible to define acts as good or bad. IE an act is good becasue we know it to be good, not because of what was not done but because we know what didn't happen is possible. I I would say your choice of stabbing is a bit of a straw man. A better example in the event of the little old lady would be ignoring her situation. Something far far far more common a choice than stabbing her. In some areas that may even be more common a choice than helping her.

I could disagree with you that helping the cliche old lady in an unfourtunate situation is good. Mostly by saying it should be a no brainer. It should simply be what you do. In a utopian society where there had never been a little old lady in distress that went unhelped there would be no moral standard by which to judge the act. In such a society it would be morally equivalent to breathing. Good and Bad are moral jdugements and they are very much indeed opposits placed on a scale where one does not exist without the other.

Since we most deffinatly do not live in a society where helping the little old lady in distress is universal we judge those that help the little old lady to be doing something good. Not in that they choose to help her as oppose to kill her, but in that they do choose to help. They choose to be the good samaritan.

Its not our choice of actions that judges us good but those of people before us in the same situation. IE it is thinkable that in the past people made the choice of not to helping the little old lady. Thus it is established there is a choice and those choices have different values ascociated with them. So opting to help is deemed 'good', opting to harm/ignore is 'bad'. In order to understand how I say good is defined by bad and bad is defined by good you must first envision a society without choice where one is the embodiment of good and one of Evil. In other words Heaven and Hell. Only think of them as unto themselves without ever knowing the choice. If all you ever knew was Heaven how would you know it was good ? If all you ever knew was Hell how would you ever know it was bad ? If there is only one action to take when encountering the little old lady how is it good or bad ? There is no choice. However, in the real world as we know it we have freedom of will. We have a choice. Thankfully, we live in a society where hurting the little old lady is morally repugnant and thus a choice rarely taken by any in society. Unfortunatly, many choose to ignore her and in that we find a moral grey area and begin arguing whether or not someone has the moral obligation to help. Finally, many people do indeed stop to help and in doing so we deem them to be kind and decent folk performing a good deed.

I find it funny that you decided to attack an example instead of the final point of Smart needs Stupid to be defined. Perhaps you have no argument wth me there but simply with my claim of defining good by bad ? By the way, that really isn't my argument. I wish I could lay claim to it but it is one for the ages. Probably the two greatest examples of that discussion are Plato's "Republic" and St. Augustines "City of God". There is also of course Utopia and the Author of that one escapes me but I believe it is another Saint.... Thomas Moore comes to mind.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

Of course not. Its a great and wonderfull thing IMHO.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

About as well as you can proove that it will ;-)

Seriously though your argument would be that given genetic/cybog enhancement we would ultimately move closer and closer to a universal level of intelligence while I would claim that while according to our perception that society would essentially be of the same intelligence, future society would continually redefine the bell curve so that it always was a curve and we never reached the universal intelligence flat line.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

I find it funny that two AC's only choose to attack my use of a mispelled non-standard word attributed to dialect rather than the meat of the argument itself.

The irony is that they only proove my point. In a community of higher intelligence the distinctions of what places you on the 'stoopid' side of the scale become more and more minute. *sigh* to say that I have to include AC's in my deffinition of /. being a community of higher intelligence.... Anyway, obligatory deffense of my spelling.

" It takes a small mind indeed to conceive of spelling a word in only one way "

- Often atributed to Samuel Clemmens... and if he didn't say it he might as well have by now.

As for the usage of a non-standard word all I have to say is "The English language ain't dead yet". Never have figured out why people are so ready to declare it final and complete. To me, saying there is no such word when you know exactly what that word means is hysterical. By the way if you check Merriem Webster online you will find that irregardless is indeed a word albeit a nonstandared word generally relegated to spoken conversations in specific dialects.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Wishful Thinker]

"SAVE US" from what, Lord of the Skinheads?

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[VendingMenace]

mmmm....good points, definately something for me to keep in mind. "City of God" is a great book btw :) but on to the debate...

the reason that i choose your example to attack was that you used it as support for your final point. i don't really disagree with your final point (ie smart needs stupid) but i took exception to how you arrived there. Why bother? becuase even an idiot can say the right thing, but only a intellegent person can come up with a good reason as to why it is right (umm...i am in no way implying that that you are dumb, in fact your reply was one of the better ones that i have encountered on the net). but i still don't agree that good needs bad to exist.

let us assume that good does require bad to exist..
if the existence of good requires that bad must exist, then without the existence of bad, good would not exist. thus, by doing bad things we allow good to exist. good existing is a good thing (at least i think so). therefore, causing good to exist is a good thing. now we reach a delima. those who do "bad" things really are doing something good, becuase without these bad things we would not have good. and now we see that bad is the same thing as good, not its opposite.

i suppose the real problem that i have with your argument is that it is rooted in the idea that good is somehow a relative concept. that there is no absolute good, and good is defined from situation to situation. i cannnot see this as a valid position.

if good was relative, then that would imply that other concepts relating to good, such as truth, are also relative. this simply is not the case. truth is not relative. if i ask you what 2+2 is then the correct answer is 4. if i ask you what you did last tuesday night, then if you tell me something other than what you did, it is not the truth. so, we see that truth is objective, not realtive. the fact that good is somehow rooted in other concepts, such as truth, that are not relative dictates that good itself is not relative.

anyways that is what i have thought up just now. thanks for you last reply, always good to have someone make me think :) hope you don't find my replies too poor

SWEET!

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

Not at all, Nice return shot. You hit my weak point right on the money. The hole ( if hole it is :) ) in my reasoning is of course it relies on whether or not you believe in the intrinsic nature of good or bad.

My ultimate argument regarding good and bad is not that good needs bad to be good or vice versa.Truth: Good and Bad exist.I do claim they are inseperable concepts. However do not confuse that with arguing that good and bad are relative and have no intrinsic nature. In society I think it is difficult and very very depressing to make a strong argument for their being no intrinsic good or bad in the world. Good and Bad as relative opposing abstracts to define our reality is something that can be done. Just ask the relativists(however you spell that). However, its also very difficult to explain them individualy which is a mistake I feel many make when arguing for intrinsic values of good and bad. It is difficult to conceptualize their seperate existence. I personally find it as hard to seperate them as I would something such as lightness and dark. Does a Blind person live in a dark world ? But how can they know their world is dark if never they have beheld the light ? Their blindness does not mean light does not exist, or even that it does not exist in their world. Simply that for them it does not have the same meaning as it does for those of us who see. Thus with good and bad. The abscence of good does not mean bad is also not to be found and vice versa but our perception of them would be affected. Just as there is light and darkness in the universe so to there is good and bad. Just as dark can never be light so can bad never be good other than in a purely semantic switch in which we agree as a society to change the indentifying symbology we use to discuss them. Of course you can argue about the details ( premarital sex, capital punishment, jaywalking etc... ) but ultimately I think as a race we agree some things are beyond the pale. We do disagree on where the line is exactly. But not that there is a line and that there is good on one side and bad on the other.

However, just to play devils advocate for a second. Going back to heaven and hell. If souls are for ever damned to fire and brimstone to be punished for their sins is not that punishment a 'good' thing ? Its certainly not something we would look on as a good thing in this life but we hold it is just and right if the judgement of the almighty banishes them to hell. The key of course being the infalible judgment of the almighty thus a decision made by the almighty is judged a 'good' thing while the same judgemnt regardless of whether or not it is the same is a 'bad' thing for a mere mortal. An imperfect being. Obviously this is a major bone of contention between people who believe in capital punishment and those who do not. Even short of death is it 'Good' to lock someone up in a cell ? No matter how you twist and turn I imagine the answer you have has to be ' It Depends ' which opens pandoras box.

Can't resist a stab at your truth line either though again I am devils advocating a tad. Truth does have wiggle room. If your view of what I did last tuesday night and my view differ but are both the god's honest truth as we each see it then what is the truth ? Who is more right ? Once you get beyond some basic physcial facts our perception of the world can vary greatly from person to person and to each it is 'Truth'.

I have 8 oranges in two numericaly equal bunches of 4. Each orange in pile one is twice as large as the oranges in pile two. I recieve 2 more oranges same as those in pile one and 2 others the same size as the oranges in pile two. By one measure my new 2 oranges plus my other 2 new oranges I have four more oranges. Numerical abstract. However, as you have probably deduced in terms of mass/size my two large oranges are = to four smaller oranges and my two smaller oranges are only equal to 1 larger orange. So I ask you, when considering my new oranges does 2 + 2 = 4 ? Which truth is more true ? There are

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[wurp]

OK, let me explain one more time.

The New Scientist reporter said that Watson said stupidity was an inherited disorder. Then, they give a quote of Watson saying that he would call stupidity a disease. I think the dipshit journalist got "Watson says stupidity is an inherited disorder!" from "I would call stupidity a disease." Even if Watson did say stupidity is an inherited disorder, that's a far cry from saying we've found the gene for it.

From your post, I'm guessing the gene is linked to cowardice.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[VendingMenace]

no worries at all about talking your comments wrong, they CLEARLY were not ment in any holtile manner. i too love to debate and realize that people can pick apart eachothers arguments (or at least try) and not be attacking one another personally. that being said, lets see what i can say about your last post...

i agree that it is difficult to conceptualize good and bad seperatly, but being difficult does not mean it is impossible. perhaps an understanding of bad adds dimention (with out making more correct) to out understanding of good. building on your blind man example. a blind man certainly does not know light the exact way that we do. however, a blind man can learn about the physics of light, and, in this regard, can hold a discussion with a seeing person about light and the blind man will be at no inherent disadvantage. becuase he can only know about this one asoect of light (the physics of it) the same way that a seeing person does, does this mean that he has no idea as to what light is? certainly not. and even without his knowledge of physics he knows what light is, it is what warms him when he is outside. he knows what light is, and he can talk about it, just not quite in the same manner. he is not wrong when it comes to light, just different. thus, even without a concept of light and darkness, he can talk about light. just we a seeing people have a different perspective on it. (mmm...this is not a great argument, prolly owing to the fact that it is hard to seperate out good from bad, conceptually :) )

yeah, it does seem crazy that god damning people to eternal hell is looked upon as good. i guess it can be explained that since god must be the ultimate good, then what he does is by definition good. another argument that always intriuged me was Dante's, from "The Inferno". just in case you haven't read it. he stipulates that those people that go to hell had to make a chioce in life NOT to choose god and the gift that he was offering. SO, when people die, god just gives poeple what they want. those that chose him, he take to heaven, and those that chose they did not whant any part of god, well, he gives them what they want too, and he sends them aways form his presnece, or to hell. Granted that is a heavily christianized slant, but i still think that it is interesting.

as to locking up people. i would have to say that locking up people is "bad". i do not think that people should be locked up. However, i also think that innocent people should not suffer, so those that choose to break the law, and thus forefiet some of their rights (in this case the right to be free). therfore, in order to protect those that have not done wrong (in the eyes of the law) those that have done wrong are removed from soceity. It is a sad state of affairs, but i do belive that the innocent must be protected.

ah yes, the problem of truth. such a sticky subject. but let me ask you this, about what you did last tues night. last tues night, there was really only ONE sequence of events that you actually did. thus there IS a truth as to what you did last tues night. this truth is what actually happened. likewise there is a truth about how you view what you did last tues night. how you view last tues night, is truthfully how you view it. and by the same measure, how i view what you did last tues night is truthfully how i view last tues. SO, after all this, we see that if i ask you "what, in truth, did you do last night?" then there is only one true answer. it is what actually whent on, the actuall events of the night. now if i ask you "what are your views as to the events of last tues night?" the the only truth is what your views are. the same holds true for my views of last tues. thus we see that there really is an objective, inherent, unchanging truth. but in order to see this, you must carefully phrase what you are after.

the same aregument holds true for the oranges. truthfully, the two groups of 4 oranges have the same NUMBER of oranges. so if i

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[tmortn]

Still another round. Mostly comments this time though. To say the least we strayed a bit from the initial topic.... but good debates know no boundaries.

Regarding God, Damnation and Dante I have a brain teaser question for ya. No real answer to it I think.. but some disagree with that sentiment. Mostly I think its just a loaded question, but perhaps its one you will enjoy pondering.

Who is the better Christian ? Someone who rejects christ/god yet lives the life of christ ie a life without sin in full accordance with "gods will" except for that one small detail of beliving in the almighty and/or his son. Or someone who embraces christ/god and yet is imperfect, sinfull. Not damned but the every day average jane/joe who dosn't live fully in accordance with "Gods will" but dosn't stray to far from the path either.

I ask that one because that whole point made By Dante of God giving people what they want in banishing them to the various circles of hell in the inferno through their various forms of rejection of him always irked me and made God seem petty. Sending to someone to the eternal fire simply for not believing in you just seems small. Not at all worthy of the "almighty".... course who am I to judge :-)

On locking people up I think you slipped out the back door with an 'Its the lesser of two evils' argument quite nicely. But I have to say I think that still amounts to the old 'It Depends' :-) In my book locking up Charles Manson ( or insert notorious absolute guilt example here ) is good. No doubt, no questions do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred dollars go directly to jail and I won't shed a tear if its to sit in "Old Sparky". The extreme cases don't provide much challenge or call for much soul searching ( for an opposing point of view read Dead Man Walking). The problem, at least for me, comes with the grey areas. Those cases where we don't know the absolute truth about what happend on that fatefull tuesday night but we know something happend and we know it was bad and we have good reason to think *insert suspected evil doer* did it. Back to this in a minute.

Truth. For Truth I say you made a point I kind of went round about with. Truth is in the question, especially in my example. You have to define 2 consitently before you can evaluate 2+2 acurately as 2+2=4. As for the fact there is one truth about what I did tuesday night I concede that is so. However reaching that one truth is just as difficult as pinning down Hiesenburgh's dratted electron. Its rapidly approaching but never reaching 1. Course I can argue all day and night against that damned principle but it serves my purpose here :-)

Which incidentally is what leads to the problem of the criminal set free by truths. When the rules we set down for making sure we arrive at the objective one truth about what I did tuesday night are broken. Regarless if we know it was a silly mistake and not one meant to skew the results of my trial.. we have to assume that what we know is true has been tainted. Thus you have the underpinning basis of inadmissiable evidence.

I'm Not sure either if it is a good thing to let them go. The truly difficult thing in this example is that in my setup I say or at least imply we know the crime was committed and that we have the right person and even the right evidence but that a procedural mistake, a technicality, releases the miscreant. Real life rarely grants you perfect knowledge like this thus the real pondering nature of the example I chose which challenges the ideal of the system in an non-ideal circumstance. From here this generally devovles in a means justifying the end or the ends justifying the means debate. Sooner or later someone takes the high ground by saying its better to err to the side of caution.. if they are religious they will say something to the effect " after all in the end God will judge them ". That of course opens a whole other can of worms.

In the end its an imperfect system, just as our perce

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[cluckshot]

I wish people would realize that technology is only the amplifier of people. If people are klutzy, stupid, ignorant, arrogant, destructive or malicious the more they are amplified by technology, the more we get of this. The issue on technology is the character of those using it. If they are wise, decent, careful, caring, helpful and kind, the more they are amplified by technology, the more we get of this. Maybe we should be attending to the morals and not the technology.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Madcapjack]

right on.

Re:Alarmist prediction are the enemy of progress

[Madcapjack]

intelligence has nothing to do with dialect of english or spelling. that's education, society, culture, choice

what? sounds like you have a fetish!

Best argument I've ever heard.

[unformed]

When a beaver builds a dam, it's called nature. When man builds a dam, we're destroying nature. Is the purpose of our life not to better our lives? And if so, why should we not be allowed genetic engineering, cloning, going to different planets.

The world is constantly changing, and we are part of it.

Now I do understand that many people have moral issues with genetic engineering, and I did (and still somewhat do) too, but if done right, what's the problem. For those don't understand, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's a scary world that he describes, looking at it from our point of view; however, from the inhabitants point of view, it's a perfect world. Brainwashed, yes, but very few people are unhappy. Furthermore, the few that are too intelligent to live in that world are given their own island, to do as they please.

A perfect society, but it takes a while and a lot of change to get there.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[hey!]

Well, forone thing beavers have built dams the same way for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. Changes in scale and method of beaver dams take place on evolutionary time scales. Ecosystems can adapt.

Changes in human dam building methods and scale happen on cultural time scales (e.g. millions of times faster). We also build dams not for the benefit of ourselves, but of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. Therefore our dams tend do be much larger. You can't compare the local millpond to the Yangtze project.

Getting to your basic point, perhaps the poing of our lives is to better our lives. However, we, unlike the beaver, are free to consider in advance the consequences of our action, and to define what "better" would be.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Joe the Lesser]

What if our dam destroys their dam? Our survival is dependant on the ecosystem, whether we like it or not.

Damn, this dam stuff is confusing!

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[cookie_cutter]

For those don't understand, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

The problem with that world wasn't that people were too happy.

The problem was that the whole world was stagnant, nothing new was ever done, and books that prescribed independant thinking were banned. There was also the mandatory religious participation, and the uninformed administration of drugs which, while making you healthy while alive, caused you to die around 60.

The "too intelligent" people weren't "given" their own island, they were exiled to particular islands, where they couldn't influence their brain-washed brethren.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's a scary world that he describes, looking at it from our point of view; however, from the inhabitants point of view, it's a perfect world. Brainwashed, yes, but very few people are unhappy.

He described a beautiful world. I want to get laid that often and take some soma holidays.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[JargonScott]

People use excavators, dump trucks, loaders, cement mixers, railroads, jackhammers, explosives, chemicals, diesel generators, orange cones, and 3 'shovel reclination experts' per actual work unit just to build a dam.

A beaver uses it's teeth. Beavers just piss off a few birds that lived in the trees, and the weekenders that forgot to tether their canoes and were washed away.

The beaver can be held accountable for his lack of foresight. His eyes aren't even on the same side if his little fuckin' head...

(No, I'm not a hippie, check the sig.)

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem was that the whole world was stagnant, nothing new was ever done, and books that prescribed independant thinking were banned. There was also the mandatory religious participation, and the uninformed administration of drugs which, while making you healthy while alive, caused you to die around 60."

The question is whether or not this is a problem - to a lot of people, the state you have described is all they want or need. Most of the world sees thinking as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Personally I think Brave New World was a lot more frightening than 1984. In 1984 people had something not to like. If you want to control people that's a childish way to do it. Brave New World is the efficient way - no one fights you. The question is, since people are happy, should they be made "unhappy" in the interests of advancement?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Drakonian]

Whoa whoa whoa. What if a beaver builds a new "superior" beaver? Is that still nature?

The best argument I've read against genetic engineering goes something liek this. We will have no way to know if the things we excel at are just because of the $99 Gene sale from XYZ Cromosones or if it's because we worked hard and tried to get better at something we like/want to do. Say for example a mother has worked very hard to become a skilled pianist. She wants her child to be even more skilled than her at music, so just gives her the appropriate music genes. Now the daughter is an excellent pianist but is playing the piano something she does because she enjoys music? Or does she just feel this strange compulsion to play the piano without it being something you use strive for? The worst part about it is how can she tell? If you are genetically engineered, how can you have thoughts about whether genetic engineering is OK? Your whole mindframe is biased. How can you find out who you really are, and what isn't just part of a catalogue? How can you control your own destiny when it has already been decided for you?

I also think you have a very unique perspective on Brave New World. A perfect society!?? Out of interest, did you think 1984 depicted a similarly perfect society? Do you feel that is what society should be like - no real freedoms, everyone just walking around in a state of perpetual bliss? A society where you in no way control your own destiny. I guess in that case, it would make sense that you approve of genetic engineering.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[The0racle]

Evolution is a constant stuggle between predator and prey. Take for example a hypothetical battle between a plant and a bird. Bird eats plant. Plant doesnt approve, so develops poison. Bird develops immunity. Plant develops thorns. Bird develops long beak.

Things like genetic enginering, to me, are simply the human beings "thorn." It will not stop the battle, but it seems an inevitable and neccesary step. Diseases, epidemics, mutations, AIDS, cancer, etc will all continue. The bird will develop the longer beak. It seems almost our duty, if we view ourselves as merely a mechanism of nature, to develop our thorn.

Now, you might want to argue that by the very nature of eliminating some known diseases, genetic mutations, etc we will do nothing but create deadlier, more efficient, more adaptable enemies. To me, that seems the most logcailly compelling argument against genetic engineering, but i would still argue against it.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Drakonian]

Getting to your basic point, perhaps the poing of our lives is to better our lives. However, we, unlike the beaver, are free to consider in advance the consequences of our action, and to define what "better" would be.

Indeed. That is why I am opposed to genetic engineering. If someone else (probably your parents, maybe the government eventually?) defines what "better" is by picking your genes for you, how do you have any control over your own destiny?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

We call that argument "argumentum ad momma's boy".

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[whovian]

Agreed, that humans have the knowledge and ability to better their lives. But I would aruge that the beaver builds for the purpose of survival. For example, humans more than likely won't become extinct becaues they can no longer enjoy swimming in Lake Havasu. Then again, in my view, Nature probably wasn't meant to be "redesigned" to support millions of people in the middle of the desert, when historically speaking, people have experienced a harsh life living in the desert (think: Anasazi, Tatooine).

But basically, yeah, I would say we have a fairly sizable say in the way we shape our destiny. It's just a matter of time scale whether {Mother Nature|g*d|...} "lets" us and whether we're smart enough to comprehend and adapt, if necessary, to the changes we have induced.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Dinny]

"The question is whether or not this is a problem - to a lot of people, the state you have described is all they want or need. Most of the world sees thinking as a means to an end, not an end in itself."

I found it to really interesting that Brave New World was so very human to the people who didn't fit in. I thought it was morbidly facinating until they pointed out the islands for the people to intelligent or different to fit in.

The world in general was full of conformists who were truely happy, and all of the truely individual people put on islands completely free of conformist thinkers. It made the whole world much more humane and reasonable.

I feel we should fight tooth and nail anything that pushes us in that direction, but if it were to instanly become that world, it would hardly be horrible.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tatooine. Historically speaking. Riiiight....

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[cookie_cutter]

The question is whether or not this is a problem - to a lot of people, the state you have described is all they want or need. Most of the world sees thinking as a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I think that life has to be dynamic to be meaningful. So while a stagnant world where everyone is happy is preferable to a stagnant world where everyone is unhappy, neither is preferable to a world with change, where new ideas and things can be created and appreciated, where each day is different from the last.

The question is, since people are happy, should they be made "unhappy" in the interests of advancement?

We already have this. They are called drug laws. If we wanted, everyone could be blitzed out of their mind on a steady heroine drip 24/7 (or at least the majority of the time, with rotating on shifts where you have to man the machinery for the other people). But instead we have laws which prevent this practice.

I don't think it's right to deny someone happiness if they're means of getting happiness doesn't hurt anyone else, so my answer to your question is no. However, I would not opt for the heroine drip.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[mrtroy]

I wouldnt mind the sexual stimulation gum. Altho, the kids playing with each other when they are like 5 is kind of disturbing

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[whovian]

Oops ... small tangent :) K9 made me do it.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Tombstone-f]

Hmm, I didn't realize that I picked my own genes. In fact I'm pretty sure I didn't. Does this mean I'm not in control of my own destiny?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Dinny]

" I also think you have a very unique perspective on Brave New World. A perfect society!?? Out of interest, did you think 1984 depicted a similarly perfect society? Do you feel that is what society should be like - no real freedoms, everyone just walking around in a state of perpetual bliss? A society where you in no way control your own destiny. I guess in that case, it would make sense that you approve of genetic engineering."

I don't think that Brave New World is a perfect place for you or me, but think of your fellow man. Look around in this world and see home many people don't value the freedoms they have. I see so many people who would gladly give up control of their destiny to be free of depression, fear and self-doubt. How many people despair about their lack of control of their life while they are happy?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Agn0stic3000]

You must have skipped Brave New World's later chapters where the savage's dialogue w/ Mustapha Mond points out exactly what was wrong with their so-called utopia.

Check out Huxley's last book Island for another vision of technology's place in society. Or read what Nietzsche says about "the last man" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[BobRooney]

So you're saying we should genetically engineer beavers to build dams for us so that its natural?

News Flash!

Man builds a better beaver!

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[gl4ss]

** no real freedoms, everyone just walking around in a state of perpetual bliss?**

'ignorance is a bliss'.

if you feel you're happy, then you ARE happy, because that's what you know(if you _know_ it's just a fake shimbag and are not happy with it, then, obviously you know you're unhappy).

if the daughter plays piano well and gets her kicks from it, then she enjoys it. it's nothing new that a parent can force his/her kid to learn to do something well she/he doesn't enjoy! the beauty in making the kid so that he/she would enjoy in the first place is what makes manipulating in this case _BETTER_(she/he is _made_ to enjoy it instead of told that he/she must enjoy it and thats final).

anyways, often humans forget that they are THEMSELFS a part of the nature, so whatever they do is what nature does as well, and that we, however significant you think that time has been, have been here only for a very short perioid. i'm sick of people raising humans above other inhabitants of this planet as 'caretakers', 'enlightened' or all that crap, we're _part_ of the nature not above it, nothing we can ever do will ever be.. so long and thanks for the fish.

if you could choose a life where you would be happy, would not you do it? everyone would, but choosing what makes you happy isn't that simple. in brave new world it is.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if a beaver builds a new "superior" beaver?

Ah, yes. Beaver on the beaver ... I mean brain. I understand.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[American AC in Paris]

Now I do understand that many people have moral issues with genetic engineering, and I did (and still somewhat do) too, but if done right, what's the problem. For those don't understand, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's a scary world that he describes, looking at it from our point of view; however, from the inhabitants point of view, it's a perfect world. Brainwashed, yes, but very few people are unhappy. Furthermore, the few that are too intelligent to live in that world are given their own island, to do as they please.

Read Brave New World through the eyes of a person who read it waay back in 1932, hot off it's first run. Consider how very bally writing things like "Our Ford" was back then compared to today; consider how shockingly risque the level of sexuality would have been, even on the heels of the roaring twenties.

We've made a number of huge steps towards Huxley's 'utopia' since it's original publication. In general, we've been tickled pink about it. Think about it--how many people do you know who are perfectly content to go through life playing video games and smoking weed/drinking beer/inhaling Cheezy Puffs? Compare and contrast to liesure time opportunities and habits of the average first-world citizen in 1932.

Huxley was right about a good many things.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[CharlesEGrant]

Well, forone thing beavers have built dams the same way for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. Changes in scale and method of beaver dams take place on evolutionary time scales. Ecosystems can adapt

Ecosystems can adapt, but sometimes the way they adapt is by shedding thousands of species. Three billion years ago the dominant life forms on earth were variations on anerobic bacteria. Then organisms appeared that excreted oxygen and began spewing out what was a deadly poison to most of the existing ecosystem. Thousands of species disappeared in a very short time and the world was forever changed. Of course nobody mourns this mass extinction because most of us are oxygen metabolizers now.

Your second point is one I can whole heartedly agree with. We would be foolish beyond comprehension to so change our environment that it can no longer support us. However, I think we should be honest and admit that our motivation is self interest, not a theological obligation to preserve the ecosystem status quo. To prefer old growth douglas fir to lodgepole pine or spotted owls to crows is a human judgement, not a law of nature.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[ranton]

That particular argument doesnt really hold up at all. You could argue that everyone's mindframe is biased, regardless of genetic modification, because of random genetic mutations occuring at conception. When a person is genetically modified, that is who they are. Anything that genetic engineering could do, so could mother nature. Its just that in this case humans decide the outcome instead of random chance. The genetically modified children will have no less "free will" than anyone else.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[unformed]

How can you tell?

You can't, and that's exactly why it doesn't matter. Actually, while we're at it, how do you know that you're not simply some larger creature's pet. Maybe we're just ants in some (higher's creature) a world kid's room.

Do we know for sure?

No, and that's why nothing matters except for our current, here and now, enjoyment and satisfaction.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[unformed]

I had read all of BNW, and it was actually the later chapters which made me like it more, the fact that people who didn't fit in could select an island they wanted to go and be with other people like them.

Re: Island I picked it up a few days ago and am a few chapters into it....

Haven't read any Neitzsche though

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Long, long ago," you know....

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[dissy]

> If someone else (probably your parents, maybe the government eventually?) defines
> what "better" is by picking your genes for you, how do you have any control over
> your own destiny?

The same way you do now.
Having your genes picked by a person vs having them picked at random. Neither one has anything to do with your destiny.

You sorta have to pick a side, you cant have bits and pieces of both.

Have you ever taken a pill to have an effect on your body, say something to clear up alergys or a headache or something.
You do realize no one, including the companys that make those drugs, know 100% what they are doing. They know the basics, and then they test to make sure nothing 'strange' happens. They never know from the start.
Do you suggest we ban all medicine too?

Why not ban food, after all we cant be 100% sure how our body will react. it may be a poison! better not even try to figure it out just incase.

Medical drugs are like a computer poking at its own hardware. Genetics is like us changing the software on the machines that make us. There is really no difference except in the manor they go about performing that action.

Do you feel any less in control of your destiny since your parents no doubt had you innoculated for common illnesses as a kid?
God knows someone that wasnt you definatly chose what to innoculate you for, and you had no more say so in it than you do now.

So instead of the old way of infecting you with a very weak strain of these bugs, forcing your body to learn how to fight it off, but not give it so much it will lose that fight, ends up teaching it how to fight them off later when it may just be too much.
Why do that when you can just code the information in us from the start?

Exact same outcome, except genetics can do it faster and more effecently.

Its bad enough we have our government using the DMCA to make it illegal to modify hardware we own.
Now you are trying to enforce the idea on us that we are not allowed to modify our own bodys that we also own.
And yet you claim to want to have control over your destiny? Well stop trying to take that control away from me!

To both view points, i give a hearty fuck off.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[mdielmann]

Oh yes, please sign me up for the 'perfect' world. Oh, first stop is the 're-education' centre, well okay. After all, all the other members seem to be happy...

Why don't you just suggest universal lobotomies as a solution to world peace.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Drakonian]

No, and that's why nothing matters except for our current, here and now, enjoyment and satisfaction.

I strongly disagree. If that was the case there are very few things that would have ever been accomplished in this world. Would anyone go to school? I wouldn't, it isn't enjoyable. What about going to work? There are precious few who would. Would anyone go to war to stand up for what they or their country believe? It's not a lot of fun.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[ElectricRook]

humans more than likely won't become extinct becaues they can no longer enjoy swimming in Lake Havasu.
I would venture to correct your statment to say that Humans in Phoenix and Las Vegas won't starve without Lake Havasu, Humans in the third world would.

If we limit agricultural production, someone will starve. Just because wealthy people like you and I don't see it on the monitor, does not mean it does not happen.
If the production of a commodity is curtailed, the price goes up. For US Citizens, who usually pay about 5-8 percent of their income for food, a small increase is nothing. In the third world, people sell their children to slavery and prostitution, because they cannot afford to feed them.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[sludg-o]

I also think you have a very unique perspective on Brave New World. A
perfect society!?? Out of interest, did you think 1984 depicted a
similarly perfect society?

I read Brave New World and 1984 around 8th grade. 1984 scared the shit
out of me, but Brave New World didn't sound that bad. Especially the
part where you get to squeeze boobies while your personal helicopter
is on autopilot.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[GlassHeart]

Do we know for sure?

No, and that's why nothing matters except for our current, here and now, enjoyment and satisfaction.

You don't really know if you're going to live another ten minutes, why not rob a bank right now?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[gklinger]

I'm from Canada and I've seen a lot of beaver dams but I've yet to see one that is 726' high.

It's all about scale.

I'll spare you the lecture about how animals take what they need and humans take all in their field of vision. I think you get my point.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the purpose of human life, just like the purpose of all other living creatures on the planet ( viruses, bacteria, plankton, flowers & trees, birds and bees, mice and lice, dogs, cats, lions, tigers and bears oh my, and the other primates ), is to reproduce and ensure to the best of our ability the survival of offspring to reproductive age.

That's it. Eat, Reproduce, Die. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "bettering" our lives, whatever the heck that means. It has to do with passing on genetic material and possibly ( with sexual reproduction, anyway ) coming up with new combinations of genetic material that survives the current environment better.

We're living creatures just like all of those I mentioned in the Super-Extremely-Abbreviated- Abridged-Shortened-distinctly non executive summary-Post It above.

Why would you think that we're *that* different?

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[ggwood]

First, your dam point. You say:
When a beaver builds a dam, it's called nature. When man builds a dam, we're destroying nature. Is the purpose of our life not to better our lives? And if so, why should we not be allowed genetic engineering, cloning, going to different planets.

Effectively, you are right. However, just because we can dam every river means we should. Imagine a similar argument: a bear eats a salmon, it's nature. Man eats a salmon, it's destroying nature. If man eats *all* the salmon, which we have in several streams, the salmon never come back. We can eat all the salmon in all the streams and erase that species if we want to.

We have done so in several streams. People pay big money to haul dead salmon carcasses to enrich the soil in those streams. It is pretty clear the benefit was not worth the cost.

It is just a question of scale.

On to your second point:
For those don't understand, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's a scary world that he describes, looking at it from our point of view; however, from the inhabitants point of view, it's a perfect world. Brainwashed, yes, but very few people are unhappy. Furthermore, the few that are too intelligent to live in that world are given their own island, to do as they please.

I want to specifically address the "island" with all the most intelligent live. This is not where the most intelligent go. It was an experiment within the book. John Savage asks why not make everyone ultra-smart. The leader (Ford?) answers that they did this as an experiment - created a whole island of alpha plus-plusses (most intelligent they can make) and it was a disaster: wars, famine, etc. but that now after many years they live in some kind of democracy. (I may have the ending wrong - is it a commune? - but I vividly recall the war part).

My point is, the alpha plus plusses are bred to lead the rest of the population - essentially to boss them around. They are genetically engieneered to be more attractive and taller so that everyone will know who's boss on sight. In fact the one character who goes and finds John Savage is beta plus who is abnormally short (I think he is only as tall as a beta or a beta minus or something) so he is constantly having to remind people to look at his badge or something like that.

Living in America, I kind of treasure the idea that I can be whatever I like: if I am a born leader I do not have to be one if it does not suit my personality or if I am born at the bottom of society I can work my way to the top (yes this can still happen - see for example Bill Clinton whatever you may think of him he was not born to opulant wealth nor power).

Next, everyone in the main society of BNW (Brave New World) is on drugs (soma) which have virtally no side effects (so they still work productively, don't get in traffic wrecks, etc). This drug is explicitly present to allow the people to escape the day to day unchanging shallowness of their life.

Remember, people in this society do not raise their own children nor in any real sense have a family. They have sex purely for fun.

At first this may sound great: sex, drugs, no drawbacks but then you come to what Huxley must have really wanted us to ask: is pleasure all there is to life?

I do not imagine a world like this when I think of a perfect society. I think of one where no one starves, no one goes hungry - but that people choose to be artists and thinkers and scientists. Where people can take up art history as a hobby and write papers on second centruy Roman wall painting if they like - in their spare time - because all the drudgery is taken care of by robots or something and they don't have to work 65 hour weeks just to buy a larger home in the suburbs.

I dream of a world where people create. BNW is a dream where people live and die like cogs in giant wheels: totally impotent. Yes, in both dreams people are happy but for different reasons.

In sho

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Kris Thalamus]

Do you think people would continue to go to work if they no longer received pay?

Do you think students would study diligently if their course had nothing useful or interesting to offer, and academic achievement garnered no prestige?

As for war, well, I concede. It doesn't seem very rational. Even those who decide to wage war usually view it as a last resort. It seems that most wars in recent history have been fought by soldiers who are paid for their efforts or forced into conscription. And you don't have to look too far to find toys, movies, games and literature that glorify war and warriors. Either way, it's the same forces at work- the carrot and the stick.

The two basic objectives that capable organisms have are quiet simple really: Avoid punishment, and pursue reward. I can't think of a rational reason to behave otherwise.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[weeboo0104]

In the interest of procreation, I'm all for superior beaver.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

If we limit agricultural production, someone will starve.

Nope --- the world produces big surpluses of food. Curtailing production would just mean less food destroyed.

What makes people starve is war --- aided and abetted by first world arms companies --- and the protectionist trade policies of the EU and US.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[kevmit]

"I'll spare you the lecture about how animals take what they need and humans take all in their field of vision. I think you get my point."

Actually...No, I think I don't get your point. The implication that "animals" (as opposed to WHAT...Plants?) make some sort of conscious decision to limit their impact on their environment is a bit anthropomorphic, don't ya think? Despite what Agent Smith said, animals do not instinctively seek "balance" in their environments. Governed by the instinct to survive, animals seek to dominate their environments just like every other living organism. The "balance" is provided by competition with other animals who are also seeking to dominate the environment. The only difference is that human animals have developed the intellectual capacity (seldom exercised) to choose what governs their actions.

Re:Best argument I've ever heard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like U.S. With the island being Manhattan...

I have a question...

[NanoGator]

... Every time there's some advance in technology, there's doom and gloom predicted about it. Have any doom and gloom predictions actually come true?

Re:I have a question...

[Dutchmaan]

>

To which I must ask.. Has any technology actually saved humanity from the basic ills that have plagued it since it's beginning. Crime, war, hatred, hunger, all seem to be alive and well today despite our best efforts to bring Britanny Spears to the masses.

Re:I have a question...

[SocialWorm]

Well, I agree with the basic idea of your argument, but, otoh, if a new technology really did doom humanity to extiction or worse, who would be around to know about it?

Re:I have a question...

[rirugrat]

Have any doom and gloom predictions actually come true?

Ummm, it only takes one. And when it happens, it will be too late to answer your question.

Chris

Re:I have a question...

[Joe the Lesser]

Um, does many thousands of people starving daily due to rampant overpopulation count?

What about the thousands of asthma sufferers plagued by air pollution?

perhaps these only qualify as gloom...

And what about the giant lizard that keeps mutating and attacking Japan...?

Re:I have a question...

[Kris Thalamus]

Yes, Technology has cured polio.

Re:I have a question...

[Dutchmaan]

I wasn't speaking of *literal* ills.. I was speaking of the ills of society.

Re:I have a question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two nuclear bombs have been dropped on civilian populations. I think this is wrong.

Re:I have a question...

[pdbogen]

A robot stole my medication the other day. Thankfully, I had Old Glory Robot Insurance, and they reimbursed me.

(http://www.robotcombat.com/video/old_glory_hi.m ov )

Re:I have a question...

[Kris Thalamus]

Don't you consider Polio to be an "ill of society"?

Okay, I'll try again. Take your example of hunger. Famine is a threat that menaces hunter-gatherer societies. It is more or less curable by means of agricultural technology combined with transportation technology. Yes famine does still exist, but only in nations that have not yet reached a sophisticated level of technology.

Re:I have a question...

[boomgopher]

Um, does many thousands of people starving daily due to rampant overpopulation count?

You should correct that statement:

"...many thousands of people starving daily due to the fucked-up governments they live under..."

Modern, free societies with good governments and economies have birthrates barely above replacement levels.

Re:I have a question...

[NaugaHunter]

Actually, the first two are more the results of avoidance of technology, for different reasons. The first is easily preventable if a) people had other things to do, b) they were allowed to use protection/correction without fear of a deity or without feeling guilty about feeling good, and c) people stopped fighting genetic engineering for food. People have been genetically engineering on a macroscopic level for eons with selective breeding, but millions are starving because governments are refusing grain that would grow in their harsh environments.*

The second is preventable with proper measures, but the costs are prohibitive in a capitalist environment. The mere fact that pollution isn't increasing at the rate it used to, while the rate of technology use hasn't slowed, goes to show that air pollution is controllable.

* I forget which one; Penn & Teller's Bullshit did this topic a couple of weeks back. If you don't have Showtime, get it.

Re:I have a question...

[Dutchmaan]

Look, I'm not saying that technology is a bad thing.. quite the contrary it happens to solve quite a few problems in the world... also creates quite a few.

Perhaps we're just not seeing eye to eye, but the basic premise of my argument was that technology has not added to our "humanity" as a whole. It has helped our civilization create great wonders, but the fundamental flaws in human nature are still there to corrupt the uses of the technology we create. Yes we can feed many people in the world and cure many diseases of the body. We can make mp3 players and make soda taste o' so great.. but technology cannot make us better people.. or can it? If technology can in fact change *us* then we better make damn sure we trust those administering the technology to change us... Because once that happens then the technology controls us rather than being controlled by us. We must have a clear course on where we decide to go, because from now on.. where we go changes who we are.

Re:I have a question...

[Joe the Lesser]

Modern, free societies with good governments and economies have birthrates barely above replacement levels.

Correlation does not imply causation.

Simple natural law dictates that a species can only reach a population allowed by the surrounding resources. When it overpopulates, starvation reduces the levels back to a managable rate.

So, if X food is being produced, and Y people starve daily, and the population is increased moreso daily by Z from those who are not starving, then no matter how much you increase X, eventually you will hit a state where the population (as Z's reproducation has increased), once again, is starving and Y shoots back up.

Thus, world hunger and possibly the demise of humanity can not be solved by simply producing more food and distributing it more efficiently, but only stopped by consciously controlling our population.

(Don't ask me how we do that though)

Re:I have a question...

[Ender Ryan]

Um, does many thousands of people starving daily due to rampant overpopulation count?

Don't you mean, "starving daily due to despotic dictators"? Most of the starving around the world is due to politics, not technology.

What about the thousands of asthma sufferers plagued by air pollution?

Move out of the fuckin' city. Plenty of places to live where that's not a problem, in fact, that's not a problem in most cities anyway. Gimme a break.

perhaps these only qualify as gloom...

To be fair, we have trampled on a lot of the natural beauty of the world. Cut down a lot of rainforests, destroyed a lot of land pumping and spilling oil, etc. Nothing I would call doom and gloom though...

Re:I have a question...

[Anonymous Coward]

You ask has technology "changed" us.

I believe you are asking a moral question about an amoral subject. Technology has no power to make us "good" or "bad", or even help us to agree on what those two terms mean. Technology can increase our ability to communicate with each other our individual ideas of good and bad. It can translate our words into a common language so that we can discuss the issue. It can even store each one of our thoughts on the subject to be preserved for our ancestors.

Through these means, I think technology _has_ changed us. The debate rages on about what is "right" but the very fact that the debate can occur, and on such a wide scale, I think is a triumph of technology. At no other time in history has such a large percentage of humanity had the ability to access this debate, develop opinions, and then publish those opinions in a method that can reach that same large percentage. Yes, much of humanity still has no access to the debate, and tragically most of the people who do have access can't be bothered to become informed before voicing an opinion. Worse, many who could participate, can't be bothered to think about it at all. But still there is hope.

I.e., What we are beginning see now are some of the core issues to be thought about, some of the "grey" areas. Free speach and open discussion are a "good" thing, but I can see the side of the arguement from conservative countries that censorship of "bad" material can destabilize an ordered or religious society. I don't agree with it, but I can see that if a group of people _want_ to limit what types of speach they are exposed to, or thier children are exposed to, they should be allowed that.

Many other subjects that are very hard to draw black and white lines are coming out also, privacy vs security, openness vs vulnerability, profit vs compassion. The fact that these thoughts and discussions can occur amoung many people, on many continents, who speak many languages, amazes me.

I think technology has changed humanity and very much for the better.

Re:I have a question...

[ElectricRook]

Has any technology actually saved humanity from the basic ills that have plagued it since it's beginning. Crime, war, hatred, hunger,

According to a report on NPR (National Peoples Radio)

"Half of the current population of the world have never used a telephone"...

Think about what else they have never used. Perhaps computers, refridgerator, indoor cooking, indoor plumbing, electric lights, sliced bread. For them, fast food has to be caught. There is no leasure time, the wife spends the whole day cooking for the army of kids working the garden. More people die from Maliaria than from all other causes.

Me, I like technology, and the comfort it brings.. As he cracks another cold one, without dropping the remote.

Re:I have a question...

[Johnny5000]

"Every time there's some advance in technology, there's doom and gloom predicted about it. Have any doom and gloom predictions actually come true?"

Ask the citizens of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Halabja, those living around Three Mile Island or Chernobyl... they could probably answer better than I could.

Re:I have a question...

[benzapp]

What about the thousands of asthma sufferers plagued by air pollution?

asthma is primarily caused by opioid peptides derived from wheat and dairy products. The percentage of the population with asthma has increased at a rate inversely proportionate to average pollution levels. Pollution has decreased substantially for several decades. When my grandparents lived in Manhattan in the 1920's and 1930's, asthma was pretty much unknown.

Wheat and dairy opioid peptides are added to foods to enhance their "taste". This is the same kind of taste as a line of cocaine. It only tastes good because it promotes an addictive response. Like with heroin and other narcotics, you quickly become tolerant to the mood altering effects. No one really feels the effects of these drugs, outside of the respiratory suppressing effects and intenstinal sedation resulting in constipation.

Btw, bread was always the solution to overpopulation. There is a reason Nero said all the people need are bread and games. People may not feel they are on drugs when they consume narcotics, but it makes them more content and easier to control. Give them mindless entertainment and they are no longer a threat of any sort.

Re:I have a question...

[ElectricRook]

Actually, I think technology did make us better people (for some definitions of better). Because of technology, we (the in first and second world) have defeated the top ten diseases/maladys that used to shorten the average life span to 40 years, with the last few in total misery.

I have a mouthful of drilled and filled teeth. A century ago, I would have had a mouth of rotten stumps planted in bleeding gums. I don't suffer from the ravages on intestional parasites. I do not maintain a population of Van Leewenhooks "Human Fleas". The cleanest water in the world comes to my house in underground pipe. Our ancestors drank surface water, where draft animals had fouled.

Technology has brought the cost of food down to a few hours worth of currency exchange. So that I'm not inclined to attack your moldy bug infested food stores, if mine are hopelessly ruined, or run short.

Before the advent of money, each of us spent 80 percent of our time raising food. The other 20 percent maintaining shelter. There was no leisure time for idle pursuits.

Because of technology, I can sit here in front of a machine, conversing with people around the world, in excellent comfort, (wait a second)... Opening a cold beer, after only working a measly eight hours.

Re:I have a question...

[ElectricRook]

What about the thousands of asthma sufferers plagued by air pollution?

Actually the air is much cleaner because of technology. Did you cook your meals over a dung fire today? Smoke deer hide into "Buck Skin"? Smoke meat to preserve it aginst insects? Smoke the fruit trees aginst pests? Eat tobacco to kill intestinal parasites?

What did we learn from studying the bronze age man in the Austrian/Italian Alps? He had been smelting copper tools. Did you have to smelt any copper today? Knapp any flint tools? Dig grubs? Milk a diseased dairy animal?

No, we live in splenor, cleanliness, few diseases, and very clean food because of technology.

Re:I have a question...

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is populated, yes. Overpopulated? Not yet. There is enough grain and foods on the earth to feed upwards of 20 billion. This is never going to happen in this system of things, simply due to great mismanagement of resources.

And we don't want to get into this discussion, since there will always be the greedy and the needy.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like evolution killed the neandrathal. What will come after will be better, but it won't be "us".

And to continue...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why I don't subscribe to health insurance, participate in physicals, or go to dentists. I figure if I don't see a doctor to receive bad news, I'll live for ever! Or maybe I'll just pass-out some day in my 90's while eating a bowl of hot gritz and coding some PostgreSQL.

Re:And to continue...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you'll die of a staph infection from the boils forming under your tremendously large rotund ass. They would have easily been prevented with some modern medicine and a little exercise, but oh well...too bad fatty...

Who are these people?

[Eezy Bordone]

So when you say well-known people you mean on the campuses they teach at. I had to google their names to see who, in fact, they were.

Well at least I've got more books on the wishlist, hope they don't get me on the FBI's library watch-list.

The Last and First Men

[Avumede]

In the 1920's (if memory serves me correctly), Olaf Stapledon took a look at the issues of the future of humanity in his classic sci-fi novel The Last and First Men, which is certainly one of the most unique books in science fiction. Genetic engineering plays an important part of the book. I highly recommend it to anyone that wishes to ponder the relationship of science and exploration to the fate of mankind.

A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

The real problem is the irresponsible way it's being handled. Shortly after the first field tests geneticly enhanced grain is in wide spread use. Now it looks like the insects have become immune to it and the "super weed" senerio has come true. Causually throwing animal genes into plants and plant genes into animals is terrifying. The standards are so lax a generation or two of the plant or animal and it's in the ecosystem. If you look at the effect 200 years of developement has had on the lanscape, what will 200 years of genetic tinkering do to the genetic landscape?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[gurps_npc]

It is terrifying because it is unknown. Please note that the more people know about genetic enginerring, the less they become scared of it.

However, the reverse is true about nuclear power. The more we learn about it, the scarier it becomes.

In my opinion, that is because Nuclear Power is worthy of fear, while Genetic is not.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Surak]

Why is it a kid playing with a handgun, as opposed a kid playing with a computer? Most of us are where we're at now because we *were* that kid playing with that computer.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

The more you learn about cloning the less afraid you become. The downside of cloning is we aren't very good at it and the percentage of birth defects is unacceptable. You are completely wrong about genetic engineering. I have read a great deal about it and went from being a supporter to some one that thinks field studies should be stopped indefinately. Forget the SciFi end of the world senerios. They are possible we just don't need them to be afraid. Genetic engineering is likely to cause in the next century, quite possibly the next ten years, the greatest famines this world has ever seen. Genetic diversity in cereal crops may already be a thing of the past. One desease can wipe out not just a harvest but an entire species of grain. Can't happen? It's going on now with banannas. Everyone is saying the current species being farmed will be extinct in less than ten years due to desease. You can live without them? Well in parts of Africa they are a staple. This is just one problem genetic engineering may casue. They have already made a number of insects immune to the most common form of insectacide. This effects non GM crops. It's been big news lately. There is a lot of potential good that can come from genetic engineering but we have to learn to be responsible. Remember all the nuclear clean up? How do you clean up genetic contamination?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

Handgun because the kid doesn't understand the danger of the gun. The potential of new technologies for harm sometimes takes years to understand. Tesla use to expose himself to x-rays because he thought they had health benefits. He was argueably one of the most brilliant humans that ever lived. We are still and will always be living with the effects of a few decades of nuclear developement. What happens in that same time with genetic engineering. We are changing the nature of life itself just to see what happens. Already some genius in Russia combined ebola and smallpox. How long before they develope something our immune systems can't handle? Imagine an air borne ebloa with an antigen that can't be identified by the body. Why would some one do it? Just remember they already mixed Ebola with smallpox.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[aardvarkjoe]

However, the reverse is true about nuclear power. The more we learn about it, the scarier it becomes.

Huh? Most people think that nuclear power creates giant insects, will cause their children to become homocidal glowing-eyed telepaths, and that the power plants are ready to explode catastrophically at any moment, as soon as Osama Bin Laden hacks into the computer systems. I don't see any difference in the irrational fears between nuclear energy and genetic engineering.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Anonymous Coward]

Shortly after the first field tests geneticly enhanced grain is in wide spread use. Now it looks like the insects have become immune to it and the "super weed" senerio has come true.

Could you cite a reference for this?

~Phillip

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[BobRooney]

Excellent point, but not the greatest of analogies. Its more like a kid playing with a supercolider and randomly tossing things into it. We really have little if any understanding of what the broad ramifications of genetic engineering will be. Its not to say that there isnt trememdous potential for benefiting mankind. The problem is that we may in-advertantly be the kid that starts an atomic chain reaction that destroys the planet after hitting our plastic G.I. Joe figure with too many Gluons...

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[diaphanous]

Causually throwing animal genes into plants and plant genes into animals is terrifying

What is it about transfering genes between distantly related organisms (plants and animals, in this case) that terrifies you?

~Phillip

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The more you learn about cloning the less afraid you become. The downside of cloning is we aren't very good at it and the percentage of birth defects is unacceptable. You are completely wrong about genetic engineering. I have read a great deal about it and went from being a supporter to some one that thinks field studies should be stopped indefinately. Forget the SciFi end of the world senerios. They are possible we just don't need them to be afraid. Genetic engineering is likely to cause in the next century, quite possibly the next ten years, the greatest famines this world has ever seen. Genetic diversity in cereal crops may already be a thing of the past. One desease can wipe out not just a harvest but an entire species of grain. Can't happen? It's going on now with banannas. Everyone is saying the current species being farmed will be extinct in less than ten years due to desease. You can live without them? Well in parts of Africa they are a staple. This is just one problem genetic engineering may casue. They have already made a number of insects immune to the most common form of insectacide. This effects non GM crops. It's been big news lately. There is a lot of potential good that can come from genetic engineering but we have to learn to be responsible. Remember all the nuclear clean up? How do you clean up genetic contamination

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Have Blue]

Because you don't die when your computer crashes?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Herkum01]

A "B" grade movie or a look into the future!

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

I totally agree I just try to voice the least extreme potential danger. It's makes it too easy to discount when you talk end of the world. Genetic chaos is the likely outcome if stiff regulations don't happen fast. Most haven't heard of the Terminator gene. Our own Agriculture Department came up with that little gem. It only allows the plant to reproduce one time. It's to prevent farmer from saving seeds. What happens when that gene infects a third world countries crops? They could potentially loose an entire harvest. What happens if it infects the world's supply of wheat or rice?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the world does the banana disease have to do with genetic engineering?

You jump to the claim of insects that are immune to insecticides, but the banana disease is not cuased by any such insect. In fact, if you want to blame anything, the worldwide nature of the problem can only be blamed on global commerce. So do you want to stop global commerce and the movement of goods between continents?

If so it gonna be a loooong, cold, hungry winter in some parts of the world.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

We have no idea what the results could be. Most of the flu bugs that have caused the recent pandemics have come from south east Asian poultry. What if these new genes allow for more deseases to cross the species barrier? That has always been a concern with interspecies organ transplants. What if in the extreme cases plant deseases adapt to infect humans? Even if they don't we are mixing human genes with animal genes. There is a serious potential that we will cause a pandemic. It's one minor issue. The scary thing is we don't know and when we do know it will be too late. I'm not saying to stop but put resonable controls on it. When you put a fist full of insect genes in a plant your first reaction shouldn't be "cool let's go plant it in the garden and see what happens".

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Gilgaron]

Genetic engineering is the only thing that can reliably prevent such famines. It surely isn't the cause of banana or chocolate shortages, they're homologous genetically because of standard breeding techniques. We could try to rebreed the plants, but that will take long enough that the famine will have occurred. Genetic engineering is more of a surefire way to go about it.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[HiThere]

Well, bananas are a special case. They distract from your argument.

Still, I agree. There's nothing inherrently wrong with genetic engineering. But there's much that's inherrently wrong with sort-sighted opportunism being used in that field, and that's what we seem to be seeing. But I doubt that any species will go extinct because of being cloned, because one of the things that becomes possible is the addition of novel immune mechanisms. (We can't do it yet, but within five years I'd bet on it.) But the laws may prevent this, of course...

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Obfuscant]

Shortly after the first field tests geneticly enhanced grain is in wide spread use.

Son, genetically enhanced grain has been in use for thousands of years. Gregor Mendel hypothesized the existance of genes (as in "genetics") while trying to further improve pea plants. Today's corn plants are so much improved over the initial corn-like stuff that you'd probably not realize by looking at the two that they were related at all.

That goes for all current crops, and farm animals as well.

It's time to stop being afraid of the food you've eaten all your life.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[iangoldby]

Huh? Most people think that nuclear power creates giant insects, will cause their children to become homocidal glowing-eyed telepaths, and that the power plants are ready to explode catastrophically at any moment

Oh really? I thought the main concerns were over the increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations and the long-term storage of hazadous materials.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[GlassHeart]

That goes for all current crops, and farm animals as well.

That's the problem. Humans have interfered with natural selection by adding our preferences (sweet apples, meaty potatoes, etc) into the mix. This is not a problem if you plant a favorite apple tree in your backyard, but becomes a problem when we systematically remove space for all other kinds of apples (ugly ones, sour ones, etc) to make room for our apples. These monocultures are highly susceptible to pests, as you can imagine, and therefore require large amounts of pesticide. The lack of biodiversity is its single point of failure, if you will. Potatoes are in a similar situation. Because Russet potatoes are big and white (perfect for french fries), they've squeezed out other species, and the land they're planted on are heavily poisoned with pesticide.

Want another example? Americans prefer "marbled" beef, where fat and lean meat are interleaved. The best way to achieve that is to have the cows feed on corn (most beef you can buy in the US come from cows that have never tasted grass). Unfortunately, cows can't digest corn, so they are also fed antibiotics to keep them alive. They are also fed hormones to accelerate their growth to slaughter weight, from about five years down to just 18 months.

Do you really think all of this comes for free (I'm not talking about dollar cost) to the one who eats it?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[spike hay]

Oh really? I thought the main concerns were over the increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations and the long-term storage of hazadous materials.

Increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations? Doesn't work that way. Nuclear plants emit almost no radiation. In fact, the radiation emitted by nuclear power plants is dwarfed by what is emitted from coal power plants.

The volume of all nuclear waste ever produced in the US would fit into a high school gym. Safe installations like Yucca Mountain leave no chance for leakage of waste. Anyway, PU is not that toxic compared to many substances. Take a look at this.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Anonymous Coward]

Very sorry about not closing my tag.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Genetic engineering is the only thing that can reliably prevent such famines.

The only thing causing famines are human politics. We could easly prevent famine with old technologies if society really wanted to. The reason famines exist is simple because people don't care. That's the plain and simple truth.

GE may be helpful, but it's not magic bullet in terms of preventing famine.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Malcontent]

"GE may be helpful, but it's not magic bullet in terms of preventing famine."

In fact it may make the problem worse if poor people can not afford the seeds. Some of these GM foods are one time use only, that is you can't harvest seeds from your crop to plant again next year.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

Wrong. Massive difference between selective breeding and crossing species with genetic engineering. We are talking foreign genes. In nature when you cross two species that are a little too different the product is sterile. What happens when they are unrelated. There is no way to be sure of the results. Already there have been problems and it's barely in it's infancy. Also selective breeding isn't entirely benign. The modern over breed corn is weaker and more prone to desease.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

the bananna problem is from a lack of genetic diversity. It's one of the biggest problems we already had. The goal has been uniformity. It leads to few genetic options. If one population is prone to a desease they all are. Diversity is the only real solution. Genetic engineering to fix nature will be like the little dutch boy trying to stop a thousand leaks with his fingers. We aren't smart enough to "fix" nature. Far better to work with it.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Gilgaron]

I'm referring to the problems of disease threatening our increasingly homogenous crops. This can only be rectified through genetic engineering of the classical breeding or modern molecular approaches.

Current technology could feed the world with better logistics and ignoring a few economic problems that might occur. For example, for economic reasons some farmers receive stipends not to grow crops on portions of land so that the price does not collapse.

Another poster in this thread mentioned seeds that don't reproduce being a problem for poor people. While this is a concern, it does eliminate the problem of genetic contamination of the area that is arguably a larger concern. If you make GE crops that can reproduce then you have to worry about cross breeding. Which risk is greater probably varies with many factors.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[stwrtpj]

Want another example? Americans prefer "marbled" beef, where fat and lean meat are interleaved. The best way to achieve that is to have the cows feed on corn (most beef you can buy in the US come from cows that have never tasted grass). Unfortunately, cows can't digest corn, so they are also fed antibiotics to keep them alive. They are also fed hormones to accelerate their growth to slaughter weight, from about five years down to just 18 months.

And the great irony of this is that feeding them grass would eliminate the need for most antibiotics, since digesting grass produces a gas that kills E-coli.

Before I met my wife, I used to have occassional, nasty digestive problems. My wife switched me to all organically-raised meat. No antibiotics or hormones. Not only does it taste better, I haven't had a digestive problem since. The only downside is that its twice as expensive as the non-organic stuff.

I am not wholesale against genetic engineering. Far from it. But it should be used judiciously, and not solve problems that a little common sense can solve instead.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

In my opinion, that is because Nuclear Power is worthy of fear, while Genetic is not.

Not to join the party of the Luddites, look in to Monsanto Corp's Terminator variety of wheat. They have found a double recessive gene, which when one half is absent is fatal to wheat. In their variety, you have both recessive genes, so their variety breeds true. But if I plant near your field, your wheat get cross pollinated with the terminator, and your seed crop is sterile. Hence you have to buy terminator wheat.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

Most of the flu bugs that have caused the recent pandemics have come from south east Asian poultry.

Correlation is not Causation

Migrating water fowl are the major vector of the flu. The fact that the same diseases are in asian domestic fowl is to be expected.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

INAL I fed cattle. Actually almost all western US cattle taste grass. Fed cattle built up to high feed need some form of roughage >%20 at a minimum, or their gut won't work (been there). The cheapest source (California) is usually grass, it may be in the form of hay, haylage, ensiled corn stalks, legume silage. (ensiled is feed is fermented, kind of like Hawiian poi)

Almost all (>95%) of western US beef cattle are raised on grass, and the calves (the only ones to hit the feed lot are between 6-12 months old) are typically raised to at least 6 months on pasture or range land.

Cattle actually process Maize (Corn in the US), better than people. If not for processin Corn with Slacked Lime (a very caustic chemical) Corn does not provide sutable nutrition for those simple gut humans.

Cattle are fed antibiotics only in rare cases, I have only seen it in dairy replacement heifers in confinement conditions.

Specialized veternarians usually consult on livestock feed. What constitutes good cattle feed: good nutritional properities, inexpensive for the feed value, easy for the livestock to digest, complete nutritional properities. Cattle eat a very complete diet, often concocted from agricultural product you and I cannot or would not eat. Such as: Almond hulls, Corn stalks, Rice polishings, Grape Pommace, Molasses.

Cattle only eat what they want to eat. If they are fed something they can't digest, or don't want to eat, they don't gain weight. If they don't gain weight, the farmer loses money.

About FAT Farmers are paid by weight, uniformity and the amount of marbeling in meat. In Japan, they prefer the meat almost white with fat. Fat is stored energy, and an indicator of the health of an animal. A skinny rough animal is not healthy. One that can grow a good layer of stored energy, and a clean slick glossy coat is healthy. Well marbled meat contains lots of energy. I may consume more energy than I need.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Surak]

Ebola and smallpox? Holy fsck! I had no idea. What kind of whacked-out MF would do that?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Anonymous Coward]

Increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations? Doesn't work that way.

So, how do you explain the increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations, then? You can;t just say "doesn't work that way" because there are real observable increased leukemia rates near nuclear installations.

Also the fact that nuclear-generated electricity is so ridiculously expensive that even with massive government subsidy it still can't compete with other sources doesn't help.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmm marbled beef

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[GlassHeart]

My memory failed me. You are correct that corn-fed cows are typically fed about six months on grass when they are weaned.

Here's an interview with author Michael Pollan, who bought a cow to understand its "life story" and the economics of raising it for profit. It disputes some of the points you raised about antibiotics and the effects of a corn diet.

I don't have figures to dispute your 95%, but the point is that once we figure out how to get the valuable marbling, it's pretty irresistible to go for it. After all, it's a highly competitive business with slim margins.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Obfuscant]

Wrong. Massive difference between selective breeding and crossing species with genetic engineering.

Wrong. Difference of method only, but not the intent and not the result.

We are talking foreign genes.

Well, now I am convinced to oppose this stuff -- I don't want no damn Iraqi genes in my American foods!

You've just demonstrated that those who are most opposed to this are those who don't have the clue. It isn't "in it's infancy", it's been going on for CENTURIES, and it is why Malthus was proven wrong.

If you don't want to eat it, fine, starve. Just stop spreading FUD.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Dark Bard]

Foreign as in alien to that species. You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information. I don't want to rehash my other posts but most of the negative senerios have already happened. They aren't science fiction. Monsanto has had to send people out to manually pull up plants from farmers fields because none of the weed killers would work. GM crops have crossed with related wild species that have lead to new strains of super weeds. It's why Europe has banned most GM products. There are wild varieties in europe of many crops that the GM can cross with. The food allergy issue is still a major concern. There are hundreds of potential problems and many have come to pass and it's a new science. Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries. It's a non sensical argument. Cross breeding happens in the wild and may be a major mechanism of evolution. Dissimilar species of snakes cross in the wild. But snakes don't apes in the wild. Then again there are those legends about Nagas(snake people). You might be right.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

Michael Pollan, who bought a cow to understand its "life story"

The differences are probably more a regional thing. Cattle are very susceptable to respiratory problems, especially when they get stressed. Stress happens easliy. Bad weather, they get bullied by more agressive Cattle, moving to a new place (feedlot with lots of germs), too much dust (our problem). We did not use anti-biotics, unless needed on an individual basis. Some of the new ones cost $35 per shot.

Here in California, we have the advantage of milder weather (less weather related illness), but feed costs can be higher. We do have access to a broader range of alternative feeds. Most of them are not worth the shipping cost, sometimes you get them for free. One guy wanted us to take the leftover from making tofu. Great protein, but the water content was too high. We would have been trucking tofu flavered water, no value there. The micro-breweries were begging us to take their spent grain, quantities were too small.

The feedlot I worked for went under in 94. Now I work as a SysAdmin for Intel, The feedlot leases pens to Dairymen who keep dry cows there, the place has great facilities, and good drainage.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Thing 1]

Unfortunately, cows can't digest corn, so they are also fed antibiotics to keep them alive. They are also fed hormones to accelerate their growth to slaughter weight, from about five years down to just 18 months.

Do you really think all of this comes for free (I'm not talking about dollar cost) to the one who eats it?

Something I've learned recently is that, thanks to our using growth hormones in chicken and cattle, our girls are developing secondary sexual characteristics at younger and younger ages.

This is frightening. Not only is it against nature to have nubile females at such a young age, it's also majorly against the law to lust after them.

And we desire nubile young females; the younger the better, because (this is history speaking, the condom has destroyed much of this) that means she's most likely a virgin, which means if she gets pregnant it's most likely yours, which means your genes will be carried forward instead of someone else's.

And we all know it's the genes that are important, not the individual. Thanks Richard Dawkins.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[gurps_npc]

Your logic is SERIOUSLY flawed there, and your description makes the Termiantor wheat a PERFECT wheat for experimentation.

Why your logic is flawed:

If I plant terminator wheat where it will pollinate other people's wheat, that means my wheat will ALSO be pollinated by their wheat. So I would be STUPID to do that, as my own wheat will end up STERILE.

The only way this works like you are scared of is if the MAJORITY of people are already using the Terminator Wheat, then people would be stuck with using the it. If most people start out using regular Wheat, you have to be a moron to buy the terminator wheat.

However, let us say I have some experimental gene that I do not want to get out to the general wheat fields. I implant that gean in the Terminator wheat to grow a crop for testing. I do not need to worry about some of my pollen being wafted over to your field, as even if you get a tiny bit, it will be sterile, so one generation later it will be gone.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

If a farmer buys terminator wheat, he has a food crop, but no seed crop. The neighbors have no seed crop either, or a really really poor seed crop. Now everyone is hooked on the Monsanto seed crop.

What happens if the gene gets transfered other members of the grass family? We could wipe out all members of those species.

Don't get me wrong, I'm for making improvements to foods. Dairy animals that produce spider silk, or medicines in the milk are a great thing. But some things are dangerous.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[Obfuscant]

Foreign as in alien to that species.

Are there really any genes "alien" to any species? Are you forgetting the theory that everything evolved from the slime millions of years ago?

You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information.

I have current information, but I also don't throw away the past just because it doesn't create fear, uncertainty or doubt anymore. The fact remains that genetic engineering has been going on for a long time and we're still here to see it. The sky hasn't fallen.

...most of the negative senerios have already happened.

Right. Billions of people have died because we are growing hardier, more productive corn plants and rice that can live in salt-water. Billions more have died because chickens have been bred to produce more, bigger eggs. Even more billions of people have died because tomatoes have been engineered to stay fresh longer. Oh, the humanity!

It's why Europe has banned most GM products.

No, Europe has banned most "GM" crops because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt being spread about them, by people who don't want to see US corporations profiting for any reason whatsoever. People who cannot separate their hatred of successful corporations from real science.

The food allergy issue is still a major concern.

To whom? People are allergic to all sorts of things. Should Mendel have stopped just because someone might be allergic to peas? I think not.

... and it's a new science.

No, it is not. You claim I need "more current information", as if that allows you to ignore the past. It doesn't. This is not new.

Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries.

They have been crossing plants for centuries. Where the hell do you think the tangelo came from? Despite all your fearmongering, this is simply not new stuff.

You might be right.

You know it, you just want to spread more FUD, for whatever reason you have. You keep ignoring the past, so maybe it's just ignorance. Is that why?

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

If I plant terminator wheat where it will pollinate other people's wheat, that means my wheat will ALSO be pollinated by their wheat. So I would be STUPID to do that, as my own wheat will end up STERILE.

That's the objective. Everyone has to buy seed from Monsanto. No one gets to say no. The foundation growers (viable seed) are prohibited from selling seed to anyone but the company. Non-terminator seed has a very low germination rate.

Monsanto becomes the worldwide seed supplier.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[gurps_npc]

No you do not understand.

Your "Monsanto Monoply" idea requires that farmers be MORONS.

Farmers are not Morons and will not do all the stupid crap you just said they will.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[gurps_npc]

That is my point.

But you are assuming Farmers are MORONS.

What, you think they do not know everything you just said????

Basically, your entire arguement requires for Farmers to buy seed that will destroy their own ability to reseed and also destroy the ability of their neighbors to reseed.

So, according to your logic, only a TOTAL and complete MORON would buy their seed.

Farmers are not stupid. If you have given a fair and honest representation of what is going on, then no farmer will buy this seed, it will only be used for experimental stuff.

The only way for the seed to be purchased is if you are SERIOUSLY wrong about what is going on.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

I worked in Ag...

I know that Farmers are not morons. But there are many, who feel a personal tie with the seed company, and do as that company says.

Many are under the control of the fossils (parents or senior relatives who own the land) who often make major decisions concerning the enterprise and who may even micro-manage.

And there is one born every minute.

Re:A kid playing with a handgun

[ElectricRook]

Many Farmers are convinced that it is very bad luck to retain seed. Seed must be cleaned. The harvester, performs a light cleaning, which means what is picked up in the wind rows, gets threshed, and runs over screens. Most of the chaff gets blown out.

Noxious weed seeds are likely to be retained. Especially bad in some crops is dodder, a parasitic plant which can form seeds to mimic it's host.

Seed is graded for size, shape, weight, etc. Also seed is treated with fungicides to prevent rot before germination, has a guaranteed germination rate, and weed content.

Retaining seed may violate your seed supplier or coop agreement, other bad majick may pop up, causing massive losses.

Predicting the future

[jeffmock]

This thing reminds me of an interview with Steven Spielberg when the "back to the future" movies came out in the 80's. He said that it's really easy to write about an apocolyptic future, but hard work to imagine a happy world in the future.

Maybe it's because we tend to idealize the past and forget about the horrible aspects of life 50-200 years ago. Maybe this sets a trend line where the past was great, the present is not as good, so the future must be hellish if we extrapolate far enough.

jeff

Re:Predicting the future

[cookie_cutter]

He said that it's really easy to write about an apocolyptic future, but hard work to imagine a happy world in the future.

I've never found it hard at all. I just imagine a democracy where every citizen is as reasonable as I am. Utopia follows :)

Re:Predicting the future

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another case of those who forget the future are doomed to relive it. Didn't any of these genetic engineers ever see the Wrath of Khan. These genetically engineered people are nuts.

Re:Predicting the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it just makes for more interesting movies, eh?

Re:Predicting the future

[Anonymous Coward]

F*ck off

Re:Predicting the future

[ragnard2]

Idealizing the past is common -- from Plato to Cicero to Vergil -- the distant past was golden when men were brave and women virtuous, and now, we're all cowards and whores. Until just recently, in historical terms, the average human being lived in what is now described as "3rd world squalor." Almost anytime you solve one problem you create another. Solve the problem of distance and you create environmental problems unknown of before the internal combustion engine. Solve the pollution problem, something else will pop up. It will the responsibility of future generations to solve that problem as it is our problem to solve the pollution problem caused by cars.

Re:Predicting the future

[Saeger]

... where do you get the other 95 minutes?

You could always make it in the poetic video collage style of a Naqoyqatsi.

But you're right in the humans crave a story, and just about every damn story is centered around CONFLICT of some kind because we thrive on it. I suppose you could make the conflict the subtext of a utopic future; don't know how well that would work though.

--

The real problem ...

[Mr. Mai]

The discoveries by themselves will not harm us, it is the bad use of new technologies that will kill us. Just as the use of nuclear energy to make bombs intead of radiotherapy. The bad use of genetics will certainly have a terrible effect on humanity.

Counterpoint

[delphin42]

"He proposed a worldwide treaty organization that would ban germ-line genetic engineering"

This is just yet another case of the difficulty balancing our scientific curiousity with our (often warranted) fear of the unknown.

To present the other side of this argument, try reading this.

Re:and the answer is

[k-0s]

Will genetic engineering kill us? No. Will it signal an end of homo sapiens? Yes. Being "human" I think will take on a much different experience. I hope our leaders make wise decisions and don't let genetic engineering get out of hand. I can see increasing all of our ( I mean our decedants) immune systems. I don't see an X-Men type of future. I can see eliminating all birth defects. I don't see entire armies of clones overwhelming the world. The main questions I'm not sure of are the follow: Will a race of people just smart enough to work but not smart enough to question it be engineered? Will we increase our brain usage or how well we use the current amount or both/either? What will happen when a full generation of genetic engineered children grow up, will they feel superior to the ones in control? Will this spawn revolts or revolutions?

There is hope!

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly hope so, the hell with humans, lets give something else a shot in the big petri dish.

Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[cookie_cutter]

genetic engineering and other technologies are going to divide human beings into classes that may one day try to destroy one another

This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept of species and of what advanced genetic engineering technologies allow.

The biological species concept defines a species as a set of organisms which can breed among themselves, but not with members of other species

Genetic engineering, particularly trangenics, makes this concept obselete, because it is possible to transfer genes from any species to any other, pretty much eliminating any species boundaries.

Yes, different people will have different sets of genes, but with gen-eng, it will be possible to move from any one type to any other, ie "upward mobility" will be possible for everyone, which is infinitely preferable to what we have now where people are stuck with the gene's they're born with.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Nerant]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements".
Imagine a world where if you want your child to benefit from genetics, you have to spend a proportional amount of money for said engineering to be done.
The social divisions between the rich and the rest of us, will only widen.
Perhaps genetic enhancements should be regulated as a public benefit or utility, where all have somewhat equal opportunity to get them.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Alric]

Unless of course, giant mulitnational corporations control the technology and only the very rich and powerful can afford the upgrades for themselves and their children.

But that would neeeeeeever happen.

Heil Tessier-Ashpool. (what?)

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Telex4]

You're only seeing one side of the die here though, as many of the more technophilic (is that a word? :)) posters here seem to do. Technology, even that which seems to improve things, isn't always a good thing.

Let's say I invent a really good robot that automatically plays football. It means we get to watch better football on TV, and you don't need to pay them huge salaries, so everyone's a winner! Unfortunately, kids stop kicking balls around, and everyone who plays football loses both a pasttime and a healthy form of exercise and socialisation.

We may make the human species far "better", but what would be better? If we were all beautiful and intelligent and suave? There's a place for people who are obsessed with this false ideal of perfection - Hollywood. What makes us special is our character, our spirit, not some superficial traits we can genetically modify, and so going down the road of genetically engineering humans will only serve to make people even more obsessed with essentially meaningless traits. Of course there are more difficult cases, like diseases, but that's altogether different.

There's also a genetic problem with genetic unification, which is neatly illustrated by the way that Monsanto and others are thinning and consolidating their gene pools. There are many hundreds of different type of rice around the world, and the strength of this is that should a disease or pest come along that affects one type, the chances are that others won't be susceptible. If they are all oe or two types taken from the same original parent, they're all doomed. Genetic diversity is extremely important, and any genetic engineering that tries ti consolidate is only asking for nature's troubles.

Come on people, let's be scientific here. Scientists (as opposed to technologists) study things in safe isolation, with a view to discovering the whole truth about the subject, and this simply isn't what is happening with genetic engineering. What we are seeing is science driven with the philosophy of technology (develop until it seems practical enough to sell, then roll out), which is unscientific and dangerous. Don't call critics of technology unscientific, because it's plainly untrue.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say I invent a really good robot that automatically plays football. It means we get to watch better football on TV, and you don't need to pay them huge salaries, so everyone's a winner! Unfortunately, kids stop kicking balls around, and everyone who plays football loses both a pasttime and a healthy form of exercise and socialisation.

Wait a minute: exactly why are people going to stop playing recreational football? Because the pros are all robots?

Come on people, let's be scientific here.

I fail to see how your belief that robotic pro football players will cause everyone to stop playing weekend football games is an example of a scientific prediction.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Telex4]

Ahh c'mon I had to think up an analogy in a few seconds, and that's the best I came up with :) You can still understand my point -- that we might think it better for technology to do something for us, or make things easier for us, but it won't necessarily make us better off, or improve our life quality.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm...you can also pick a lady with 'enhancements' to go out with to ensure an enhanced child (well....it will at least give you 50% (not always) chance).

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Lord_Dweomer]

O don't worry, eventually, the poor have always outnumbered the rich, so if it becomes enough of a strain on their lives, the masses of poor lowly normal humans (who will no doubt have mutated in some horrible way through low-grade genetic therapy) will overthrow the rich. God that would be fun to watch. Like watching X-Men for REAL!

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Flamerule]

Thanks for your thoughtful post.

Let's say I invent a really good robot that automatically plays football. It means we get to watch better football on TV, and you don't need to pay them huge salaries, so everyone's a winner! Unfortunately, kids stop kicking balls around, and everyone who plays football loses both a pasttime and a healthy form of exercise and socialisation.

This is a pretty bad example, frankly. Why would kids stop kicking balls around? So they could watch football on tv? Football's already on tv. People play because they want to.

We may make the human species far "better", but what would be better?

Commonly-accepted virtues. Beauty, honor, intelligence, athleticism, etc.

If we were all beautiful and intelligent and suave? There's a place for people who are obsessed with this false ideal of perfection - Hollywood.

Those are some virtues; they're not the only ones. Also, don't think that everyone will be maximal representations of these virtues: genetics is important, but so is environment. Everyone will be smarter, but there will still be gradations of intelligence -- they'll just be of IQ 150-250 instead of 50-150, say.

What makes us special is our character, our spirit, not some superficial traits we can genetically modify, and so going down the road of genetically engineering humans will only serve to make people even more obsessed with essentially meaningless traits.

The virtues that you would most likely mean by "character" should be just as "easy" to genetically manipulate as, for example, suaveness. In any case, why should people become more obsessed with these "meaningless" traits (intelligence and beauty are meaningless?) than they are now? There may be an "arms race" of people trying to maximize genetic expressions, but I don't see how this would contribute to an obsession about certain traits. Once you're born, that's it; you can try to get as good a deal for your children as possible, but once they're born, that's all you can do as far as genetics is concerned. After that, you can only obsess over normal, environmental stuff -- which is what we alread do now.

There's also a genetic problem with genetic unification, which is neatly illustrated by the way that Monsanto and others are thinning and consolidating their gene pools.

You need to post some evidence of genetic consolidation stemming from genetic modification on plants; as far as I know, this is not occurring. There are many companies developing GM foods, each with different research strains.

There are many hundreds of different type of rice around the world, and the strength of this is that should a disease or pest come along that affects one type, the chances are that others won't be susceptible. If they are all oe or two types taken from the same original parent, they're all doomed.

You forget that man has been selectively breeding plants since the dawn of agriculture. As it stands, this has resulted in, specifically, a wide variety of rice grains.

Genetic diversity is extremely important, and any genetic engineering that tries ti consolidate is only asking for nature's troubles.

As I said, "natural" crops have been bred for certain traits for millennia; modern genetic engineering simply takes that to a more sophisticated level. Most importantly, I don't see any one single "supercrop" taking over and displacing all others. This is not happening now, and it isn't any more likely to happen now: your scenario could have occurred with natural breeding, as well.

Come on people, let's be scientific here. Scientists (as opposed to technologists) study things in safe isolation, with a view to discovering the whole truth about the subject, and this simply isn't what is happening with genetic engineering.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Have Blue]

Look at medical care today: Treatments that save lives in immediate danger are available to pretty much everyone. Treatments for non-critical conditions are available on the open market at prices determined by economics. Elective/cosmetic surgery is available only to the rich, but it's not like those without it are suffering horribly. If genetics turns out the same way it won't be too bad.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Anonymous Coward]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements".
...
The social divisions between the rich and the rest of us, will only widen.

Not only the social divisions, but when you throw in the possibility that others have mentioned of this kind of thing eventually leading to a new species incapable of breeding with humans, the scenario is even more chilling. If they are a different species of animal, will they consider themselves ethically bound to refrain from literally enslaving the poor? Or even eating them?

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Elective/cosmetic surgery is available only to the rich, but it's not like those without it are suffering horribly.

I'd like to hear you say that after your face is horribly disfigured in an accident.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[bitspotter]

"genetic engineering and other technologies are going to divide human beings into classes that may one day try to destroy one another"

This demonstrates a misunderstanding of the concept of species and of what advanced genetic engineering technologies allow.

I agree with your point, but there's a point the original poster makes that isn't addressed.

By "class", he may not mean "species" in the biological sense. I definitely see a division of classes in the political sense, even in today's world.

Those who are pro-tech certainly respect the rights of those who aren't to not participate in the development of technology, but can't really protect them from the impacts of such development that are inevitably unpredictable.

Those who are anti-tech (pro-relinquishment?) can't simply be satisfied with not participating for just this reason - these technologies have far-reaching effects on all of our natural and social ecosystems. Thus, it's in their interest to control the capabilities of ALL others.

I don't see how violent conflict can be avoided as technical development continues to accelerate. The only hope is that a responsible consensus can be reached to reduce the impact of such conflicts.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[russellh]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements".

Genetic engineering won't affect humanity because only the rich can afford it, and poor people have way more kids.

Until and unless a society is engineered by force (the original use of the term 'social engineering' by the way), it's clear that human genetic engineering will remain out of the reach of the vast majority of the world, which is poor and can hardly afford the most basic material needs.

But they still have more kids than rich people.

What we need in the world is more: 1) empathy, and 2) people to take responsibility for their actions. I guess I'm not much of a materialist.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Telastyn]

Come now, do you really think rich people will hold enhancements only to themselves? Certainly rich people can gain from having their sla... er workers be able to work longer/harder/better.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Telex4]

That football analogy is really haunting me now :) It was a bad analogy poorly explained. Basically, all I am saying is that some people seem to think that all technology that makes certain aspects of our life easier, or of a higher quality/skill, or more enjoyable, is necessarily good, and will necessarily make our lives better. To follow that line of thought to its conclusion, we'd all be on drugs sitting motionless in chairs in pure delirium. There has to be more to life than the pursuit of perfection and pleasure, and often it seems to me that technologists forget this. That's a general observation, not focused on all genetic engineering.

We already, as you say, have, as a society, a pernicious obsession with (amongst other things) being perfectly beautiful, intelligent and sociable. It's a nasty trait that manifests itself in the extreme in cosmetic surgery shops, where technology purports to make people "better". Introducing genetic modifications of humans in the embryonic stage (I assume we're now both talking about modifications pre-birth?) will allow people one more chance to make their child "better", and so will make it even more common and acceptable, and normal, for people to see these traits as [i]needing[/i] modification, when they evidently do not. This will clearly make people more obsessed with the importance of these traits, as plastic surgery has done.

On crops...

Many companies, yes, and for millenia man has selectively bred, yes, but let's look at the scales here: through selective breeding, we still have many hundreds of strains of the different crops around the world, that have developed in the ecosystems in which they are "deployed", and which have, by and large, adapted to cope with new problems due to the diversity of stock. But with GM you tend to get a handful of strains being deployed over large areas, and so the number of strains is dramatically reduced. There are different strains, yes, but not nearly as many, and so should one or two of those strains be hit by a particular problem, vast areas of cropland are affected.

I'm not trying to say that GM crops are inherently bad -- that's distinctly irrational -- but that there are problems which aren't addressed by the companies involved, because it's not in their interests to do so. To have scientific experiments, which is what the GM crop deployments are, being led by companies is unscientific and not in the public's/ecosystem's interests.

As for science occuring in safe environments, I think you misinterpreted me slightly. Sticking with the GM example, a scientific approach would be to research the crops in the lab and theory rooms until some strains were being developed, and to then test the crops on a small production scale, or (if paranoid) in a properly isolated site, until one could be absolutely certain that the truth about the crops had been reached, and to then accept that truth -- are they going to be a good to deploy on a larger scale -- and to then deploy the new technology in a scientific manner.

This is in contrast of course to how technology companies work, as I pointed out, and it is this contrast in which the troubles lie, and which many who are quick to defend science miss.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[praedor]

We are ALL transgenics. Where do you think your mitochondria came from? In plants, where do you think chloroplasts came from? Your DNA is heavily populated with viral DNA and virus-like DNA that is not simply "junk" DNA. Some of that viral DNA actually serves a useful function in our biology now.

Mitochondria are the remnant of an ancient bacteria that long ago formed a comensural, then symbiotic relationship with a host cell. Both the cell proper and the mitochondria gain benefit from the association and now are inseparably intertwined into a larger macro-organism we call ourselves.

This sort of mixing and cutting and pasting has been going on since life first formed on this planet. There is no eukaryotic organism that can be truly claimed to NOT be a transgenic to some degree. There is nothing especially spooky or "wrong" with transgenics. It is merely an irrational emotional response to something most people really do not understand.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[GlassHeart]

Treatments that save lives in immediate danger are available to pretty much everyone.

Like AIDS drugs in Africa?

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[GlassHeart]

Most importantly, I don't see any one single "supercrop" taking over and displacing all others. This is not happening now, and it isn't any more likely to happen now

If you live in the US, how many kinds of potatoes can you buy at your grocery? I would expect it to be two or three. How many kinds of apples? Probably three or four, with a couple more "mixed" breeds. The Russet potato and the Red Delicious apple are in fact pretty close to the supercrop you don't see. Not coincidentally, both require large doses of pesticides.

GM crops intensify the problem. It becomes even more possible to develop a crop that is cheaper to grow (pest-resistant, long shelf life, etc) and more popular (sweet, crunchy, etc) than anything else out there. When that happens, most farmers will be forced to abandon their own crops or face bankrupcy.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[spike hay]

Elective/cosmetic surgery is available only to the rich, but it's not like those without it are suffering horribly. If genetics turns out the same way it won't be too bad.

Don't get me wrong. I'm completely in support of genetic research, and even eventually genetically engineered humans. (We need to better ourselves) I'm not rich. So I may never have the money to shell out for a facelift when I'm older. I guess I'll have to live with wrinkles, then.

But the difference between a person with an IQ of 200 that is not suseptible to any diseases and can run a mile in 4:00 and a normal person is a much bigger difference than someone with a facelift and someone without a facelift.

Genetic engineering of humans should be some sort of government program. We can't leave out the poor on this one.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[naasking]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements".
Imagine a world where if you want your child to benefit from genetics, you have to spend a proportional amount of money for said engineering to be done.
The social divisions between the rich and the rest of us, will only widen.

(flash back a few thousand years)
Imagine a world where only the rich have access to weaponry.
(flash back a few hundred years)
Imagine a world where only the rich will be have access to advanced health care.
(flash back one hundred years)
Imagine a world where only the rich will have access to cars.
Imagine a world where only the rich have access to flight.

etc., etc., etc.

Initial offerings are always expensive. Economies of scale and competition always end up bringing the price down to levels affordable by everyone.

Perhaps genetic enhancements should be regulated as a public benefit or utility, where all have somewhat equal opportunity to get them.

Government control/regulation and "public interest" are anti-thetical. Government always has its own agenda, and you can never entrust it to act in the "public good"; there are infinitely many varying opinions on what constitutes "good", and inevitably, you, and many others, will disagree with what the government decides. Why not let everyone make their own decisions? That's what the free market permits.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[teorth]

(flash back a few thousand years) Imagine a world where only the rich have access to weaponry. (flash back a few hundred years) Imagine a world where only the rich will be have access to advanced health care. (flash back one hundred years) Imagine a world where only the rich will have access to cars. Imagine a world where only the rich have access to flight.

etc., etc., etc.

Initial offerings are always expensive. Economies of scale and competition always end up bringing the price down to levels affordable by everyone.

Very true. Indeed, one can argue that this is actually a very progressive system: the rich unintentionally subsidize the R&D cost of new technologies, bringing the costs down to be able to provide cheap mass production for the rest of us. And all for the measly privilege of getting a lousy beta version of the technology a few years before the rest of us.

Cell phones are a good example. Fifteen years ago they were a rich businessman's plaything, cost a small fortune, were as heavy as a brick and only marginally more useful. However, the money these suck^H^H^H^H early adopters paid for those clunky gadgets are what allowed the R&D that make cell phones so useful and cheap today. Imagine if we had banned cell phones in 1989 because "they gave an unfair advantage to the rich". We'd still be using payphones now, which I suppose is equally fair to rich and poor alike, but still suckier than what we have today.

Terry

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious solution is just to become a molecular biologist, so you can do the enhancements at cost.

Re:Gen-eng will join species, not divide them.

[erlorad]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements". Imagine a world where if you want your child to benefit from genetics, you have to spend a proportional amount of money for said engineering to be done.

Imagine a world where if you want your child to benefit from education, you have to spend a proportional amount of money for said education to be done.
Scholarships are only the equivalent of "enchancing" the poor kids who already show enough talent to be usefull to corporations and/or government.

My Genetic Engineering Nightmare

[Gregg M]

When the MACHINES take over, it will be our only hope to defeat them!

Re:My Genetic Engineering Nightmare

[mahdi13]

Wasn't that one of Stephen Hawkins theory? That the machines will advance much faster then Humans and become superior, so the Humans need to start enhancing themselves geneticly now so we won't lose?

Re:My Genetic Engineering Nightmare

[Flamerule]

Wasn't that one of Stephen Hawkins theory? That the machines will advance much faster then Humans and become superior, so the Humans need to start enhancing themselves geneticly now so we won't lose?

You may be referring to the Singularity, put forward by Vernor Vinge. That postulates that with the birth of true machine intelligence, the machines will be able to design smarter machines, who will then design even smarter ones, ad infinitum.

No matter how we increase our own intelligences genetically, it seems unlikely that we could match machine AI. The question then becomes how to maintain control over the AIs -- ie, how to have them serve us, or at least live alongside us, rather than enslave us.

Re:My Genetic Engineering Nightmare

[Flamerule]

Ah, damn. This comment points to some ponderings by Stephen Hawking, similar to those I described above.

do tell

[Joe the Lesser]

does not quite capture the upside to our potential future aims.

Upside to armaggedon? I'd like to hear it!

Re:do tell

[xconslash]

No more AC's.

Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[jj_johny]

So technology gets better, everyone lives better, etc. etc. or technology has dark side and it destroys us. Well I believe that the future of everyone's happiness revolves around spirituality not technology. I look at people chasing after such dumb things and well I don't see how this or that technology (nanotechnology, fuel cells, ...) really matter to how you feel about your life. In fact, I only see that as people get more and more materialistic, they tend to go on autopilot. Its not that the materialism is bad, per se, but the lack of critical thinking about it is what gets most people stuck in a very unhappy situation - stuck in bad job, stuck in bad marriages, doing things that really don't make them happy.

So its all great that smart thinking people are figuring out what is going on technology wise in 50 or 100 years but too bad most people don't think about what they do everyday. Autopilot really sucks when it steers you right into a hillside.

Re:Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[Taldo]

And take it to the end goal, work and economic pressures as we understand them disappear.

With mature nanotech and mature AI, we no longer need to work to support ourselves. What jobs have to be done can be automated. Nanotech can be used to provide for peoples' needs. The whole 'struggle hunt fight kill and be killed' mentality can be left in the trashcan of history where it belongs.

Guess what will bring us this future? Materialism. Materialistic science is what will get the RESULTS that will provide these technologies. Go off and ponder spirituality if you must.... but for that matter you might just as well go masturbate. It'll accomplish about the same amount.

Re:Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[Anonymous Coward]

And what of the people who derive happiness from the struggle-hunt-kill style of living?

Re:Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[Taldo]

Let them go off somewhere by themselves and do it. It's not in the rest of our best interest, and should be discarded if there's another way.

Re:Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[timeOday]

I don't think the above is a troll.

I often wonder whether people are any happier now than 4000 years ago, or on the frontier 150 years ago. Too bad there's no way to know the suicide rate among hunter-gatherers.

Of course, many more of us survive childhood now, which certainly seems good.

Re:Well glad to see that nobody gets it

[EvilBuu]

Back in hunter-gathering times suicide rates were no doubt low since the constant need to be on to move for food and livable climate kept people too busy to commit suicide.
Plus, saber-tooth tiger and alien attacks.

Scared?

[greymond]

People who are afraid of genetic manipulation are also the same people afraid of cloning. They usually read or have read too many sci-fi books or watched too many sci-fi movies to understand that we could actually make HUGE benefits in health science and medicine.

Of course you can just as easily cut your steak with a knife and fork as you can stab and eat someone to death with the same utensils anyway - does that mean we shouldn't eat with a knife and fork anymore?

Re:Scared?

[Dark Bard]

Combining the genes of plants and animals was science fiction. A lot of the potential downside of genetic engineering pales what science fiction envisioned. Like handguns it's not the technology that's dangerous it's how it's used. In roughly ten years of serious effort, most of it in the last three to five years, a great deal of damage has been done. Genetic diversity in several grain crops is in serious peril. Why is this important? One desease can wipe out all the world's supply. Imagine no more corn or rice. Can't happen? When is the last time you saw an American Elm? They died out in my life time from an imported desease. The technology needs serious regulation. Unfortunately it's streading faster than nuclear technology did and it may not be possible. The 20th century was a time we feared The Bomb. In the 21st century we will fear genetic engineering.

Re:Scared?

[f0rtytw0]

I'm not against GE food or anything but recently I've been going over this topic in depth and I have one question for you. Do you know whats in that steak you are cutting? Bet you don't and I bet the companies that manufactored that steak don't want you to know. Nevermind what effects it might have on you down the road.

Re:Scared?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I am a geneticist by trade, undoubtably I know more than your puny mind can ever comprehend. It's not something to fool with, or charge straight into. Of course your small american adolescent brain is about as advanced as a slug's, so I cannot expect much more than that.

Re:Scared?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

People who are afraid of genetic manipulation are also the same people afraid of cloning. They usually read or have read too many sci-fi books or watched too many sci-fi movies to understand that we could actually make HUGE benefits in health science and medicine.

Really? In my experience, both Sci-fi buffs and scientists are on both sides of the fence. But I get the impresison that most of the fear is comming from scientists and other people who are following GE research.

Of course you can just as easily cut your steak with a knife and fork as you can stab and eat someone to death with the same utensils anyway - does that mean we shouldn't eat with a knife and fork anymore?

Are you really trying to compare the consequences of GE gone bad with the sanity of people while using eating utensils ?
As far as I know, the act of stabbing someone with a knife and then eating them is rare and not very contagious--In general, not some thing to worry about because when it does happen it doesn't pose a risk to the rest of humanity.

There are counterarguments, of course

[joak]

"We might create a group of people much smarter than us, that might want to kill us," said bioethicist George Annas, chair of the Health Law Department of Boston University School of Public Health.

Or they might be so much smarter than us that they realize they don't need to kill everyone who differs from them . . .

(Comment borrowed from Sladek's "Roderick at Random")

Re:There are counterarguments, of course

[One Louder]

Well, if they do try to kill us, we'll just take advantage of the fact that despite their advancement, they'll still think two-dimensionally.

Re:There are counterarguments, of course

[Turbyne]

You must remember that a good portion of BU's 20-something thousand students are from New York...

Re:There are counterarguments, of course

[st0rmshad0w]

Of course they won't want to kill us, who else are they going to get to do the skut work anyway? Someone's gonna have to haul the trash and clean the toilets.

Re:There are counterarguments, of course

[GlassHeart]

Or they might be so much smarter than us that they realize they don't need to kill everyone who differs from them

Possible, but looking at the way we consider animal and plant life, I wouldn't bet on it. Yes, we try to preserve endangered species, and there are animals we consider pets and protect like our own children. However, we also do a lot of medical experiments on certain animals exactly because they are somewhat like us (but not quite).

good analysis

[ih8apple]

Here's a good analysis on eugenics from salon.com from 3+ years ago.

Good information, but also important is the fact that things haven't changed much in the last 3 years in spite of everyone's fear of things moving too fast for the ethical consequences to be considered.

If Genetic Engineering is going to kill the US...

[dduardo]

Then I better move to Canada.

Will you die from living?

[skydude_20]

Yes

Re:Will you die from living?

[Anonymous Coward]

Death is a sexually transmitted disease.

But then so is life.

Transhumanism

[Kris Thalamus]

Anyone who is interested in this topic should check out http://www.transhumanism.com/

Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[jbischof]

..which I find very appealing at least, if not also completely agree with.

In one of his lectures he talks about the future of our society, especially that related to genetic engineering and how the future of science will effect our evolution.

Evolution up to know, has proceeded slowly, about one bit of DNA changes every year. If we take it into our own hands (ignoring the moral implications and side effects) we could alter our own DNA at a far greater rate. Add that with the ability to predict what the changes will do, we can evolve at a far greater rate.

Our children will be better, faster, and stronger. I mean who initially would say no to "Sir, would you like me to remove the possibility of Downs Syndrome from your child"? Now replace Downs Syndrome with Diabetes or with Weak Minded or with Scrawny. You can see that it isn't that unreasonable or that far away.

Of course, when you put yourself in Stephen Hawking's shoes, a man who biology abandoned a long time ago, it makes perfect sense to imagine that intelligent humans can prevent the types of conditions that completely disable a person without the aid of a machine.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[Razor Blades are Not]

But as the article points out - our genetic structure isn't a clear roadmap to these kind of traits.
There isn't a "smarts" gene in the same way there isn't a "grandmother" neuron.

You are correct: given the option to remove, without fear of mishap, genetic dispositions towards certain undesirable traits, most people would choose to do so.
But we are a very long way of being able to promise that. If instead you asked a parent
"Would you like a small chance your child might be more intelligent and healthier, but with a large risk that it may be paralyzed from the waist down from birth?"
Most people would say no.

That's not to say that the day may not approach when we can sequence ourselves a better life, but until then, some forethought is required.
Using ethical means of consideration is only good sense.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[paiute]

MCHawking is a dope emcee and a pretty good astrophysicist, but what makes his opinion about biology worth more than my grandmother's?

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[asparagus]

Not much, especially when your grandma's got two PHD's in the area.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[branchstudios]

Somewhere in all the scientific discussion on this, I wonder how it was overlooked that enhanced intelligence & strength don't make us kinder, more civil, or more accepting.

This isn't a flat statement against genetic engineering, rather I think that the urge to grow and better ourselves is defining characteristics of humanity. But when our knowledge so often exceeds our ability to use it responsibly, I can understand the paranoid reactions.

With no financial imperative to motivate the spiritual & philosophical growth of the human race beyond the mindset of bludgeoning those whom we deem "evil" until they surrender or are exterminated, it's hard to believe this will change soon. Maybe a smarter human race would be beneficial. But maybe we need to focus equally on learning how to interact in less destructive manners with other nations & cultures.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[jbischof]

I agree with you.

It is very important that as a society we increase our wisdom. We have had lots of improvements in intelligence, but people are often miserable, and our interaction with other people is often bad. I think we will see this coming regardless.

As far as owning our own genetic evolution, increasing intelligence, length of life, and improving our ability to survive, would all be considered worth-while (at least in my eyes). I don't know if there is a way to make people kinder and more emotionally healthy (probably not). Those problems strike me as cultural problems and somewhat seperate from genetics.

My point is just that it is easy to imagine a future where we can control our own genetic makeup and make whatever improvements we want in ourselves.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[jbischof]

Of course, you are right, there are many restrictions, ethical implications, and scientific facts that need exploration before we get to this realm. The point is just that it is plausible and even desirable to control our own evolution.

Despite the fact that there is no "strong" gene or "smart" gene doesn't mean there isn't a particular combination that safely encourages smarter people. Of course I would argue that environment, not genes, is the most important factor in things like intelligence or strength but it is reasonable to imagine that we could at somepoint design people who have photographic memories. This is all far far away but smaller changes aren't.

Certain diseases and conditions can be linked to individual genes and it is easy to forsee our altering of these genes to prevent these diseases in children.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[espressojim]

One of the problems with the idea that traits can be removed 'without mishap' is not often a clear case. There are certain traits, like diabetes, which can be *beneficial* in the proper enviornment.

Take a disease where you're very careful with your consumption of calories. Put yourself in a situation where there's a history of food scarcity. Wow, suddenly, you have an advantage. But this advantage only comes out in certain situations.

The problem I have with genetic engineering is the removal of variation in the genome that might have advantagous properties in a different enviornment. Having a large, diverse gene pool is the best way to survive cataclysm. Some people are going to make it through, and then those genes will become prevelant in the population they found (this is called a population bottleneck, and it's been seen in history a number of times.)

-Jim
(I only program software to analyse population genetics data, what do I know?)

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[eglamkowski]

I doubt most people would go for genetic manipuation of their babies, even if guarenteed of the results. Most people have too much of the Fear of God in them. The whole muslim world would reject it and that's already a quarter to a third of the population. How about Buddhists or Hindus? Fundamentalists of every religion would also reject it, and many others could probably be cowed by their religious leaders into shunning it.

Slashdot isn't a place big on religion so it's easy to forget how important it is to most people in the world. Telling them they could have some gene therapy done on their fetus to have a "perfect" baby would probably strike most people in the world as playing God, and not something to be done.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[cpeterso]

Evolution itself is evolving. The old evolutionary methods were slow and unstable. Perhaps genetic engineering is Evolution 2.0.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[jbischof]

He is famous, and everything famous people say is worth more than what non-famous people say.

I thought that was obvious.

Honestly though nothing makes his opinion of biology and evolution worth more than your grandmothers (except maybe the fact that he spends all his time in acadamia and has access to more information than most people), I would still like the idea even if your grandmother had presented it.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[dcmeserve]

Evolution up to know, has proceeded slowly, about one bit of DNA changes every year.

I'm of the opinion that evolution has largely halted for us humans -- at least, those with access to modern medical care. Certainly, most genetic anomalies will result in problems we can't fix, but certainly a greater number of humans who wouldn't have survived otherwise are geting all the way to the reproductive stage. And the set of survivable genetic problems is surely growing all the time.

Not that that's all a bad thing, mind you -- variety is good. But it does mean that the "undesireable" genes are in fact spreading through the population to a greater degree than is "natural". Genetic engineering may in fact turn out to be a necessary tool to prevent the majority of the population from needing advanced medical treatments just to survive.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[ces]

Hawking is brilliant. He has the rather rare ablity to be able to explain modern astrophysics to a layman. Such people usually are able to operate as scientific generallists. He probably knows enough to be able to keep up with the cutting edge in biology. And lets just say he has somewhat of a vested intrest in the matter.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[juhaz]

Screw (fundamentally) religious.

We'd still be living on the flat Earth created in seven days some four thousand years before, that the whole other universe is circling, if we'd listened to them few hundred years ago.

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[greenrd]

Telling them they could have some gene therapy done on their fetus to have a "perfect" baby would probably strike most people in the world as playing God, and not something to be done.

Great! That would be an evolutionary advantage for atheists and broadminded religious people then! Excellent!!

Re:Stephen Hawking's view of the future...

[jbischof]

You bring up an interesting point. I thought for a while that since conditions like blindness and deafness and inability to use legs are no longer critical for survival, we will se them more and more as our species "evolves".

I think it is important to realize however, that evolution can never stop. Those who have the best chance of surviving (and best chance of reproducing a lot) will always have the favorable characteristics. Whether or not they are favorable in the historical sense is irrelevant.

Re:There are....mod parent up funny/insigh

[Alric]

Hahahahahaha.

So true.

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but Slashdot will.

Re:and the answer is

[Absurd Being]

A group smart enough to work, but not to question it would be myopic, of course, unable to see the future. Consider the precision and symmetry of the eye. A very good optical instrument. Nature is very good at curing bad vision. If a society or species fails to have people who question decisions, sooner or later, nature will start dismantling that society until it falls, or begins to question decisions. A locked society like this can't last. Do not fear this outcome, but fight it.

This WILL happen!

[rice_burners_suck]

A number of technologies are about to end the world. I will list them here and then describe how.

• Nanotechnology: Microscopic robots will be built. These robots, about the size of a blood cell, will be capable of combining into the shape of anything, and of changing color individually to give the appearance of the thing the shape of which they take.
• Quantum computing: Microscopic computers will be build with more computing power and more capacity to learn than a thousand human brains. They will be able to combine into vast networks with nearly infinite numbers of nodes through wireless communication.
• Biotechnology will allow scientists to make entire creatures, life supporting organs, or individuals cells to suit whatever purpose is at hand.

These three technologies will ultimately converge to create microscopic robots the size of a single blood cell with more ability to reason than an entire university of the world's greatest geniuses and with all of the advantages of both biologically based organisms and those of robotic origin. These cells will combine on-the-fly to form creatures, machines or any device, of any shape and size and of any appearance, for whatever purpose deemed necessary by the network of trillions upon trillions of cells that make up the object. There will be nearly infinite numbers of these cells in existance and they will convert the entirety of Earth's resources, down to the last blade of grass and the last grain of sand, into more such cells, thus reproducing until no matter on this planet remains that does not join in the vast network of sheer processing power and knowledge that this thing will become. At this point, there will be a monster the size of an entire planet, or billions upon billions of smaller monsters, perhaps the size of a human, that can shape-shift at any moment to whatever shape and purpose its vast mind desires. This will travel around the solar system, assimilating the matter of all space-dust, rocks, satellites, planets and moons into its vastness. Once complete, this process will extend into the farther reaches of nearby star clusters, further reaching into the farthest reaches of the galaxy and eventually taking over the entire universe. The sole purpose of this device would be to gain more power, not for use as a means to obtain a further goal but as an end. And it means that we will all die in the process.

Re:This WILL happen!

[Nerant]

Then why hasn't it happened yet to another intelligent species on another planet elsewhere?

Re:This WILL happen!

[tcopeland]

> These cells will combine on-the-fly

Will they use a Class.forName() or a dynamic proxy? Or maybe they'll all implement Combinable?

Re:This WILL happen!

[Lord_Dweomer]

4 words for you.

LAY

OFF

THE

ACID

Re:This WILL happen!

[rice_burners_suck]

The response to both of your questions is negative.

Real Programmers (TM) use INTERCAL.

All other computer languages, including, but not limited to, C, C++, or any other computer language, now known or later developed, is for lusers.

Re:This WILL happen!

[Have Blue]

You say "end of the world" like it's a bad thing...

Why would this be so bad? What makes us a better or more important form of life than this collective mind, or gives us more of a right to exist than it does?

Re:This WILL happen!

[tcopeland]

Well met, indeed!

As a response, I can only offer a choice quote from the INTERCAL manual:

----
Every C-INTERCAL runtime also accepts certain options at runtime. These include [+/-]help, [+/-]traditional, and [+/-]wimpmode.
----

Outstanding!

Tom

Re:This WILL happen!

[rice_burners_suck]

I do not use acid. What the hell do you think, that I am a drug addict? I don't use no damn drugs! I am high on life... I don't need no stupid drugs! I always take caffeine, alcohol and tobacco products like there's no tomorrow! I live on caffeine, tobacco and alcohol! I never consume ANYTHING else with nutritional value, only tobacco, caffieiene and alcohol. I don't use no friggen drugs! I never used drugs! I'm never gonna use no friggen drugs! I need more coffee, spiked with alcohol, and a cigarette RIGHT NOW!

Re:This WILL happen!

[Anonymous Coward]

>And it means that we will all die in the process

Wrong. Means all our grandchildren die in the process. And frankly, eff 'em if they can't take a joke. ;)

Re:This WILL happen!

[Lord_Dweomer]

I guess next time I need to spell out J-O-K-E.

Re:This WILL happen!

[rice_burners_suck]

Astute readers will notice the contradiction within my previous post. Let's dissect it:

I do not use acid. What the hell do you think, that I am a drug addict? I don't use no damn drugs! I am high on life... I don't need no stupid drugs!

In this passage, the author as explicitly asserted that he/she does not employ the use of drugs.

I always take caffeine, alcohol and tobacco products like there's no tomorrow!

In this passage, the author contradicts the first passage by stating that he/she uses caffeine, alcohol and tobacco products, all three of which are classified as drugs.

I live on caffeine, tobacco and alcohol! I never consume ANYTHING else with nutritional value, only tobacco, caffieiene and alcohol.

In this passage, the author adds supporting evidence that he/she does use substances classified as drugs, thus continuing to contradict the first passage. "Caffeine" is misspelled to produce the subtle effect of one intoxicated by employing the three aforesaid drugs in conjunction with one another while denying their use.

I don't use no friggen drugs! I never used drugs! I'm never gonna use no friggen drugs!

In this passage, the author once again suggests that he/she does not use drugs, which coincides with the meaning of the first passage but contradicts that of the second and third passages.

I need more coffee, spiked with alcohol, and a cigarette RIGHT NOW!

Here, the author explains that he/she requires the use of substances classified as drugs at this particular moment, hence returning to the meaning of the second and third paragraphs, once again contradicting that of the first and fourth.

In the above post, the author makes use of the aforementioned litarary instruments to suggest that he/she does use substances classified as drugs while simultaneously denying that the use of such substances is being made.

C2 H5 OH: Because DENIAL is a river in Egypt.

Re:This WILL happen!

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe it has but these "monsters" just haven't reached us yet.

Re:This WILL happen!

[juhaz]

I don't find Universe-wide grey goo scenario with invidual cells almost infinitely smart, and all linked, very probably, but let's assume it was true.

You claim that even one of these organisms would be as smart as "universe full of world's greatest geniuses", and yet, at the same time you claim even a gigantic network made of almost limitless number of the same things would be just as stupid as bacteria with nothing else in mind than breeding and making itself larger.

They would have a goal, whatever that might be.

Some might call it a monster, but vast being of omnipotent reasoning- and other capabilities is what most people call the God. Maybe it already happened, in some other universe, and having totally assimilated an studied all its secrets, they've bored, and made other realities for fun and experiment. Or maybe it was this universe and the so-called "dark matter" is composed of these nano-gods.

Does the title say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Us or US?

oh great...just in time for the X-Men sequel....

[The Lynxpro]

Eugenics wars, mutant versus homo sapien sapien... Wasn't there a short-lived television show a couple of seasons ago on ABC regarding this? "Prey"? What if a *mad scientist* genetically created a race of vampires? What if the US Military (or the Chinese for that matter)spliced genes from the Neaderthals into our species to create soldiers with more muscle mass and strength? What if the side effect was a revival in the cave painting arthouse scene?

Better Programmers

[Herkum01]

I know this is will become true, how can we current batch of programmers can compete with programmers of the future with thier third arm. They will be able to keep both hands on the keyboard AND STILL USE A MOUSE!

Re:Better Programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I see one hand on the keyboard, one on the mouse, and one... It'll revolutionize the pr0n industry.

Re:Better Programmers

[JahToasted]

or alternatively they can chat on irc with two hands and still... nevermind too easy.

Re:Better Programmers

[Kaz Riprock]

Forget about programming!!!! They're going to kick our asses in Duke Nukem Forever!

Which obviously begs the question: Which will come first: third arms....or Duke Nukem Forever...?

Short answer: No..

[grub]

Long answer: No. Skynet will when it becomes self aware and declares humankind the enemy. The terminators will seek us out and destroy us.

Minsky was wrong before

[natedubbya]

That is definitely a list of 'thinkers' and no doubt have contributed greatly to the field...but let's not forget that people like Marvin Minsky was a huge collaborator with Clarke and Kubrick on the film, 2001 A Space Odyssey. They honestly thought HAL could be built in 30 years...just look at their old interviews. Alarmists always think we're about to die to our technology. We are far from any sort of AI that will 'threaten' our lives, steal our firstborns, and form robot-only school systems.

Re:Minsky was wrong before

[Anonymous Coward]

It is certainly an impressive list of thinkers, but I noticed that none of them are evolutionary theorists or biologists. Maybe a conference about how the genes of a species change should have included scientists who spend their lives studying how the genes of a species change.

Inviting people who care about whether it is "good" or not is nice, but shouldn't they have asked somebody who could put the issue into historical (in geological time) perspective?

-- Jermy

Re:Minsky was wrong before

[Kaz Riprock]

Charles DeLisi was a co-organizer and was present throughout the entire conference. He is one of the scientists responsible for starting the public initiative to sequence the human genome.

Charles Cantor is a biologist whose company (Sequenom) is currently cataloging every findable SNP (the things that make each of us different) and correlating the ones that directly correlate to disease likelihoods.

Lynn Margulis (while listed as a Geoscientist) presented a good amount of information on how genomes have come together in the past to the betterment of all species involved (example: chlorophyl-"expressing" slugs).

George Church was a late replacement (and is not listed on the abstracts) for Leroy Hood. He is a biologist at Harvard who works on evolution and modeling of DNA/RNA structures and systems.

The largest attempt of this conference was to get as broad an array of thinkers so that all different types of POV were available. I like your idea for evolutionists...but what was primarily examined is how we're at a turning point where historical relevance is almost nil. If we want to evolve rapidly...we'll have that ability soon (soon being in the next 50-500 years). If we want to go slower, we'll have to decide that as we learn more. The advantages and disadvantages need to be hammered out and while I think an evolutionist would be interesting to help somewhat...in some ways, they won't be much help at all.

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

[grumpygrodyguy]

Hopefully.

Re:and the answer is

[k-0s]

What I mean is two classes, a worker class and an overlord class.

We've been doing it for centuries

[Gothmolly]

How is modern genetic engineering different then selective breeding? When farmers bred the two best cows or sheep, and then bred THOSE offspring, wasn't that genetic engineering of the breed? What about when you marry someone who looks a certain way? Are your children "genetically engineered" ?

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[Anonymous Coward]

I know its not pc to say it (hell, 'that' crowd already booed a teacher off the podium for mentioning this at our school) but black people in the US are the result of genetic engeneering using your standards.

Only the strong survived and bred....

zac

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[f0rtytw0]

how this is different. How do you selectively breed pharmaceuticals into a plant?

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[Anonymous Coward]

Most blacks in America have some Caucasian ancestry, accounting for their distinct differences in appearance from African blacks.

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[Kaz Riprock]

Here's the biggest difference:

When you choose someone to have kids with, each kid gets one of 2 alleles from you and one of 2 alleles from the other parent. Add in the possiblity that there are cross-overs (places where your 2 alleles swapped info) and other mutations to create even more possibilities....each gene gets this treatment. For a whole person...this is much more variety than say picking a specific gene sequence which confers AIDS-resistance or height (if such a thing is possible). Modern engineering allows us to put or remove a specific sequence in an individual. Selective breeding still leaves a lot up to chance.

What took hundreds of years (like all breeds of dog coming from a single Asian wolf) could be done in a matter of months.

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[pclminion]

When farmers bred the two best cows or sheep, and then bred THOSE offspring, wasn't that genetic engineering of the breed?

No. You can't breed an organism into anything you want. For example you couldn't turn frogs into horses just by breeding the frogs that seem most "horse-like". Breeding only mixes up pre-existing genes. Half of the chromosomes come from the mother, and half from the father. The offspring has a new (and probably unique) combination of genes, but the genes themselves are identical to those in the parents.

Genetic engineering, on the other hand, is capable of altering the genes themselves, creating brand new ones. Until now, natural mutation was the only way for brand new genetic material to be created. Now, humans themselves can do it.

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[juhaz]

No. You can't breed an organism into anything you want. For example you couldn't turn frogs into horses just by breeding the frogs that seem most "horse-like".

You can't? Fish-born first amphibians were probably quite a bit more like a frog than they were horse. Yet, somehow, generation by generation, some of them became more and more "mammal-like", and then eventually some of the early mammals became more and more "horse-like", and now we have horses. Evolved from pre-frogs.

Sure, it's taken billions of years, and even if it'd be done by hand-picking the most "horse-like", instead of natural selection, it would still take millions, but existing evidence would like to point that it's most certainly possible to turn frogs into horses by selective breeding.

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[pclminion]

Ok, I wasn't strict enough in what I was saying. Selecting breeding, in the absence of any mutating potential cannot introduce new genetic material. Frogs turn into horses because the genes actually change, not through random shuffling of existing genes.

Human lifespans are short enough that the mutating potential is very small over the period of a human life, or over the lifetime of the animal you are breeding, for that matter. Thanks for pointing out that my statement was incomplete.

Re:We've been doing it for centuries

[juhaz]

True.

Anyway, has there really been any serious work done in completely artificial genes? Is it possible now or in future?

Most tampering I've seen done to day is transgenics from species to another, and while complete gene pool of all animals on Earth is quite a friggin' much bigger than that of just one, it probably doesn't allow even near every possible attribute encodable in DNA/RNA.

Perhaps

[The Bungi]

Give an eyelash and I'll tell you.

No it will save us

[quantaman]

Currently the human race is on the path to extinction (or at least significant degredation). The fact is that large numbers of people with genetic mutations and just plain bag genes that would of been eliminated from the gene pool are now living and reproducing. When it comes to the longterm survival of the species we really only have a few alternatives.

1. Eugenics. Not a choice we want to take forced sterilization has been tried in the past (the Canadian government for a while in the 40s or 50s (i think) had the forced sterilization of people with mental disabilities) and this would constitute quite a serious breach of a persons rights and could start us down a slippery slope. Another option is screening of fetus' while this may work for serious disabilites i don't really see it pratical trying to work out whether the fetus is productive enough to keep, this is also difficult to execute while avoiding the species degrading as you would have to reject fetus' who are just a little stupid or destined to have other minor problems otherwise you're just avoiding the inevitable.

2. No more medicine or at least careful application of it. Only treat those ill by accident, not by genetic weaknesses, not a nice alternative either.

3. Selective breeding. Been doing this for a few thousand years (with livestock). Not sure to what extent it was practiced with ancient slaves but selective breeding is certainly a reason why the US has so many great black athlete's currently. This would be hard to enforce and again would constitute major violations of human rights. Again not an option I'd choose.

4. Do nothing. Simple enough we keep improving health care and ignore the genes. Eventually either the situation gets so bad we have to take an alternative or the race is degraded to a point where it can't sustain its society and we either collapse destroying ourselves entirely or fal back to a point where evolution takes over again until we get to that point again. Rinse and repeat. Not fun either.

5. Genetic therapy. Start with fixing obvious defects but slowly build up to actual improvements. Depending on implementation we quickly reach a point where the rich form a true nobility, in other words if your parents are rich you actually are faster, smarter, stronger, and more stable (as long as you don't get too arrogant). One solution to this is strict controls on the amount of genetic engineering like with a public health care system. Everybody gets free access to the same treatment regardless of wealth or status and everybody wins. Social stability remains and the race keeps improving. Sounds like the best option to me.

p.s. can anybody think of any options I missed?

Re:No it will save us

[eglamkowski]

Here's one more option: Countries that don't give a damn about human rights violations and that also have the ability to pursue the matter (say, China!) will do all sorts of crazy ass genetic experimentation (at least on their prisoners and social rejects, or maybe they'll just work on their general populace and not care), until they do get their ubermensch.

Then they will breed a population of ubermensch over a few generations and be able to quickly conquer the world. Their genetic engineering will be forced on everybody they deem worthy, while the rest are left to devolve out of existance, or they will use eugenics or simply mass executions on the "genetic dead ends".

It's all well and good to say that doing certain things are violations of human rights, but human rights are really just a luxury for only a few wealthy countries. Most countries in the world are severly lacking in their treatment of the masses.

Re:No it will save us

[johnbr]

You are just about 100% wrong. One or more of those "bad genes" are likely, in the long run, to help ensure the survival of a branch of humanity from a extinction-level crisis.

Virtually all evolutionary advances are initially bad, or at best neutral in the organism's life. But along comes an extinction crisis, and suddenly the organisms with the bad gene are doing a lot better.

For example, Sickle Cell Anemia is (if I recall correctly) somewhat effective at preventing malaria.

The danger is much more likely to come from the elimination of bad genes from our genetic makeup, than from the continued survival of bad genes.

Genetics: Where today's bad luck is tommorrow's survival mechanism.

Re:No it will save us

[SlipJig]

>>Not sure to what extent it was practiced
>>with ancient slaves but selective breeding
>>is certainly a reason why the US has so many
>>great black athlete's currently

IMHO that's not very certain. Got any evidence of it? I think it's reasonable that an environment influences the evolution of its population, but as far as I'm aware there's limited evidence that evolution is the main source of success of US athletes, and even less evidence that that evolution was directed by other humans.

Re:No it will save us

[praedor]

Err...no. MOST mutations are detrimental. I defy you to find any evolutionary benefit served by Down's Syndrome, or Myesthenia Gravis, or ALS, or... There are none and when you get to the point of being able to finely manipulate human DNA, it doesn't matter anyway because if you need to do something to gain survival value due to some new situation, you could simply code it and and do it and not have to go through a major die-off/selection process the way it has worked since life began, you can skip that part and go right to fix.

I'll take genetic engineering and germline engineering to eliminate disease and disability, thank you. You can choose not to, but you don't get to choose for me. I didn't give you that power over me.

Re:No it will save us

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly you are putting too much faith in the genes in the nature vs. nuture arguement. Cloned animals have been born which don't even look similar. The children of the rich don't get the same 'school of hard knocks' eduction that the poorer children get. The rich become poor quite frequently, and there is some(not enough) economic "churn" in the US(contrary to popular opinion). In the end, many "rich kids" don't make successful adult. Would gen eng change this considering the complex nature of the human genome? Probably not, at least in the world with the blue sky...

Re:No it will save us

[dreadlocks]

On a related note, this reminds me of an article I read recently. Its position was that we (genetically) are on the decline. The main reason was that our science is now at the point that it can compensate for so many things. Have bad eyes? Well in the old days, if you couldn't see to hunt, you weren't likely to find a mate that expected you to provide? ** Now we have glasses Crippled? Same thing, except you'd probably starve. ** Now we say "what kind of wheelchair or prosthesis so you want" Can't get the little man up? Well it looks like your genes are out of the race. **Now we say here take this pill, or gimme a sample and we'll inject it into the egg in this dish then implant it. Ugly? You definitely ain't gettin' any, well unless she's ugly, but then that suports the argument. ** Now we have cosmetic surgery. Basically, the argument is that the "weak" (yes, it is a loaded word for this discussion) are reproducing, weakening or diluting the gene pool. On the other hand in days of old, they'd probably die, or were found undesireable so they wouldn't or couldn't reproduce so the genetic pool became stronger. Well, I personally am thankful for my contact lenses, otherwise I wouldn't have had a good look at my wife to be (now wife). Luckily, I had no fertility issues and I'm not ugly. But, the ACL surgery to fix my knee lets me continue to play sports, which keeps my bootie tight, keeping me desirable, which is probably why my wife decided to have kids with me. So I'm personally thankful for Science -ahh but I ramble ...

Re:No it will save us

[3.1415926535]

you could simply code it and and do it and not have to go through a major die-off/selection process the way it has worked since life began, you can skip that part and go right to fix.

That doesn't work if everybody dies at the same time in an epidemic. You need the genetic diversity before the disaster strikes.

Re:No it will save us

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with creating a system with strict controls such as a universal "public health care system", is that there is always a push to dismantle it. Will we be able to maintain such a system in every nation that uses genetic engineering on humans? Not saying we shouldn't try to create one, but it is by no means a failsafe safeguard.

Re:No it will save us

[ces]

Some combination of #4 and #5 is probably what will end up happening in industrialized countries.

At first only wealthier people will be able to afford things like gene therapy and screening or fixing obvious defects in their children. As these techniques develop they will become more affordable.

For an example of this look at fertility treatment. In-vitro fertilization used to be hugely expensive, it is now in reach of most with medical insurance.

I don't see it as a big problem that those with so-called genetic defects aren't getting "weeded out". For whatever reason there seem to be a large number of fairly brilliant people who happen to have some condition that would have killed them in childhood 10,000 or even 100 years ago.

Re:No it will save us

[bananahammock]

"...we really only have a few alternatives.

3. Selective breeding. Been doing this for a few thousand years (with livestock)."

Are you from New Zealand?

Re:No it will save us

[BCGlorfindel]

Currently the human race is on the path to extinction (or at least significant degredation). The fact is that large numbers of people with genetic mutations and just plain bag genes that would of been eliminated from the gene pool are now living and reproducing. When it comes to the longterm survival of the species we really only have a few alternatives.

Quite frankly I don't even see the problem that you do. What is it about the 'bad genes' that aren't being eliminated from our population that will eventually result in our extinction? I doubt we're likely to be eliminated by some other species more dominant than ourselves, save perhaps some virus. But I don't really see how any kind of 'bad genes' being held on to in our society increases our vulnerability to such a fate.

In fact, I can't think of any reason such genetic variability makes us more/less vulnerable to any extinction event(s). I think some focus on the actual existence of the problem needs to be done first; particularly before weighing radically dangerous 'solutions'. Attempts to implement many of your solutions could well start a war that would cause the feared extinction event far faster than the perceieved problem.

Re:No it will save us

[VendingMenace]

mmm....actually you won't take genetic engineering and bermline engineering, and neither will your children or their children, or even their children.

this ability or control, even a HINT or this ability is so far into the future that you wouldn't believe it. even now you are prolly wondering what i am talking about, but trust be, anyone that is involved in this stuff knows, we are no where near understanding this stuff enough to even start to make a scratch at the surface. there is just a bunch of people that think it sounds cool and like talking abuch, similar to the following that nanotech has created.

anyways, just like nanotech, it is fun to think about and imprtant to talk about for the funametal moral issues, but poraactically, we are no were near what you are insinuating

Re:No it will save us

[praedor]

I AM in the bi-ness so I am not talking out my ass. The degree of fine control I refer to is in the future (but not as far as YOU seem to think). Everything comes to faster than you or others of similar bent tend to think. Cloning is a fine example. It was impossible and far into the future until Dolly came along and literally suprised everyone (you too perhaps?).

My wife has run a transgenic/gene knockout facility and I am a molecular biologist. Fine tuned tinkering is a ways off but not so far out of sight that I can't even imagine it. It is closer than you imagine.

In any case, gene therapy and other types of manipulation are doable now, with various levels of success. It is just starting out but is developing fast. With the virtual completion of the human genome project and rapid advances in the human proteome project, tinkering at the edges is closer than you believe. It may not be spectacular but it is coming soon(ish). I expect that there will most certainly be some solid capability developed within my lifetime. It would suprise me if this was not the case. Germline engineering is by nature EASIER than other forms of engineering. A few manipulations produces organismic changes vs piddling with a few somatic cells here and there.

Re:No it will save us

[VendingMenace]

yes, i too was in the buisness :) sweet! always fun to meet another person. i worked till just last year in the Biology and Biotechnology research program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

yes, do realize that there are some genetic manupulation going on. even some amazing stuff, however, i think that what the general public envisions is SO far out of our current league that it is just reddiculous. perhaps as one knowledgeable in the field you do not have these same delutions. we still have much to do, before we can reliably tinker with the genome. as you mentioned the proteomics project, this project will be CRITICAL to undersanding genetic modification. and that is only the tip of hte iceberge. once we have this large body of data collected, we must then understand how all these things interact with eachother. the will take FOREVER.

i mean really, how well do we undestand the genome, and teh proteom is so much more complicated. we can even really predict folding! but perhaps that is off-topic. i just think that people get caught up in the idea of genetic engineereing and don't really stop to consider how complicated it really is.

Everything comes faster than I think? What about teh rocket ships and interstellar travel that was invisioned by some of hte finest minds back in 60 and 70's. we were supposed to have that a long time ago. well...what happened was we ran into unforseen problems stemming from unaticipated political, economical environments, as well as dangers that no one thought of, so now it is still but a distant dream. the same could easily happen to genetic engineereing. now it does have the advantage of being billed in the pharmicuticals, so prolly $$$ won't be an issue, but i still think it is much farther off than the optomists, and the general public seem to think.

As far as Dolly goes, i don't really think that i was caught off gaurd, i don't think that it was a very important/challenging thing. but maybe i am just being arrogant. and as far as what is being done today and called "gene therapy". it is a basterdized, impotent version of what was orriganlally ment by gene therapy. i would go into it further, but i am sure you realize that.

that is just where i am comming from. Like i said earlier, always a pleasure to meet a fellow bio-dude :) (although i got out of that, and now am in inorganic chem) btw, does you company have a website, that would be cool to check out.

SWEET!

Re:No it will save us

[praedor]

The "bi-ness" was intended as a generic/broad term. My company is actually Purdue right now so I am not directly involved in gene therapy-type research as of yet - I went from molecular bio to structural bio right now. My NEXT trick may hopefully be more medically applied. I'm personally interested in the molec bio of aging.

Re:No it will save us

[VendingMenace]

that is sweet! when i was in undergrad i had a couple week long section of a course that dealt with senesence (i think that is spelled right). both some of the biology behind ageing as well as some of the pressures that might account for naterual selection for senesence. it was really interesting. well...good luck in your future endevors :)

btw my docotral advisor used to be a prof at purdue, wild ;)

As someone with a LOT to gain...

[gurps_npc]

First of all, let me explain, that this is my life we are talking about.

I have an overactive immune system that attacks my own kidneys. It could kill me in about 10 years. (I am in my 30's).

Kidney transplants from family/etc. might help, but the real problem is that my immune system attacks my OWN kidneys, so you see the problem. Immunosupressant drugs are dangerous, leave me open to disease, and are not 100% effective. I end up with a weak immune system that still damages my kidneys a little bit.

The best hope for saving my life is genetic research into cloning kidneys from my own body, and then implanting healthier, younger kidneys into me. This is barely within our technological grasp, if we make it a priority. Dolly made you wonder, but it gave me hope.

That said, I do not consider Genetic manipulation of Human beings to be changing the species.

First of all, evolution is VERY effective. Any changes we make will be relatively minor. Our only real advantage over Evolution is speed.

Instead of NEW species, we will be making new "races" as in black vs. white, etc. etc.

It will take hundreds of years of actual evolution (living on seperate planets) to differentiate us enough to declare the new races new species.s

But we will end with a more vaired set of intelligent human races.

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not trying to be flip, but I wonder what would happen if you got AIDS. I wonder if there is some way to make the two cancel each other out - both for you and those infected with AIDS.

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[Lord_Dweomer]

"First of all, evolution is VERY effective. Any changes we make will be relatively minor. Our only real advantage over Evolution is speed."

I think that is precisely what is going to evolve. Not only will our traits evolve, but the SPEED of the evolution will evolve into a much quicker form of evolution. Classic "Snowball Effect"

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[mdielmann]

I think you'd better do a quick review of genetic research. The coding for most animals' number
of pairs of legs is only controlled by a few genes. I think a genetic mod that gave people legs instead of arms, etc., would count as a significant change, and even if we could still interbreed, the results of mixed gene expression could be 'interesting.'

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tissue engineering is not so far off. Stem Cells are becoming closer to a reality. Now with genetic engieering they will be able to turn off those genes that cause that to happen to you. Ofcourse it will take awhile. Even after the Genome project is complete, they still need to find out how RNA translation works, and how the proteins work.

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[fockewulf]

cloning your kidneys won't really help as your immune system will continue to damage them. Like all autoimmune diseases, the best solution would be to locate the immune system genes and somehow replace them with the healthy genes.

most of the issues people have with gene therapy is when it's done at the germ line since changes (good or bad) will progress onto the progeny. There aren't those kind of risks with somatic cell gene therapy where only the individual in case is affected.

So the cure would work for you, but your offspring are still at risk of contracting the same disease and might have to undergo the same treatment

The whole issue of interfering with the human species would only occur with germ line gene therapy and not with the somatic line one. it's a distinction which is often missed when people rant against gene therapy as a whole.

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[gurps_npc]

No, multiple legs is NOT significant.

The world has tried multiple legs a lot. Evolution tested it, and generally found it lacking. Yes, for smaller creatures it has some advantages, but frankly it is not worth it for larger creatures. For most things, if any other animal has it and we do not, then it is not a significant change (with the exception of sex and other culture effecting things).

In general, most people make the following major mistakes when thinking about what is signigicant:

Brawn. Humans rule the world by virture of our brain. Intelligence and culture is FAR more important than Brawn.

Strange looking. Strange appearance is not that significant. A human with an extra arm etc. is not a big deal, it is still human.

Significant differences would be:

Truly NEW 'powers' - Super power type stuff, surviving in a vacuum, able to live for more than 150 years, telepathy, etc.

Sexual changes. Our culture is heavily molded by our sex lives. If we started up something where women did not need men to reproduce, that would cause MAJOR social upheaval.

Intelligence modification.

Dominance/Submission control (making people more/less likely to argue with authority)

Re:As someone with a LOT to gain...

[mdielmann]

When I used the term significant, I was referring to an obvious, possibly detrimental, and unexpected change. It may not have the sweeping changes you mentioned, but it's relatively simple, and could therefore be done on accident. That's always a risk.

Also, multiple legs might not be significant to you, or from the genetic perspective, but I think anyone with that kind of mutation wouldn't find it to be a minor issue. People freak out when someone has an extra finger, let alone the wrong number of limbs.

Aside from no X-Men..

[Anonymous Coward]

"I can see increasing all of our ( I mean our decedants) immune systems. I don't see an X-Men type of future. I can see eliminating all birth defects."

This is a *serious* problem, and something that should not be done lightly, if it is allowed at all.

Why? Shouldn't we heal the sick and allow more children to live past the age of five?

No. Not without deep thought on those issues, and others as well. There's this little problem called overpopulation.

We're approaching it now, slowly, but surely. Take random death out of the picture, allow everyone to be healthy and live to the fullest extent of the years, and the problem grows exponentially.

What do we do about food? Some people say the US throws out enough to feed the world ten times over. (And 80% of statistics are made up on the spot!) Even if that were true, there's issues of distribution.

And what of potable water? It's a problem now - what happens when the population of the planet explodes?

What of land? Cities like Tokyo, for example, are already arses to elbows. Should we devestate large segments of 'untouched land' for new housing and such, even though it means our children are that much less likely to be able to enjoy the natural beauty of the world?

And there's other issues with overpopulation as well.

Frankly, overpopulation wouldn't be a credible problem, if we had the ability to, say, terraform a planet, or install lunar housing, etc. ;) Sadly, I don't see *that* kind of technology winning the race against genetic purity.

Re:Aside from no X-Men..

[k-0s]

I see your point but this will most likely be the sole domain of first world countries. Will the population bump up? Very minimally if at all. First world countries are on the verge of ZPG (zero population growth) as it is right now. Saving one child out of 100 or 1000 is not going to make any kind of population spike. The over population is happening in third world or low end second world countries where this technology will propbably not make it to and if it does make it there the cost is going to be out of range of the people there. This is all very sad but the truth is sad. I really don't see overpopulation being the major problem with the technology.

Sure

[Carbonite]

Genetic engineering will kill us, but then we'll clone ourselves. And everything will be fine, until genetic engineering kills us again, but then we'll cl.....

In theory..

[MoogMan]

Im all for Genetic Engineering in theory. The problem lies when you have to define whether a gene is valid/useful/good. If there are certain genes linked to such things as Austism and Dyslexia, then maybe we'd be killing off a chunk of potential "great thinkers" in the future...

I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclass

[Billly Gates]

Gentic engineering scares the shit out of me. I think the science invovled is pretty cool though.

However if companyA patents a gene for example that makes kids smarter and some parents use it, the child then is owned by companyA. We already see this in drug companies patenting genes. Why the fuck should I be charged for using drugs to treat my ADHD because I am owned by someone? ITs my fucking genes and they should not patent me. Its scary and in my opinion is slavery. These media sponsered RIAA/MPAA companies look ethical compared to some bio-engineering companies. I remember an old slashdot article which stated that a Candadian farmer was charged royalities for his crops because some pollen drifted from another farmer into his crops. These same companies will charge people they own for drugs and maybe even income someday as well as their children. After all there children also contain there (tm) genes developed by companyA.

Next comes permanent underclass. How many here are having trouble finding work because of no degree? Well a degree will not help you if you are not known to be a so called super-engineered child. No opportunities for any white collar job. Only people with +160 IQ's can have them. After all the shareholders want top notch people and its there right. McDonalds wants you. Please apply.

After this situation comes true then rich parents will only have children who are engineered. If they do not then they condemmn there children to a life of poverty where they earn less then 10k a year. This in return will skyrocket demand and make BIO-engineering CEO's cream in there pants. They will sell parts of people's genes to the highest possible bidder. DMCA like laws will continue to protect these shitty companies so they can rake in hundreds of billions a year from scared parents willing to do anything to make sure their children are not left behind.

This is scary as hell and wrong. In computing things are going in reverse like a circle. First there were plain old computers with single users, then computers with terminals and wan's, then pc's , now networked pc's with thin clients. Same thing could happen in our society with old world upper class vs poor class mentallity. New money has taken over old money in the 20th century and educational oppurtunities changed this. Now with genetic engineering it will turn around. Its " who are your parents" all over again. And no way to get around the barriers that seperate the 2 classes. The middle class might be the next upper class. We are already seeing former middle class jobs being shipped oversea's.

Re:I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclass

[Anonymous Coward]

Next comes permanent underclass. How many here are having trouble finding work because of no degree? Well a degree will not help you if you are not known to be a so called super-engineered child. No opportunities for any white collar job. Only people with +160 IQ's can have them. After all the shareholders want top notch people and its there right. McDonalds wants you. Please apply.

You have it backwards. We don't need dramatic numbers of enhanced, more intelligent people to work white-collar jobs - clearly, we have enough intelligent people to get those jobs done reasonably well.

What we will create is an underclass of weak-minded people who don't get bored on assembly lines, who do what they are told. People who live to work at McDonald's, who will get your order right every time because they are are just smart enough to understand what to do and just stupid enough to love doing it and give it their all.

We won't create a class of rulers. We'll create a class of slaves.

(These slaves figure into Huxley's A Brave New World as well, I think they are called Bochlavski Groups (sp).

Re:I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclass

[johnbr]

Your throwaway assertion that children will be owned by companies is ludicrous. Logically consistent? Perhaps. But when you attempt to apply that logic in the real world, it completely falls apart. Just imagine the advertising: "Attention, prospective parents! Looking to have children? Want to make sure that they will be part of Dogbert's New Ruling Class? Well, with our new Sauron(tm) genetic enhancement kit, you'll ensure your potential children are the overlords of the Earth, and not the underlings of the scrap yard. The Sauron(tm) kit guarantees incredible beauty, rippling muscles, supple agility, exceptional motor skills, a lifetime of long, thick, luxurious hair, 8% body fat, 300+ IQs and a beautiful self-cleaning smile. But wait, there's more! After going through the 9 months of effort to carry your child, we take over from there! That's right - once you use the Sauron(tm) genetic enhancement kit, you'll no longer be burdened with the tedium of parenting. No late night feedings. No messy diaper changes. You just spit 'em out, and we'll raise them for you in our Gamma X baby factories, teaching them to be productive and yet obedient members of society. And at only $100,000, you're ensured of an eternity of genetic superiority." People do not have kids so that they can be owned by someone else. And no rational, modern, semi-democratic state would tolerate the concept of people owned by anyone.

Re:I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclass

[Billly Gates]

Well if you applied for a job and everyone else had a degree from Harvard, Yale, or MIT what are the chances you would get it.

Your toast. I do not mind naturally smart people but I do mind that it can be bought at the highest bidder and from there would eventually cause a new upperclass.

We wont create a class of slaves. You would want to make there child stupid?

Slavery is illegal and my guess is the market would be for rich parents making there kids smarter or prettier and no learning dissabilities.

Re:I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclass

[teorth]

Next comes permanent underclass. How many here are having trouble finding work because of no degree? Well a degree will not help you if you are not known to be a so called super-engineered child. No opportunities for any white collar job. Only people with +160 IQ's can have them. After all the shareholders want top notch people and its there right. McDonalds wants you. Please apply.

After this situation comes true then rich parents will only have children who are engineered. If they do not then they condemmn there children to a life of poverty where they earn less then 10k a year. This in return will skyrocket demand and make BIO-engineering CEO's cream in there pants. They will sell parts of people's genes to the highest possible bidder. DMCA like laws will continue to protect these shitty companies so they can rake in hundreds of billions a year from scared parents willing to do anything to make sure their children are not left behind.

Yes and no. The scenario you describe is not much different from the current situation with, say, an Ivy League degree - this is "academically engineered" intelligence instead of "genetically engineered" intelligence, if you will. A Harvard MBA (for instance) can be worth over $1 million dollars (arguably much more) over the lifetime of the recipient. Clearly, rich parents are better able to afford giving their kids a Harvard education. Does this give them an advantage? Yes. Is it an overwhelming advantage? No. Certainly there is a lot of pressure to get into these good schools, but it is certainly possible to live and prosper without it.

Besides, society tends to adapt. With regard to college education, there are scholarships, student loans, and a proliferation of cheaper but reasonable quality colleges and universities, that allow the less wealthy to enjoy at least some of the benefits of higher education. The playing field still isn't level, but it is not totally lop-sided. I expect if genetic engineering becomes mainstream, similar devices will come into play here - you can take out a genetic engineering loan for your kid, perhaps, and only make payments once he or she gets a job that pays extra because of his or her genetic qualifications. (Sounds scary now, but really, it isn't much different from the way student loans work today).

In some ways, genetic engineering may be able to reduce inequality. For instance, suppose one could use gene therapy to change one's skin color as easily as one changes hair color today. Feel discriminated against because you are black/yellow/brown/green? No problem! Now you can look like the race of your choice. Discrimination based on skin color, a major problem today, may in the future only be as big a deal as discrimination based on hair color is today. We make blonde jokes all the time, but this doesn't cause anywhere near the controversy that, say, racial jokes would, in large part because blondes can choose to be non-blond simply with an application of dye. Perhaps one day race will be the same way.

Terry

Charlton Heston said it ...

[cpn2000]

Genetic engineering does'nt kill people ... People kill people.

Thank god for third world countries ...

[Paolomania]

... because it is in the poorest areas of the earth that cannot afford genetic engineering that good old fashioned darwinian evolution and selection will ensure that the species always has a failsafe in the case that the rest of us engineer ourselves in some way that has some unforseen critical flaw (vulernability to a new class of infections, loss of ability to perform unassisted reprodutcion or childbirth, new genetic diseases resutling from mutations of engineered genes, etc.).

tails

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to see people with tails. I can think
of a lot of uses for one.

Evolution vs. Science

[DailyGrind]

As I see it, and IANAS (I am not a scientist), science and medicine is allowing people with defects to live longer and longer and reproduce (don't flame me I'm one of them) and pass on the goods. This is counter to evolution which, as brutal as it is, lets the weak die young.

It kind of makes you wonder if 100 years from now we all will take drugs of some kind or another just feel healthy.

Ex: when I was a kid I hardly ever heard of anyone having allergies -- now it's like every other person I know has an allergy of some kind

Re:Evolution vs. Science

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution is JUST a theory! (And a bad one at that!) Darwin even discounted it later in his life.

Re:Evolution vs. Science

[TheWhaleShark]

No, that's not counter to evolution. If a species as a whole develops methods to compensate for particular weaknesses in individual organsims, they have engaged in a sort of evolution. The problem doens't necessarily have to go away, you just have to be able to deal with it.

However, your point about allergies is valid. Genes are constantly changing; while really big gentic changes happen over huge spans of time, relatively minor changes happen from generation to generation. In this case, the prevalence of anit-allergy medication may have resulted in a higher succeptability to allergies, since the body no longer has to develop a mechanism to compensate for allergies. This is the same reason that steroids can make you impotent; once you have an outside source of testosterone, your body produces less of it.

Re:Evolution vs. Science

[DailyGrind]

Now we are talking evolution vs invention.

I see evolution as internal and not requiring external things while invention does not have the same restriction.

Ex: The invention of space suits does not mean, IMHO, that we have now evolved to survive in outer space

Re:Evolution vs. Science

[paiute]

Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.

Re:and the answer is

[Absurd Being]

Well then, in that case, better not belong to the worker class... Because they'd be SOL. Or we should engineer a sleeper class now...

Maybe it will, maybe it won't...

[TheWhaleShark]

But as is true in science, we won't know until we get there.

The potential for incredible progress naturally comes with huge risks. That's how science has always been done.

However, I don't think we'll be killing ourselves with genetic engineering any time soon. The human genome may be almost complete, but that doesn't mean we understand how it works. We've got a way to go before any of the potential abuses for genetic technology can become feasible.

Boston University is the Hellmouth

[Anonymous Coward]

BU is the Hellmouth and Silber is the Beast. Buffy, Buffy, where are you, Buffy?

Re:Boston University is the Hellmouth

[Anonymous Coward]

Silber makes vampires look like emo groupies.

moron cyphering the fatality rate...

[Anonymous Coward]

of greed/fear based MiSinformation canpains.

until the only number left, is won?

don't be afraid of good/advanced health practice, it's the phonIE payper liesense 'packaging' that WILL 'kill' US.

RE: Ethics are the enemy of progress

[descil]

Ethics does tend to slow things down a little bit, yes. But if you just tell people to shut up, you're not leaving yourself open to what may be a fatal flaw in our science.

People tend to abandon ethics while they build, and I've seen this in comments for the past couple of days - regarding possible dangers as negligible and to be ignored. But they're not. We're moving forward in technology (and perhaps science) faster than any other time in history, but we abandon ethics at every possible turn. Yes, let's take a quick jaunt through history.

Let's look at physics - bombs. Or chemistry - chemical weapons. Or perhaps you think medicine is safe - viral "biological" weapons come from this field. Computers yield more ways to monopoly and oppression. Technology is typically accompanied by ethics, but then those ethics are traditionally thrown out the window in the name of "Progress." So yes, perhaps ethics are the enemy of progress, but perhaps progress isn't such a great thing after all.

It's all about balance

[xRelisH]

The idea of the ability to increase ones child's IQ is like putting someone on sterioids.

With steriods, they get larger muscles and are generally stronger, but everything else doesn't become stronger to compensate. That is, your joints don't grow stronger and neither does all of the other types of tissue to balance out the growth. This is why a lot of people with sterioids get into lifting accidents, their muscles are strong enough, but not the rest of their body.

So, back to my point, you can't just increase someone's IQ. That person would also need to grow emotionally. Essentially, this would probably result in someone being emotionally unstable. The only true way to improve ourselves that I can think of is good ol' natural evolution, which is slow, but works!

Re:It's all about balance

[quantum bit]

The only true way to improve ourselves that I can think of is good ol' natural evolution, which is slow, but works!

One question I've found myself pondering is, does evolution really work anymore?

Think about it. Our ideal of society is to protect the weak from harm, and give everyone the right to reproduce. This runs completely contrary to the theory of natural selection promoting genetic evolution, which depends on survival of the fittest and the weak not being able to reproduce as effectively.

So, if you subscribe to the theory of natural selection being the root cause of evolution, then we've already pretty much beaten it. Our genetic makeup, instead of becoming stronger, would spread out in all directions and possibly become stagnant.

There are only a few solutions to this problem. One of them, a particularly unpopular one (for good reason), would be so-called "genetic cleansing", or eradicating those with weak genes. Or in the cases we've seen, perceived to be weak by those in power, which probably isn't necessarily true -- i.e. someone in a wheelchair may have been put there by circumstance and actually have really good genes.

Genetic engineering is another. If natural evolution doesn't apply anymore, maybe the only way for the human race to advance is if we take matters into our own hands. There's all kinds of sticky issues here, like at what point do we cease being "human" (and would that also apply to naturally-evolved "super"-humans as well?)? Or should we restrict it only to small changes with a long-term goal, more closely following the path that natural evolution would.

It's not an easy topic, and I'm not sure if I actually believe any of that. Anyway, just something to think about...

Re:It's all about balance

[xRelisH]

You have a point, what I mean is that for there to be the kind of growth that we want, it will need to be even.

Perhaps the term natural was a bad word to choose. The only way I can think of to get this "evolution" to work the way that everyone wants is to do what most people already want their kids to do. That is, to learn, exercise and be polite.

However, regardless to what we do, it seems like 2,000,000 years from now, that what our species will have changed into will be very different from what we are today. I'm going off on a tangent here, but whether it be natural or unnatural, I believe that our decendants will be nothing like us, and that they won't be "human" in our understanding.

Heck, we could end up looking like those aliens in X-Files, big eyes, large head, small nose, mouth and body. It makes sense doesn't it? Logically we would probably move toward being more intellectual (which is encouraged more these days) than athletic. We currently rely on our eyesight a lot, and would make more sense if our eyes evolved and became larger, and everything else would become smaller due to us relying less on smell and taste.

Re:It's all about balance

[quantum bit]

You have a point, what I mean is that for there to be the kind of growth that we want, it will need to be even.

Oh, I agree completely there. Nature tries very hard to be balanced and get to a state of equilibrium, probably unbalanced things generally don't work in the very long term. Any "modifications" we make would have to be balanced as well or they would ultimately fail.

I see your point about everything being a tradeoff. More brainpower requires more energy, and in our current biology, more oxygen (and blood) to the brain. That's why the corotid arteries have so much more capacity than anything else in our body. The more energy/cells/whatever you devote to one area of specialization, the less you have to apply to others.

Heck, we could end up looking like those aliens in X-Files, big eyes, large head, small nose, mouth and body.

That would be amusing. Even if evolution happened naturally, we would probably evolve into a species adapted to living in a city and being dependant on industrial and technological means. It could be disasterous if that technology ever failed.

The Notion of a Perfect Human Being

[CoyoteGuy]

My problem with manipulating human genetics, is that perhaps there is a reason that we have diseases that target certain genes. What ever happened to natural selection? What if, in 500 years, we genetically evolve the human race to be so similar to each other in genetic makeup, that all it would take is a simple genetic disease, that targets our specific "perfect genetic makeup"? What would happen then? There is no escape from such a scenario.

We don't need a huge boulder plummeting into our ocean to kill us all off, all it takes is our longing to be perfect, to destroy us.

This is speculative, of course. I cannot predict, with certainty, that humanity will go in that direction, but it is definately a possibility, and it needs to be considered now, while we still have a grip on who we are, and what we want, as a race.

Damned engineers

[sporty]

Genetic engineering don't kill people. Genetic engineers do.

Sorry.

Re:WORST! argument I've ever heard.

[mrtroy]

For those don't understand, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World...Furthermore, the few that are too intelligent to live in that world are given their own island, to do as they please.

If i do recall correctly, Alphas were smartest. Betas were best, since they werent too smart or too dumb, but they envied the Alphas. Deltas were pretty dumb, and Epsilons were handicapped mentally.

So, what you are saying is we should go to Huxley's world and (poorly worded in parent) put the smartest few on their own island.

This is the worst interpretation I have ever saw from someone concerning Huxley's book.
First: Huxley was making a satirical statement about the conditions which his generation faced, when he wrote the book. I would get into more detail, but nobody will read it.
Second: Huxley never meant he wanted the world to end up that way, he was just exaggerating how things were in order to make a point.
Third: The point is, kind of, that we can not restrict people's freedoms, stratify our population (put people in classes), and brainwash our population

Huxley wrote about how the leader was "Ford" (yes, like the car manufacturer), and there was also "Model T" (yes, like the first mass produced car). He was implying that if things continue going the way they are, this society could develop.

Re:Go read Genesis...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the children of noah? That's a pretty small inbred little groups of sailors there.

Weighing Technology

[jmping]

Almost no technology ever created has been purely beneficient (and those which we believe are often end up biting us later). For most of the technology we use, analysis finds that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of use (at least from the perspective of the user). Huge developments are underway using much of the technology that we often fear. I worked for a while in a neural stem cell laboratory and learned firsthand the wonders that science can accomplish with "morally corruptive" materials. I still believe in stem cell research because I believe the benefit of saving millions of lives outweighs the value of the life-possibility of an aborted embryo. When it comes to genetic engineering, again balances must be made. For your knife example, we can use a knife to eat or to commit genocide (see Rwanda), but as a society, we trust people to use knives responsibly. That kind of trust is key. Genetic engineering can be placed in the wrong hands and can cause diseases with the possibility of wiping out humanity. Just like our posession of Nukes is OK and Iraq's remote possibility of getting them is suspect, we need to be sure that we can trust the motives of the geneticists and that things are carried out safely. Are genetic labs too dangerous to exist in society, definitely not! -- but they deserve our attention and we do have to be careful that we can trust the research going on not to produce some virulent challenge to humanity.

The Biggest Danger...

[mmol_6453]

...is non-localization of technology's effects.

chemical (Spills), biological (disease epidemics) and political(police states) disasters are bad enough. Imagine what would happen if the effect of a disaster couldn't be localized?

That's the kind of danger nanoluddites and anti-GE fanatics harp on. What we need is a way to limit the effects of any type of disaster we're capable of creating.

We need to expand human presence beyond the reach of any one disaster. The problem is, nobody takes things like colonization seriously anymore. Human expansion discussions are considered things of science fiction.

Take the good, take the bad

[GuyMannDude]

And what about the giant lizard that keeps mutating and attacking Japan...?

Yeah, but as others have already said here, you gotta take the good with the bad. I mean, sure Godzilla has smashed a lot of buildings but he also saved our ass from King Ghidora, Megalon, Gigan, and even SpaceGodzilla! You can't just say that radioactive dinosaurs are "bad". There's some good and bad in everything.

GMD

Sounds an aweful lot like life.

[alchemist68]

What you describe sounds an aweful lot like life in general. A bacterial population will consume all available resources in its environment to aid in reproduction and sustaining the population and gene lines. Does it matter if life is based on carbon or silicon? Perhaps silicon-based life forms are the next step in evolution, simply because it is faster at conducting electrical impulses, and better at adapting to its environment, as you proclaim. If this is indeed the situation, then evolution is proceeding as it should and we will have had our time and space on this Earth just as the dinosaours did. And in the distant future when the silicon-based life forms postulate what killed off the carbon-based life forms, the answer will be either a massive asteroid or a massive solar burst of radiation, take your pick.

Re:Go read Genesis...

[PyrotekNX]

we are the children of noah, besides my post wasnt offtopic. we were already wiped out once for messing with our dna. It will only happen again

Cro-Magnon Clans Urged to Go Slow With Fire

[reallocate]

(Cro-Magnon News Agency) -- Shamans and clan activists are questioning the wisdom of allowing widespread use of newly discovered techniques for artificially producing fire.

A Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc meeting, sponsored by Clans United for Ethical Technology, today issued a resolution calling on clan and tribal leaders to block the spread of fire-making techniques to the general population.

"We must insure that making fire remains under the strict control of shamans and our clan leaders," said Clans United chief, Orm Marr-dhuk. "Tests have indicated that fire is dangerous if not handled properly. We fear that its widespread use could result in countless deaths by burning and the loss of many of the forests on which we all depend for shelter and food. Pending new developments, Clans United urges our leaders to decree that fire making will remain the exclusive privilege of the shaman and leadership classes. Perhaps someday, if the common people have developed the skills to use fire without risking life and limb, we can reconsider our recommendation."

When asked about the several flaming tar torches that provided light for the meeting at the Cauvet cave, Chief Orm replied that "We shamans have made the appropriate sacrifices to the goddess. She has given us the secrets of safe fire use. We cannot expect ordinary people to understand these things."

Re:Cro-Magnon Clans Urged to Go Slow With Fire

[Flamerule]

rofl... Fucking well done. You'd have my mod points, if I had any.

Re:Cro-Magnon Clans Urged to Go Slow With Fire

[Spunk]

You are my hero :)

Didn't this happen before?

[litewoheat]

I wonder if a Neanderthal wrote a similar article when he found our the Cro Magnons were coming?

Interesting spam

[BobRooney]

I received an email yesterday detailing a company with infomation about the official "make-your-shlong-longer" gene. Wonder if that would be unethical to mess with...

Controlling our evolution

[Shamashmuddamiq]

Genetic engineering has always been part of the big picture. Take, for instance, dogs -- they are (most likely) genetically engineered wolves, prepared specifically to serve the purposes of ancient humans. Additionally, "natural selection" can also be a kind of genetic engineering.

Humans have evolved to a point where we have used our available resources to slow our evolution. Natural selection no longer works like it used to. Poorly-adapted (however you measure that) people can live just as long and have just as many children as those who are well prepared for adverse survival conditions. Developed countries defend a right to life, no matter how stupid you are.

Now we have a chance to turn this trend around and speed up our evolution; to control it in ways that were never practical before. We should embrace this opportunity. It will happen whether we like it or not. Like many "scary" new technologies, we need to recognize it, develop some kind of conventional wisdom regarding its use, and then exploit it to our best benefit. Declaring it dangerous, banning it, and trying to run the other direction is not only futile, it sets us behind those who will embrace it.

Success not solely a function of genetics

[GuyMannDude]

Yes, different people will have different sets of genes, but with gen-eng, it will be possible to move from any one type to any other, ie "upward mobility" will be possible for everyone, which is infinitely preferable to what we have now where people are stuck with the gene's they're born with.

Actually, upward mobility *is* possible for everyone. It's called working hard to better yourself -- regardless of your genetics. Look, I'll grant that genetics certainly make a lot of things easier. But one factor that people seem to forget is motivation. I've seen people who have had things easy throughout their teenage years because of their genetics. These can be those genius kids that always got 100s on the math tests without even paying attention in class. Or it can be those natural athletes that were always the stars even though they didn't seem to try so hard at practice. But how many of those actually achieved success as adults? Oftentimes, these people never learn how to push themselves because it wasn't necessary in their youth. By the time they grow up and enter a much bigger pond ("the world") they finally come up against challenges that require a lot of effort. But they are simply incapable of generating signficant effort at that point in their life -- they don't have experience doing so. Meanwhile, the above-average people who had to work hard for everything all their life are still improving and are able to compete in the new, larger environment.

While genetic engineering will probably play some role in determining who is successful and who is not, I think it is naive to downplay the effect of nuture over nature in determining the ultimate course of a human being. Even in a world were genetic engineering is rampant, those who cannot afford the modifications will be able to compete. They'll have to work their asses off, but they will be able to do it. Don't underestimate the power of the human spirit and determination.

GMD

Re:Success not solely a function of genetics

[tcopeland]

My high school baseball coach (Dick Bankston) told me once:

Tom, I wasn't a great baseball player. I was OK, but not great. But I worked very hard and got the most that I could out of what talent I had. So I was able to play Div III college ball and have fun without being disappointed about not being able to go professional. I knew I had done the best I could with what I had.

He was a good guy and I thought his attitude was pretty cool.

Tom

Re:Success not solely a function of genetics

[GuyMannDude]

He sounds like a great coach. I wish we had more people like this in charge of youth sports today rather than the "victory at any cost" mentality that is so pervasive. Personally, I would have found advice like that much more inspirational and motivational than the typical crap that high school coaches feed impressionable young minds today.

GMD

Re:Success not solely a function of genetics

[cookie_cutter]

Look, I'll grant that genetics certainly make a lot of things easier. But one factor that people seem to forget is motivation

Actually scienticians are quickly narrowing down the location of the motivation gene :)

Re:Success not solely a function of genetics

[tcopeland]

Yup, he was a good guy - everybody had a lot of respect for him. Pretty cool.

Yours,

tom

Re:Success not solely a function of genetics

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I'll grant that genetics certainly make a lot of things easier. But one factor that people seem to forget is motivation.

And after they identify the "motivation" gene, where will your argument be?

Star Trek / Khan

[56ksucks]

The Khan Character was a genetically altered human who possessed superior intellect and strength. He was also a tyrant with a huge superiority complex and delusions of grandeur who tried to conquer the world. So this is a question that has been asked for decades.

Playing "god"

[BlueEar]

One thing that I find deeply disturbing is that people who oppose genetic enhancements frequently base it on the argument that we should not "play god". They reserve the privilege of changing our genes to a mystical deity that they believe exist. They also claim to be able to communicate with it and know its wishes. This ignores those who do not believe in any form of god. However the system, where majority rules, imposes those limitations on the atheists part of the population. While I am in favor of refraining from using technologies that we do not fully understand, once they are mastered we should not oppose them based on the fact that some of us believe in what is written in a book that is 2000 years old.

We already have controlled genetic engineering

[alchemist68]

We already have controlled genetic engineering in our society. It's called smoking, sitting in front of a computer monitor getting bathed in radiation, sun-tanning, and exposure to chemicals. Hell, being a chemist I expose myself to hexavalent and trivalent chrome almost on a daily basis, very bad for the DNA. Women, putting on cosmetic makeup to pretty themselves up introduce phthalates into their bodies which interacts with DNA in a bad kinda way. Economics also plays a role in this controlled genetic engineering. People are waiting longer to start families; the older you get, the more likely your offspring will bear genetic mutations.

As far as the human race as a species splitting between the thinkers, managers, and a servant working class, I think it is already here. Birds of a feather flock together. Generally speaking, college graduates marry college graduates, and are even selective enough that they choose spouses from certain types of universities. Jane who graduated from Columbia marries John who graduated from Stanford. One cannot deny this doesn't happen. Yes, I'm talking about the so called *bell curve*. We're not going to see a Magna Cum Lauda MIT graduate marrying a West Virginia high school drop out who failed two grade levels. I'm not talking about raw intelligence, there is social pressure to stay within your own *league*.

Re:WORST! argument I've ever heard.

[unformed]

If i do recall correctly, Alphas were smartest. Betas were best, since they werent too smart or too dumb, but they envied the Alphas.
Betas only slightly envied the Alphas, but they didn't want the responsibility of the Alphas, so they were actually happy in their place.

Deltas were pretty dumb, and Epsilons were handicapped mentally.
Yes, the Deltas and Epsilons were mentally handicapped, but they knew nothing else. Their intelligence was just right for their position on the island, and they were able to have sex and some as much as they needed, so they were constantly happy.

The people in that culture were engineered, yes "engineered", to be satisfied and perfectly content with what they had.

The Alphas that though too much were sent to an island where they could do as they please, and where they were constantly around other people of their own intelleect. For example, the writer (I forgot his name) asked to be sent near England, so he could have bad weather which would help him write; some when to tropical islands.

What I wouldn't give today to be sent to an island filled with other people of the same intellect as me, to not have to deal with the typical dumbfucks of society. What I wouldn't give to not have to cope with manic depression or suicidal thoughts, to have a "soma pill" that simply made me happy.

It IS a scary world, I said that earlier as well, because we couldn't imagine not having the right to read Shakespeare or study physics or do what not, but what if we didn't know what physics was, or what Shakespeare was, and only knew what you needed for your position? I, personally, would more happily move to that world, AS LONG AS I could forget THIS world.

Re: Ethics are the enemy of progress

[mmol_6453]

Every technogy has both positive and negative uses.

Physics led to artillery. I'm not going to argue with that. Did you know that knowledge of physics lead to things like boats? Balloons? Rockets?

As for chemistry: Nitroglycerin is an explosive, sure, but did you know that it helps prevent full-out heart attacks, if taken when symptoms show up?

Two Words

[LordYUK]

Liv Tyler

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I don't buy it.

[sulli]

If genetic modification becomes pervasive, humanity will be unable to resist converging on an idealised notion of the "perfect" human being.

But people prefer diversity. The perception of a "perfect" human being differs so widely by culture and nation and ethnicity that we'll never have a monoculture.

Re:WORST! argument I've ever heard.

[EvilBuu]

I, personally, would more happily move to that world, AS LONG AS I could forget THIS world.

Visions of Joey Pants eating a bloody-red steak dancing through my head... On that note you should read some of the philosophy stuff on the Matrix site, they actually have some contributions from college/uni profs and the like on ideas like this.

Shh! Don't let the government know!

[Shalome]

Of course you can just as easily cut your steak with a knife and fork as you can stab and eat someone to death with the same utensils anyway - does that mean we shouldn't eat with a knife and fork anymore?

SHH! Don't let the government know, or they'll add a "NO EATING WITH UTENSILS" clause into the next Patriot Act!

Re:WORST! argument I've ever heard.

[mrtroy]

Ignorance is bliss

Who, in retrospect, would not want to "take the blue pill" as it is

However, I would argue it is always greener on the other side

WE ARE ALL DYING ANYWAY--WHY NOT TRY IT?

[Cryofan]

I totally agree with the slippery slope fallacies that cretins have always used to impede progress.

Also, the bare fact is that we are all dying anyway. We should be trying every desparate measure available to us in order to beat death.

Here, here

[Efreet]

Humans are adapted to running around digging up roots and pokeing things with sharp sticks. It should be no supprise that we so often do stupid things in the modern world, or that we get fat of the (unnaturally) large food supply we have, or have high blood pressure because of the easy availability of sodium.

If we ever move into space we'll need further change not to have our bones decay in microgravity. Being less worried about violent death, we could also tune our metabolisms for longer life. A prehensile tail would be cool too :)

the cost gap.

[bitspotter]

What truly scares me, is the possibility of only the rich being able to afford genetic "enhancements".

This really isn't going to be an issue - at least, not on grounds of expense.

Technologies like this accelerate quite quickly. I'd cite an earlier poster, who said that beaver damns differ from human dams because ecosystems have more time to adapt to beaver dams because they've been built roughly the same way for thousands, if not millions, of years.

Human technologies, on the other hand, accelerate on a cost basis in cultural time. Given that we're seeing genetic technologies become cheaper to develop (ie, POSSIBLE) within our liftimes, is it not reasonable to believe that the costs of genetic engineering procedures will drop to an affordable level in an equally reasonable period?

Sure, TODAY you can buy human-equivalent computer hardware for around $33 million, but we all know about Moore's law.

So if you can't afford a genetic enhancements today, well, it'll probably come around; just sit tight for a few more years.

Aside from that, I too believe the potential of GE is nothing compared to brain-computer interfaces, nano, robotics, AI, and uploading.

Re:the cost gap.

[bitspotter]

now, class gaps created by patents, draconian intellectual property laws, licensing agreements, vendor lock-in....

THAT is fucking scary.

Think about Microsoft tactics in the Health Care industry.

Sigh

[Efreet]

All your arguments against genetic engineering apply equally to our "natural," diverse and unmodified status. I'm really good at visualizing physical situations. Is that because I like it, or just because of genetic chance? I certainly don't care, and I woulnd't if I had been genetically engineered either.

As to whether genetically engineered people are capable of judgeing their situation, they are just as able as you or I, who happen to sit on the other side of the fence. In fact, my positive opinion of GE if direct evidense that she could be against it. Part of a catalogue, accident of nature, it doesn't matter. Either is an equally bad thing to be, and either shold be equally irrelevant to our thinking. What matters is who we are, not how we got to be that way.

I agree that I certainly woulnd't want to live in a Brave New World, though.. "Overspecialize and you breed in weakness. Its slow death." I'm pretty sure that that society is doomed one way or another.

"like a A kid playing with a hand gun"....

[DanThe1Man]

Like a beaver buildining a damn. God, I hate stupid anlogies. Most analogies are like spreading peanutbutter on toliet paper.

At a crossroads

[Master Switch]

I think Humans are reaching a crossroads that every intelligent species in this universe reaches at some point in its history. We are coming to understand the machinery of life and how we ourselves our put together. We now have or will soon posses the knowledge we will need to tweak and adjust human behavior by altering the way our minds form. We will be able to tweak and "improve" our bodies (Or the bodies of subsequent generations). This doesn't mean that our generation or even two or three generations out will be able to do these things, but that in the next 1000 years or so, we will see dramatic self directed changes in our form and function.

Having said that, I don't believe that this will lead to a panacea. There in lies the test, can we survive and thrive under our own evolutionary direction. Our behaviors to date were evolved to help us thrive in somewhat different circumstances. Do we have the foresight to guide our own evolution, can we overcome our shortcomings and make the right decisions. I think the difference will be in how well we temper our aggressive, violent nature. If we can balance aggression with forethought, we might just make it. I'm sure that the universe is littered with failed species that have gotten this far and then imploded. Let us hope we do not become one of them.

Almost trolled me

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost

Definately not recessive

[Anonymous Coward]

And probably multiple instances of similar genes.

This isn't the first time..

[Planetes]

This isn't the first time this concern has been voiced. Last time I checked though, the atomic tests during world war 2 didn't set off a chain reaction that burnt the biosphere off the planet.

Experiments like this do provide an interesting reason to set up extra-planetary colonies. It gives us a method of isolating the experiment as much as possible outside of Earth. If something goes wrong it would be at least an order of magnitude easier to contain (although not an easy prospect, it's much easier than on Earth where it'd be damn near impossible)

everything Humans do is natural

[Anonymous Coward]

Any action a human makes is natural, we are simply animals, we have evolved into the dominant species on this planet.
We simply have more complex behaviour. Anything we do in the future will be natural, define natural exactly.

I'd rather die of GE...

[TrevorB]

I actually don't see a problem dying of GE complications if I live to the grand old age of 160... Especially if my quality of life was dramatically increased because of it.

What do you think all the biotech companies are going to start working on once they start getting a good grasp of proteomics (the next step after genetics). Longevity will go hand in hand with a search for a cancer cure. Just in time for all the baby boomers to turn 70.

And GE is already here. I'm taking Remicade, genetically engineered mono-clonal antibody (GM mouse protien, yum!) that dramatically lessens the effects of auto-immune disorders like Crohn's disease or Rheumatoid Arthritis. Works like magic, and expensive as all hell: $1200CDN/20kg of body mass, with infusions every 12 weeks (8 weeks for some).. do the math.. thank goodness for Canadian Pharmacare.

Get that equity down on your house now, you'll need to sell it to get your boosterspice in 2023...

Book: Some doom and gloom but good.

[mrmeval]

Mutant 59: The plastic eaters.

Will genetic engineering kill humans?

[confused philosopher]

Will genetic engineering kill humans?

Confused Philosopher is not confused about this:

Yes.

It will because we will try to replace one type of bacteria with another "harmless" one, not realizing that the new bacteria doesn't produce an important by-product, and by the time we realize, we will have all been infected and starving/rotting/going-loopy.

Re:Will genetic engineering kill humans?

[(void*)]

The amazing thing is, you are not confused. You just have not argued the point to conclusion - rate how likely is THAT.

Spam of the future...

[Johnboi Waltune]

Knock down walls with your genetically-engineered MONSTER COCK!!

I personally hope the world is turned to gray goo by nanotech before I ever see that in my inbox.

Re: I fear IP property suits and a perm. underclas

[Billly Gates]

Well I do not know about you but my genes are already patented and I am charged everytime I buy drugs. To me thats ownership. There is a professor in Harvard who teaches that people with dissabilities should be killed and aborted before they are even born. He is also heavily into genetic research. This is not ludicrios at all.

Bioengineering companies are IP just like the MPAA,RIAA,Microsoft, etc. They demand maximum profits anyway possible.

I do not mean physical ownership but I seriously see a future were genetically engineered parents are charged for their offspring just like farmers are charged if there crops have patented genes pollinated from other crops. Its silly and not fair but they want to make money anyway possible

I do not think its right if we play god. Its also not fair for parents who chose not to have superbright babies since their children will have to compete agaisnt engineered persons for jobs when they grow up. You have losing a job to an Indian willing to work for 10k ayear? Same will happen if HR can have a +170IQ from someone who went to harvard vs your kid with +110 IQ who could only go to a state college thanks to only the mutants taking up all the good schools.

Its not right. People should work like everyone else to accomplish things in life. Yes some people are naturally smart and some stupid. The smart ones have an advantage but thats life.

You seem quite ignorant to the fact that genetic engineering can actually make some of hte ludicrous things we read in sci-fi novels. Nothing like Xmen but +180 IQ's are certainly possible.

For girls its also unfair if all her other peers look like supermodels. Women develop there self esteem on physical appearence and determine their value of themselves from the world on it.

What about children with ADHD who need extra help in school? If the children are engineered the services will get cut due to low demand.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

brilliant..

Or...

[Anonymous Coward]

so smart that they realize it's their moral obligation to do so.

How can you hope to tell what a mind 10 times as powerful as yours is thinking...unless you are that arrogant that you think you are 10 times smarter than you really are....

No,

[HungWeiLo]

it will give [insert civilization name] the ability to construct the Cure for Cancer.

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

[be-fan]

God willing.

An Ecological Murder Mystery

[cpeterso]

For an example of the risk of new genes, you should look to California's grasslands. California's grasses used to be green year round. Imagine no brown California summers! Now, 99% of the golden rolling hills of California are covered in annual grasses from the barnyards of Spain! California's green perennial, native grasses have been replaced by Spain's annual grasses over the past few hundred years.

Perennial Native Grasslands in California: An Ecological Murder Mystery

Re:An Ecological Murder Mystery

[ElectricRook]

Yes, an excellent success story... Or were you cheering for the home team.

When one species is more sucessful, and surplants a different species from a niche, this is call "natural selection". I believe Darwin taught this in "Evolution of Species".

I take the view of an observer. I see changes in nature, but don't express my morality over the result.

But that's what makes me a scientist, and not a priest.

Playing God

[Max Threshold]

I've often wondered if our medicine and technology will harm our evolutionary progress. It's a touchy issue because it deals with relative human "worth" in the context of survival of the species. It's apparently an issue too volatile to address; I've never heard anyone mention it. (Or maybe I'm just nuts for having thought of it.) Think about it though. Thanks to modern medicine, lots of people are alive who by the rights of natural selection ought to be dead. People with weak immune systems. People with congenital defects. People who just aren't as smart or as agile as the rest of us. In short, people who are genetically inferior. And they're reproducing... So I take issue with those who object to genetic engineering on the grounds that we're "playing God." We've been playing God for centuries. You could even argue that we've been playing God since the first farmer planted his crop in a field where it never naturally grew. Here's another thought: Given our piss poor management of agriculture, medicine, and the other technologies we've had for centuries, I don't hold out much hope for genetic engineering to be anything other than an unmitigated disaster for humankind. When will we learn?

Re: 6. War

[benzapp]

The traditional result of overpopulation is war.

When the real results of overpopulation start to effect the quality of life of the people, they WILL fight to see who gets the bone. Our technological marvels have made this less of a problem as of late. There is only so much land however. Sooner or later its going to be us against them.

Back in the pre-industrial age this was ok, as at least warfare exhalted human existence. Human males have evolved to be killing machines. But today, one nuclear bomb... there is no glory in that.

So, maybe it is a path to extinction. I was wrong.

topic covered on Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! The Star Trek: TNG episode that just aired has a similar theme. A genetic research base made "uber"-humans, but their immune systems attacked and killed "normal" humans.

selection is a function of variety

[Anonymous Coward]

Selection is a function of variety. While the average person may have weaker genes today than 300 years ago (before antiseptics), our genetic configurations have a MUCH broader variety. We are in a way better position today to survive some catastrophic event than ever before.

For overall species survival, the variety we have today is VERY good. Don't let fear of "weak" genes guide your thinking!

The same with nukes.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same thing as nukes. And alot of questions asked about nukes. "Will Nukes Kill Us?" "I fear global thermonuclear war."

It seems like the same thing, although of different methods. One can imagine a "super-virus" as a whole bunch of launching nukes. Genetic screw ups as the fallout.

You can draw parrallels between the two.

making kids smarter

[74Carlton]

Rich, powerful people will use technology to make their kids smarter, they say.

Hasn't worked so far.

How about fish gills or wings?

[Lab_rat0]

I wrote a fun to ponder article about some of the potential improvements we could make to ourselves.
We can rebuild him - A guide to the perfect human.[EliteGeek.ORG]

Re:WORST! argument I've ever heard.

[ElectricRook]

I would not say that "the smartest" went to an island, but those with a disposition to dis-like conformity. Perhaps "tolerance to conformity" is a gene. Then the people with "conformability genes", were the smarter ones and stayed in "the society", where those stupid bad "non-conformers" were not able to be controlled by "the society", and were exiled.

Perhaps when we apply the paint of good/bad, smart/dumb, we are painting the science of genetics with morality.

Wanna bet?

[dubl-u]

As many people saw in Wired, there's already a prediction on this over at Long Bets:

By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event.

The scary part is that in the year the prediction has been up, nobody has been willing to bet against him.
For those not familiar with the site, it's a place where people can make predictions and bets about the future. The soonest allowable bet is two years from now, but most go out a lot farther than that. So if you're so sure about your opinions on biotech (or any other topic) that you're willing to throw down on the public record, you can. (All the wagers go to charity, so don't think you'll be getting rich. But if you win, you can pick the charity.)

Re:Wanna bet?

[geoskd]

As many people saw in Wired, there's already a prediction on this over at Long Bets [longbets.org]:

By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event. [longbets.org]
The scary part is that in the year the prediction has been up, nobody has been willing to bet against him.

I'll take that bet! I figure chances are I'll be too dead to pay up anyway.

-=Geoskd

www.geoskd.com

Re:Wanna bet?

[dubl-u]

I'll take that bet! I figure chances are I'll be too dead to pay up anyway.

Sorry, mister. They're ahead of you on this one: it's strictly cash up front.

Job Description: Well-known Thinker

[fbg111]

A high profile assemblage of well-known thinkers, such as Steven Pinker, Lee Silver, and Marvin Minsky, were invited to speak at the 3 day conference to examine what 'Human Nature' would be like in 50-200 years.

I want to be a well-known thinker too. I sit around thinking most of the day anyway. I want to be invited to conferences and get paid lots of money for speculating on random future issues that are so far away that I'll be dead before being proven right or wrong. So what do I have to do to enter the profession of Well-known Thinker? I'm applying to econ graduate school right now, but if there's an easier way to get into this, I'm all ears. Perhaps somebody can enlighten me.

its diffrent

[Anonymous Coward]

its diffrent because no matter how hard you try, you cant get a fish to mate with a tomato naturaly.

protest biotech in sacramento in june

[Anonymous Coward]

june 23-25 theres a massive wto biotech meeting in sacramento.
be there to help shut it down.
biodev.org/sacramento/

SARS

[LordMyren]

Looks like the diseases themselves will handle the problem quite well. No human intervention necessary. Quit worrying, and learn to love the bomb.

Viruses adapt faster than we do. Oh well, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

Improve the human condition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, here's how you do that:

Install one of those nanobots in my head, and install one in all the girls' heads that I see every day. When they're horney, send me a ping :)

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Nothing like digitally forced honesty to increase happyness :p

cloning is not so scary

[wadiwood]

we already have natural clones, they're called twins.

so we already know how alike and how different clones might be. There are lots of clones in the plant world too, every time you make a new plant by striking a cutting, you're dealing with a clone.

It's when we start doing it artificially that things get weird. There is already some evidence to suggest the cloning technique used for sheep will never work on humans or monkeys because our eggs are different.

What scares me about gene splicing is that we can introduce toxic complications without really knowing. That can happen naturally too but not nearly so quickly.

The other thing that really annoys me about gene tech is that the big companies like Monsanto claim ownership of the "pattern", and if their plantings cross pollinate with the next field then they may sue the neighbouring farmer for seed "piracy". Hopefully that will be difficult to enforce. It isn't exactly fair if Monsanto don't do anything to prevent the cross pollination.

Re:cloning is not so scary

[Dark Bard]

Did you hear about the farmer in Canada? I believe it was back in 1998 or 99. They had spent 30 or 40 years perfecting their own canola seed stock. They didn't even buy commercial seed. They were organic farmers but used a small amount of pesticide to control weeds away from the fields. He noticed that some of the grain was growing around some I believe powerline towers. He tried using Round Up but it didn't work. He knew several miles away they were using GM canola that was immune to Round Up but he wasn't using their seed. Some guys from Monsanto suspected there was contamination so they trespassed on his property and took samples. The field had been cross pollinated and had GM genes. They sued him for patent infringement and won. They confiscated his seed stock and billed him for the seed he used. They admitted his field had been accidentally contaminated but the courts still found in Monsantos favor. The last I heard he was broke and about to loose the farm. It's not a rumor. I read the court documents off the web. It's like being rapped and the rapist suing you to be paid for sexual favors. It's a sick world.

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

[Martin Spamer]

Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?

As individuals perhaps, as a species, certainly, however as a species there are much more interesting Questions to consider:

In what way will Genetic Engineering shape the future of Homo Sapien ?
Will artificial selection replace natural selection ?
How will post-sapien homids differ ?
Can post-sapien homids be considered 'Homo superious' ?

Just a sign of the times..

[will_die]

Because of what could be done with the technology, and with the past history of where you see the word genetics(Bosnia and forced sterializtion), yes they are different but the name is similar enough to just the casual watcher, people are scared.
Alot is going to be its newness, and will be removed over time, however it does make a current scare item for fiction. After all they have already changed Peter Parker from being bitten from a radioactive spider to a geneticly engineered spider. It will be interesting to see if in the upcoming Hulk movie if they go from "an accidental release of radiation" to having the hulk created because of genetic engineering.

The Vorlon says...

[MythosTraecer]

You are not ready for immortality.

Subject/verb disagreement is the enemy of...

[BrokenHalo]

comprehension. Before this goes too much further: Alarmist predictions are the enemy of progress.

Maybe.

Get a grip on reality, people!

[hesiod]

Genetic engineering will not kill us, nanotechnology will not kill us, any technology will not kill us.

There will always be people who say that the next big technology will be the end of the world. That's been going on a long time. They may be right, but only once and that's very far in the future, if at all.

that which makes us stronger

[LifesABeach]

not to be to zen on this subject. but consider the given senario:
1. you have a terminal illness.
2. the only way to cure the illness is with a replacement body part.
3. there may not be a body part replacement for you, as is most the time. . .
4. you are now faced with the fact that you are going to die, and maybe not painlessly.

now consider this solution:
1. you have the above.
2. you go to an out patient clinic.
3. you order a working replacement part.
4. the next day, the replacement part is implaneted in you.
5. the next day after that, you are now cured.

conclusion:
1. it could have been done with nanotechnology.
2. it could have been done with cloning.
3. it could have been done with mutagens.

do you care how? i wouldn't think so.

Heart of the matter

[Rabid Cougar]

Think about this in a software sense. Genes are like the individual files in a program (let's call it Corn) that each perform a specific task. Suppose I, who am not fluent in any programming languages, fooled around for a bit and discovered that file.x is responsible for feature "whatever" in Corn. This other file, file.z causes program Some Other Life Form to kill insects. If I just overwrite file.x with file.z, now I have added the feature "killInsects" to Corn. Do I even have to tell anyone why this is a bad idea? The point I want to make is this: If you don't have a thorough understanding of how every gene operates, not just in one particular aspect, but how each gene interrelates within that organism and the ecosystem, it's BEYOND STUPID to make a change and then introduce it into nature. Every action has at least 3 consequences--1 intended and 2 unintended. By making corn kill insects, we could be eliminating some very important, as of yet unknown trait from corn, that will in turn have some other effect on something else. Even as it is, if it will kill an undesirable insect, it will also kill ladybugs and bees. Already the use of pesticides in modern farming methods is killing useful insects as well as EARTHWORMS. Did anyone count on that? Is it worth it to wipe out earthworms just so none of our produce looks ugly? I honestly think we're playing with fire here. We simply don't know enough of how things work or how they are interrelated to go and make low-level changes to them. We're going to crash our ecosystem, cause a kernel panic, and unfortunately there is no rescue disk for this scenario. There is no undelete. There are no recovery utilities to go back and recover data from this hard drive if the boot sector suffers physical damage. I once introduced a security hole in a web site because I made a tiny change (I won't say what it was), thinking that just because I could make the change and got the desired result (Okay, so I capitalized the first letter in a user's name. At the time I was learning and didn't know any better. It was a STUPID mistake). I later found out that what I didn't understand about the interrelations involved could have caused a disaster. Scientists are making similar changes without knowing everything they need to know. By the time they see the unintended consequences, it will be too late to fix anything. Our attempts to "improve" what was already working perfectly will ultimately result in its demise.

Re:Heart of the matter

[Dark Bard]

I like the software analogy. As software gets more complicated more conflicts and crashes arise. Genetics is a million more times as complicated. Every species is a software type and every order is an operating system. How well does a piece of code from Mac work in a Windows system? With some adapting it can work but it may have been stable in the Mac but isn't as stable in Windows. As I say now complicate that by a million. There are too many unknowns. We need to take it slow and use more caution. The potential gains are staggering. So are the potential losses.

seed patents are scary

[wadiwood]

Not specifically that case, but I think that is what the Australian farmers do not want to happen. Along with the unanticipated allergy problem.

I think a legal system that allows big money and lawyers to win every time, instead of fairness and justice, will self implode in the long run. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Remember the clock, humans started near 11:58

[eriktderek]

Remember the clock from high school, ~5 Billion years old, and humans started near 11:58! The question is what time is it now, perhaps 11:59 and 59 seconds...... or 58 seconds perhaps. What happens when we hit 12:00? I suspect that when Nanotech, AI, biotech & Mathematics answer all the questions there are in the next ~59 years, we hit 12:00 and zip-boom, the Universe implodes, then explodes, Big Bang and the clock starts over again..... Personally, I would like to stretch out the remaining second we have, but them perhaps I am selfish Genomik