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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."
Not if Nanotechnology gets there first.
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.)
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
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.
... 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?
"Derp de derp."
Well at least I've got more books on the wishlist, hope they don't get me on the FBI's library watch-list.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
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.
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?
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
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.
"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.
-- Adam
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?
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
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.
does not quite capture the upside to our potential future aims.
Upside to armaggedon? I'd like to hear it!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
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.
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?
Ave Molech Setting
"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")
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.
Why do I h8 apple?
Then I better move to Canada.
- 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.
- 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..."The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Yes
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Anyone who is interested in this topic should check out http://www.transhumanism.com/
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.
Hahahahahaha.
So true.
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.
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
- 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.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?
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
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!
Long answer: No. Skynet will when it becomes self aware and declares humankind the enemy. The terminators will seek us out and destroy us.
Trolling is a art,
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.
Hopefully.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
What I mean is two classes, a worker class and an overlord class.
Visit www.seriouslythough.com
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" ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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?
I stole this Sig
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
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.....
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
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...
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.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
Genetic engineering does'nt kill people ... People kill people.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
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.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
... 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.).
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?
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
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
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
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...
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
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.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
BU is the Hellmouth and Silber is the Beast. Buffy, Buffy, where are you, Buffy?
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.
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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.
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!
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.
Slashdot.. Land of nerds, trolls, and FlameBait..
Genetic engineering don't kill people. Genetic engineers do.
Sorry.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
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.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
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.
**When craziness is bliss, 'tis folly to be sane**
...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.
What's this Submit thingy do?
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
watch this
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.
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
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.
(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."
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I wonder if a Neanderthal wrote a similar article when he found our the Cro Magnons were coming?
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...
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.
...just my 2 gil.
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
watch this
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.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
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.
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
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*.
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.
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?
What's this Submit thingy do?
Liv Tyler
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
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.
sorry, that should have read "neutral"
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.
Green-voting, republican-registered, socialist-libertarian.
Ah, damn. This comment points to some ponderings by Stephen Hawking, similar to those I described above.
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!
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
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
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
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.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
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
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
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.
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.
This sig wasn't worth reading, was it.
Like a beaver buildining a damn. God, I hate stupid anlogies. Most analogies are like spreading peanutbutter on toliet paper.
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.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
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)
Planetes
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promo Ad
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitl
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...
Mutant 59: The plastic eaters.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
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.
Why slashdot? Why not?
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...
I personally hope the world is turned to gray goo by nanotech before I ever see that in my inbox.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
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.
http://saveie6.com/
it will give [insert civilization name] the ability to construct the Cure for Cancer.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
God willing.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
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
cpeterso
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?
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.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
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.
Rich, powerful people will use technology to make their kids smarter, they say.
Hasn't worked so far.
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]
If we aren't meant to eat animals, then why are they made of meat?
Perhaps when we apply the paint of good/bad, smart/dumb, we are painting the science of genetics with morality.
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
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.)
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.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
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.
:-) Weird.. Can't think weird camp movies ("Tiger princess")becoming daily sitcoms and soap operas on TV.
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!...
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.
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.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
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' ?
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.
You are not ready for immortality.
--Mythos
Maybe.
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.
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.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
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.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
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