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The Rights of GM Humans
An anonymous submitter writes "Some of the powers that be -- not just talking heads -- go on record about our genetically enhanced future in this Village Voice article. The anti-doping watchdogs of the Olympics say they'll ban GM athletes, and even athletes who have a grandparent with an enhanced germ-line. Would Ivy League schools slap a quota on these people to fend off the enraged parents of the "normal majority?" Imagine how a politician would fare if it became known she'd been tweaked in utero. Human history is rife with aristocide and mob attacks on perceived elites. Today lawmakers and regulators are eager to ban the technologies that would be needed to create a new breed of intellectually and physically superior people. But who's willing to stand up for the rights of this future generation? Environmentalists already deride GM crops as "frankenfood," so how far behind could the demonization of GM people be?"
I do not understand people who follow that train of logic.
For example, some religions refuse blood transfusions; I have heard of cases where a child was dying but the parents were refusing a blood transfusion.
Diseases are a result of the physical laws we all live by, they are as much a part of our existence as gravity and pointy objects. We can debate whether or not God ordains diseases; but if a cure is available, who are we to say God did not ordain that?
...
if we left mother nature in charge the kid would die and the defective genes would not be passed on
Seriously, GATTACA has an excellent point. "There is no gene for the human spirit." I'd go further, there is no gene for life.
You must admit, if we could genetically protect our immune systems from AIDS, that it would be a good thing really. But who knows...maybe that new immune system wouldn't work against something else...
- Sighuh?
Somehow I think our understanding of genetics and the way humans develope is too small for any of this to be fruitful in the near future. Thinking ahead, if we could alter our genetic code(ie. create enhanced humans) really we would only be starting back up the process we stopped. The way I see it, through society humans have slowly stopped natural selection from occuring within our own population. The last major occurance of natural selection in humans that I recall was during the Black Plague in Europe. Only people who produced a certain protein on their immune cells(I have forgotten its name) were able to survive the plague. So now the survivors all carried that gene, which helped them and their offspring be immune to similar diseases to the plague. This happens in nature all the time, but in humans it doesn't seem to happen much anymore. Diseases are not always a bad thing, in the long run they are often helpful in preserving a species.
Beer Die is the game of champions Learning To walk my own path.
However, it still left the following question unanswered: "What about the hemophiliacs who has not the chance and/or money to be GM and avoid the pain? Will he be stigmatised in a society where genetic modifications will be routinely applied?"
Please, note I am not answering yes to my question. However, there is also a bad side to GM. Personnally, I don't have a dogmatic approach to the problem. GM may be good, even great. However, we must also avoid blind enthousiasm for it.
Achille Talon
Hop!
The rights of GM humans might be an issue soon enough, sure. But what I fear most is the fact that we might lose touch with ourselves and create an upper class society of GM humans, with the new lower class being unable to afford the GM in their family. In fact, what might happen if we carry this too far and create a human that can hardly be desribed as a human any longer? Call me a doomsday prophet but this is what I fear most about GM, the division of the human race into several factions. The upper class and lower class, the new humans and the old humans, the superior humans and the lesser humans... Much like what Hitler dreamed of...
The human genes are one of the few things we should not muck around with too much, except perhaps to remove "bugs" in our genetics which allow for horrible diseases like parkinson and thousands of others. Repairing our DNA? Fine with me, if controlled properly. Enhancing our DNA to give us abilities beyond those of normal humans? No way, imho.
Hate me!
I'm not sure people could even agree on what our "faults" are.
Whats wrong with improving upon our faults?
monoculture vulnerability ?
lack of knowledge ?
and, most importantly, the ethics of performing experiments in humans ? (after all, there can be no more extreme experiment than tayloring an organism)
Remember, in order ot improve, you need to learn, and make a lot of mistakes. These poor mistakes will breath, live, love, laugh and hurt. Do you not, as the originating scientist, have an ethical obligation to these resulting future persons ? What will you do, debug and reboot them ?
I'm not saying this as a christian (I'm not), or as a person who totaly opposes eugenics (I'm not that either) but as a person who believes a measure of ethics is important.
Working for necessity's mother.
The term Frankenfood is just another useless word by which none of the environmentalists can back up.
You see, I too thought that they spliced animal and plant genes together to make better producing crops.
But not so. This is what they would have you believe.
I'm not Flamebaiting, and I'm not Trolling. I was honestly surprised at what I learned from this episode of this show (which is great, btw), and how the only spliced genes in plants are from other plants.
Yes, really. Regardless of what Greenpeace would have you believe.
The environmentalists have made us think that genetically altered food is as bad as can be, and that we should stay away from it. That it's not regulated in any form or fashion. That the food industry runs amok with itself, feeding the world with whatever they can come up with in their Mad Scentist Labs.
But this is completely false. Any GM food is regulated far more than regular food, and these GM foods can save lives.
Dr. Borlog, the scientist who invented GM food, has saved an estimated billion lives in third world countries by making less land make more food. His research and development since the 1970's, when it began, is groundbreaking to say the least. And yet there are groups who protest this on a consistent basis. And you never see any of these group's members starving, do you?
A true tragedy was when an African country decided not to take an American donation of tons of corn because the environmentalists convinced the government of that nation that the genetically altered food was poison. An estimated 25,000 people die every day of starvation, and thousands of innocent people died in that country because of that misinformation.
Now I'm not for a GATTACA like society, but if we can GM a person so they don't get Downs Syndrome, or Cystic Fibrosis, I'm all for it. Most people are against it for moral reasons, not scientific ones.
These kinds of arguments hurt others whether they mean to or not.
For thousands of years, the whole point of human existence was to perpetuate and improve both quality and quantity of life. Every hospital, every ultrasound, every drug and every anti-smoking poster exists solely to increase our lifespans and improve our quality of life. So why all of a sudden are people saying "No" to taking this quest to the gene level?
My sister-in-law has her masters in biology and is persuing another masters in genetic counselling. Curiously, she feels differently than I do about this. I believe that if we have the knowledge and the power to identify a Parkinson's, cancer, MS, Autistic, Down's, Lou Gehrig's, or a thousand other markers in our zygote's genetic code, and to eliminate that threat, then who in their right mind *wouldn't* do it? Why *wouldn't* you want your child to not have to go through the agony of being deaf or suffering through their twilight years consumed in the sad cloud of Alzheimer's?
She, on the other hand, believes that we shouldn't meddle, because if we do as I just described, it's a small step to handing prospective parents a form, letting them choose their baby's sex, hair colour, height, etc. I say, "so what?" Once again, why *wouldn't* you want to let people choose what their children will look like? The child has to have SOME eye colour, it's going to be either brown or blue or green or something ANYWAY, so what's the harm in letting the parents pick?
"We shouldn't be playing God," they say. But aren't we already? Haven't we been playing God since we started artificially extending peoples' lives through drugs and machines? Aren't contraceptive drugs "Playing God?" Aren't C-section births "Playing God?" Why do people accept all of those unnatural interventions, but draw the line at the next logical improvement of life?
I believe that if society can eliminate those horrible genetic diseases from our gene pool, along with reducing obesity and the violent tendencies that produce dangerous criminals (yes, physiological links have been shown), then the sooner society will improve. Yes, it might suck for those of us who are already here and can't re-write our genetic code, but this is not without precedent. Do we deny cancer treatment to everyone, just because there are people who are beyond treatment? Since they won't survive cancer, then no one should? It's ridiculous.
Science, medicine, and arguably society as a whole exist for the sole purpose of improving life. Evolving. I believe if we're at the threshold of these discoveries, that bring such amazing promises to our children and grandchildren, then it'd be counter to all the progress we've made so far in the last few centuries to stop now. We owe it to our children to use our knowledge to improve their lives. That's WHY technology exists.
You can't say in-vitro fertilization and abortion are OK, but genetic manipulation is not. It's hypocritical.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Who defines these "faults"? Someone so short minded as to call them faults? Perhaps they have a real purpose.
To get to a point where we have a genuine grasp of the impact of genetic manipulation of humans (and we have only the smallest inkling of a clue right now), we have to test by trial and error. That means many, many ugly mistakes. How about you start coming up with some accepted ethical policies for dealing with live human "mistakes". Imagine the possibilities for what you could screw up in a person.
What happens when our genetic engineering has impacts that show up over multiple generations? What happens when we have completely ruined our genome? I guess the aborigines will get to repopulate the planet.
It all is a matter of how extensive the modifications are. GM can be used to fix 'genetic defects'. The great danger is: what is your definition of genetic defect? Will there be a future where having looks that aren't at the level of a supermodel be considered a gentic defect? It would be great to cure hemophilia, hereditary forms of cancer, and other such diseases and someone will eventually do so regardless of legality. The bottle can't hold back a genie like this forever, some will inevitably flock to it like sailors to a siren. However, we all now what happened to the sailors who did flock to the sirens.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Dur.
If you use genetic engineering to correct a gentic fault, then the genetic fault would not be passed on.
Steve.
What if what you think is a bad gene is really a good gene? In the instance of a disease like Sickle Cell Anemia, what is a disease on one hand is also a protection against malaria. Imagine if you had a genetic disease and it was removed. Later on a plague (like SARS) moves through civilisation and you get it because the gene you had removed confered immunity. Bad luck there. Genetics is always a game of dice even if you are GM'd.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
How about improving on ourselves?
Sure, it's questionable to experiment on children not yet born, but what if we could modify adults with new genes? Would that be ok?
Personally, I'm all for it. I *want* to modify myself, especially since any modifications to me as an adult could be undone if I changed my mind later.
Come on. It doesn't matter what "we" learn or if science fiction teaches "us" anything. The bottom line is that some nations will ban the technology, and other nations will endorse it to some degree. In the offchance that everybody outlaws the technology... the old saying goes that only outlaws will have it.
The bottom line is that some people eat the apple of knowledge. If they die, then we move on. If it turns them into gods, then those who do not endorse the technolgy will have to battle uphill against a technically superior foe.
Just look at gunpowder and steam engines. People used to think that gunpowder should be used in fireworks and steam engines disturbed the spirits of the dead.
Then trainloads of troops began to cross the british empire and her ships ruled the waves.
Of course if the spirits of the dead were really offended they would have sabotaged the steam engines and britain would have ended up like kahn... all bitter and superweapon having, but defeated by the other folks.
Really, technology not about right and wrong. It's about power.
Has buffy season 7 taught you nothing?
Every time I see the word "frankenfood", I can't help but crack up. Have any of these people even read the story Frankenstein, or even heard about it?
Because if you're gonna stretch that analogy to its obvious conclusion, then the anti-GM folks are the villagers with pitchforks and torches, so overwhelmed by their terror of progress and change that they can do nothing but blindly assault it.
A lot of people have been commenting here about similarities between the GM issues described in the article and the good old X-Men. How about a Slashdot interview with the guy who has probably thought more about these issues than anybody else outside academia over the last 25 or so years ... veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont? Or if not Claremont, maybe Grant Morrison. I think either would have some real insights here.
I mean sure, a big chunk of the comic stories are standard superhero fare, but especially in Claremont's original run on X-Men these themes were returned to again and again. And again. And again....
Undo God's work?
It is a very small, impotent and inconsequential god whose work can be undone by the likes of our species. Certainly not my God, and who are YOU that you presume to understand my God's Ways?
He has given us the tools to better ourselves, individually and across generations. To NOT use these gifts is the sin. And if the world does not have enough resources to sustain us if we start living to 150 (as if!), it will be time to find some new worlds.
How do you know that's not part of His Plan for us as well?
At least one form of GM food was formed by splicing bacterial genes into corn (bacteria, despite what you may have been taught in high school, are NOT considered plants). The corn had genes from Bacillus thueringensis spliced into it, to make it toxic to insect larvae such as corn borers. A later study showed that pollen from such corn, when dusted on milkweed leaves, was toxic to monarch butterfly larvae (note that it is not known whether corn pollen would migrate to milkweed plants in sufficient quantities in a natural setting to harm butterfly larvae).
Does this mean that all GM food is bad? No. But it does mean that caution is warranted. And don't believe everything you see on Showtime.
Sean
There are two issues you miss here. Choice and heredity.
The recipient of implants (usually) makes the choice to have them. If they change their mind, well they only have themselves to blame.
Also, if you are genetically modified in such a way that it is passed onto the next generation, you impose that choice on your kids, another thing that implants don't do.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
No, that is not at all what was stating. Perhaps if you had actually taken time to think about the comments you would have seen that the posting merely pointed out that some of our so called good social practices are more likely to be detrimental to our species in the long run.
War is not good. In fact war is a blind persuit of power. Power is a bad thing when placed in the hands of any one or group, even the well intentioned.
What if what you think is a bad gene is really a good gene?
"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -Shakespeare
As far as making genetic changes to the human body, what and to what degree we alter our DNA is not a matter of "good" or "evil," or "good" or "bad," but rather, are we as intelligent as we think we are? The case you gave creates two mutually exclusive outcomes; the first is to cure sickle cell anemia, but at the risk of becoming more susceptible to malaria; the second vice-versa.
Good? Bad? It's neither; just a choice of whether or not we choose to intervene in nature's course.
Now to talk about genetically superior people, begs the question of exactly what superior means. Because the reaction of the first, unmodified group when it has to deal with the second, modified group will depend largely on this.
...
(Transhumanists? WTF? You (and others) gotta lay off the sci-fi) Anyways as I mentioned before, not all genetic modification is inheritable. Gene therapy is one example in clinical trials, right now. I think people in practice have no problem differentiating 'good' changes from 'bad' changes. I don't think anyone has a problem with curing terminal diseases with GM. I'm willing to bet that people will be much more supportive of GM for themselves and others when it cures/treats some problem they have or will have. Like aging
-Sean
For thousands of years, the whole point of human existence was to perpetuate and improve both quality and quantity of life. Says who? I am serious. Your basic assumption is flawed. There is no real evidence of this. Regardless of that, many MANY MANY people would disagree with your asssumption, for many different reasons. I myself would take issue with the idea that boosting quantity of life is even remotely positively connected to improving quality. It seems to me that history has shown it to be the opposite, that an increase in population generally leads to a decrease in quality of life. We can't have both. Not everyone is a Progress Junkie like you, and many of us don't trust people that are to make ethical decisions for everyone else. You obviously don't have the perspective or historical background to speak with authority on issues like this. I am not suggesting you can't say what you want to (please do!), but you have to understand that the rest of us are being perfectly sensible in ignoring your advice. (I am also not suggesting that I am the authority on these subjects, but I am not suggesting that everyone should go along with what I believe, either.)
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
Lets take a step back a do a reality check.
First, some basic genetics. It rare for a single gene (protein) to have a single function, and its rare for a given trait, say height or intelligence, to be governed by a single gene.
Also consider that we all know there are trade-offs and optimizations that have to take place in engineering, including genetic engineering.
So let's say you find a gene where one form predisposes the person to have a higher intelligence (say a more sensitive neurotransmitter receptor). So you put that form into a bunch of test babies and see what happens.
Maybe nothing happens.
Maybe they have an IQ that's 20 points higher on average than the general population.
Maybe the also show an increased incidence of manic depression, or epilepsy, or....
Back to the drawing board, lets try again. We found a gene we can modify to give a child super-strength.
Cool!
Funny how so many of them are completely debilitated by pulled or torn ligaments and tendons, and the occasional broken bone that couldn't handle the extra stess imposed by the super-muscles.
So much for super strength, they end up super cripples.
I'm trying to make a couple points here. First, it will take several generations just to test any given genetic manipulation, more to figure out how the requisite panel of genes will have to be modified to give an overall superior human.
Second, you can't just modify one gene and make an overall better human. There are trade-offs and unexpected consequences. Just because you have the parts manual doesn't mean you know how things work.
The one area where genetic manipulation can pretty much be guaranteed to be productive is in curing genetic diseases, where we know the gene, and we can change it back to "normal".
As for "Frankenbabies", any of you want to volunteer your kids for testing?
Hygiene implies a judgment about cleanliness and value. He made no such judgment, he simply stated that we mitigate the effects of the environment on ourselves and thus we retard evolution. Whether this is good, bad, or neither is an entirely seperate issue.
Even if it were bad, you would have to show that wars have an effect on selection. Calling that "hygiene" would be fascist because it implies it's okay to commit genocide as a means of increasing your selection advantage, I think we can all agree.
I agree that medicine and social programs have tampered with the standard notion of natural selection. But humans should also be observed on a higher level of Darwinian selection. Instead of just looking at survival of the fittest WITHIN a species, humans have shown that it is necessary to also look at survival of the fittest OF ALL species. Without this perspective, it is easy to get lost on the question of why humans have succeeded AT ALL. We should therefore look at humans with a point of view of the community rather than the individual. Without the community, humans would never have come to dominate.
One may argue that humans are successful because they are intelligent. Intelligence goes only so far - it's the knowledge that is passed on that is more important. Otherwise, we'd have people reinventing the wheel every generation, and never get to the point of building upon that to even make a cart.
Getting back on topic: Your conclusion on the result of the Black Plague is problematic. If the survivors passed on the gene in question, then why were there so many occurrances of the Plague in the same location over the centuries? Paris just kept getting hit with it into the turn of the 20th century.
I would instead prefer to look at WHY plagues occur and what stops them from re-occurring.
Given the necessity of humans to depend on each other, the tendency is toward denser populations. Conditions within any population produces an environment conducive to any other species willing to adapt. The Black Plague is an example of a special case. It took a while for humans, in general, to adapt to this threat.
One of the 'faults' of humans was to develop cities in identical ways. In particular, I'm thinking of waste disposal - just dump your trash in the trench in the middle of the street and let the rain carry it to the river. Since so many cities had this environment, a single species of parasite can easily infect multiple cities. (NOTE: since this is a geek forum - extend this to computer viruses with everyone using one OS).
You could attack this problem in one of two ways: (a) let individual natural selection take its course or (b) adapt the cities. Until just recently, the approach was (a). Once humans began to adapt as a whole (mandate washing hands before surgery, better waste disposal, water treatment, use of quarantine, etc) then there was less of a strain on the population density of the city. Each of these activities create their own problems, but such is the game of adapting.
Diseases are not always a bad thing, in the long run they are often helpful in preserving a species.
The species would be preserved WITHOUT disease, so I fail to see how having disease helps in preserving the species. Perhaps you could argue that disease acts as a "necessary evil" to produce a "greater good", but since the disease species are inclined to adapt to immunity it's a never-ending battle.
On the topic of GM-humans, I can see using this IF AND ONLY IF human existence would cease without it, including the loss of human interdependence (without which humans could not succeed). I don't see this happening anytime soon, but this would be another way that humanity would adapt to a threat. The oddity is that the result would no longer be "human" - what is being saved is civilization.
This is not my sig.
Depends.
The forms of gene therapy being developed now do not affect the germ line, only the somatic cells.
For example, using viral carriers to introduce working copies of CFTR (when mutated causes cystic fibrosis) into cells lining the airway of the lungs does nothing to change the mutant copy of the CFTR gene in the recipients sperm or egg.
Agreed.
So the question is, what can we do to advance our understanding?
Experiments. Lots of them. Some will fail, others will not. ("Many will play, few will win?" Hear that (yet again) on the radio yesterday.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I pose an even more interesting question. What is the difference between a woman that has breast implants to achieve a huge bust as opposed to a baby that was DNA modified to be predisposed to big breasts?
Does that mean that manipulative surgery is ok but DNA modification isn't?
No, in means that a consentual medical procedure is ok, but a nonconsentual medical procedure isn't. It doesn't really matter whether it's done with a scapel or via genetic tampering.
The obvious difference is that the woman who chose to have breast implants chose to make that modification to herself. The baby who was genetically modified to someday have big breasts did not choose any such thing.
I am not so naive to think that GM people would not face a glass ceiling in the workforce, where it is easy to justify not promoting or not hiring someone with other reasons. However, I think if given the choice of having childhood diabetes but no glass ceiling (if I make it to adulthood) or being healthy and having to live with a glass ceiling, I'd take the latter.
However, that would be a personal choice and I would respect the rights of others to reach their own conclusions about their own situations.
Okay, we develop the technology to "improve" people in utero by eliminating "genetic defects." Some of these defects are obvious but others are a matter of opinion. For example, is a short stature a genetic defect? What about red hair? Regarding intelligence, most probably think that more is better. But...there are different kinds of intelligence and we have yet to find a way to measure or quantify reliably what intelligence is, though we all recognize its absence. :) A pulitzer prize-winning author may be mathematically inept while a brilliant mathematician may be unable to chain three sentences together in a conversation.
Among all species in the natural world, evolutionary success derives from a diverse gene pool that gives the species increased ability to adapt quickly to changed circumstances. Developing GM people is likely to reduce diversity by catering to our very human tendency to want to eliminate traits that we find undesirable now but which may be essential for our very survival in the future.
If a certain gene-combination improves inteligence (of whatever metric used at the time...) then I find it highly unlikely that most (responsible, caring) parents will not wish for their child to have that combination; the result, genetically wize, will be a monoculture in terms of that gene combination.
...) to interact with society in a positive manner.
I don't think this is a necessary conclusion at all. What parents see as desirable traits in a child will vary greatly. If I may use a couple of sterotypes for a moment to illustrate my point, while they are over-gerenerlizations, I think there is enough truth behind them to make this point.
Consider a child from Texas, what would the parents view as most desierable? What would they want little Billy to grow up to be? Probably a football quarterback, so they are going to get him traits that are benificial to that, he'll be tall, a bit broader in the sholders, athletic and have good eyesight. They probably would not care as much about logic and math skills, so may not worry about that.
Contrast this with parents from, say San Francisco. They are not going to care about a football carrer for their kid. They will probably be more interested in a kid who is capable in fine arts. So will get genes that promote artistic ability, hand eye coordination. They might not care a whole lot about math and logic skills, though possibly more than the football player's parents.
My point is, people have different ideas of what an ideal person is. This will be reflected in the choices made about their children's genetic code. Will there be some loss in diversity? Sure, I wouldn't argue that, but I don't think we would end up with a monoculture, people just don't have that much of a concensus on what a "perfect" human being is. Add to that the fact that you will never eliminate natural births (sex is just too much fun), and we should still have a good bit of diversity running around.
Again, as I said in other posts, I am not all pro or con GM, but I am pro ethics. It is a system which enables the decision-makers (Doctors, Scientists, Engineers
The problem with ethics, is that they are not very concrete. Consider for a moment what you base your ethics upon. For most people it comes down to something akin to religion, in the broadest sense. Its a set of belifs, which have no factual or logical basis, but we hold on to them, because without them, society would degenerate into a quagmire of hedonism. Thus arguing that something is unethical is really just an emotional plea, but has no logical basis. To base an argument on them, is silly, as what one person sees as ethical might not be so for another person. You can argue ethics till you are blue in the face, but it will get you nowhere, there is nothing which can prove or disprove any argument. The closest thing we can have to ethics is a stong concensus between people as to what is "right" or "wrong". In the case of GM people, there is not enough of a consensus as to what is "right" and "wrong" for it be very clear cut. For you to claim to be pro-ethics is really just a fallacious ploy to try and argue from the moral high-ground. Its an old trick, though I grant, one that still fools a lot of people.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
This issue ties to prejudice and segregation, class distinctions, and the Haves vs. the Have-Nots. Presumably anyone who has been modified will be more capable in some way - making them the better choice for jobs, college, sports, whatever areas that improvement affects. This means you, or your children, or your grandchildren, could be denied opportunities because someone who wouldn't have appeared naturally would exist and be better in some way. These are the fears that drive bans of GM humans.
I think groups like the Olympic committee should be more hesitant about banning all GM humans outright. What if the modification was to remove a predisposition for epilepsy? The athletic ability would be completely unchanged, though the individual may not have been able to compete had the GM not taken place.
Also, I can think of less threatening forms of GM: ending male pattern baldness, removing recessive genes for diseases and deformities (like a cleft palate), completely aesthetic modifications (removal of genes for moles or excessive body hair).
So much of sci-fi is an expression of our fears of the worst that could be produced. What we should learn from Star Trek and Gattaca and others is not that we shouldn't try - but that we need to consider all the possible ramifications in advance instead of just hoping it will all work out.
There are valid issues that will come about if GM becomes feasible. First of all, the unknown quantity of side effects. Will we know until a couple generations later whether removing a recessive gene for male pattern baldness worked and whether it had any unexpected side effects - such as hairy feet? Second, the expense of such treatments. Either treatment is only available to those who can afford it (great mix to create civil unrest and revolution) or subsidized clinics would have to exist (raising our taxes). Third, there will be prejudice and irrational reactions in both directions - that is pretty much a given. There are many more issues, but at least we are considering them now rather than later.
(Random, completely OT thought - could GM be used to alter racial characteristics? Carking?)
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Really, technology not about right and wrong. It's about power.
And history has proven that power corrupts.
How you use technology is what can be right or wrong. This topic will probably be debated, well probably forever...
It boils down to your sense of ethics, morality, and humanity. But let's face it; is there a right or wrong answer?
Once you start down the path to genetic augmentation where does it stop? Can you stop before you lose your humanity? Who can set that kind of precedent? I cant, nor would I want to.
-An American Revolutionary
So why is it we believe the GM people will be actually "enhanced". If someone becomes a better athlete because of some genetic engineering project there may be some unpredictable tradeoff, some defect. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe not even a quantifiable trait. The "person" may be transgenic the same way that some tomatoes are part North Atlantic Flounder. Key word here unpredictable. So far, the GM movement has been at least as much hype as achevement. Lots of money to be made though!
,with all this new stuff from the last 30 years or so, to take a mature evaluation.
Anyone who has done bioinformatic work knows how digital and cybernetic molecular biology is. Cells are concrete instantiations of metamathematical concepts. What comes to mind in discussions of genetic engineering is how little we can know about the ramifications and results of side effects. Some events are unknowable until they happen. They are absolutely not undoable.
So what is some GM fish released into the Atlantic has some economic advantage because it's so big and meaty. It makes money for the industry! It breeds with other Salmon and you get more big Salmon - good, more money! More food for people, more people needing still more food. This fish has a reather short life span as it turns out. Dies out! Genetic polution to other Salmon as well. They start to die out!
Species become extinct right! So what!
Is it possible for people "wowed" by technology to examine their presuppositions. Is it a little too soon