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Could Colorblindness Cure Be Morally Wrong?
destinyland writes "One in 12 men suffers from colorblindness, though '[t]he good news here is that these folks are simply missing a patch of DNA ... which is just the kind of challenge this Millennium is made for. Enter science.' But NPR's Moira Gunn (from Biotech Nation) now asks a provocative question. Is it wrong to cure colorblindness? She reports on an experiment that used a virus to introduce corrective DNA into colorblind monkeys. ('It took 20 weeks, but eventually the monkeys started distinguishing between red and green.') Then she asks, could it be viewed differently? 'Are we trying to 'normalize' humans to a threshold of experience?'"
"Would you like to be cured?"
Problem solved.
Deleted
Who knows what kind of mutations would best preserve human life here on Earth . . . or in Space . . . or on another planet? We're infants playing with power tools!
What about someone who is paralyzed? Would it be morally wrong to "normalize their threshold of experience"?
Are we talking about curing the lower case color blind or the upper case Color Blind?
... all I can say is that, apart from caption in maps and clothes, everything is fine. It is also a very good topic to start a conversation at the bar table: "sure you are colorblind?! What color is this?" Sundenly I become the center of the attention and I like it like that! Stay away from my genes!
I am waiting for the tetrachromat patch. So, I think you can assume my position.
i think it would be morally wrong to have the ability to cure the colorblind (or any other disability or disease) but not do it out of some delusional religious belief.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
that question is bad and she should feel bad.
Plus infrared and ultraviolet.
I am color blind. It doesn't really cause me any problems other than a small number of awkward social situations where I can't observe something that is obvious to a room full of people. That and I can't see the numbers in the dot tests.
But that actually sounds really freaky, a virus that can change my perception of colors. I've lived my whole life with color blindness and I have to wonder what it would be like to "cure" it suddenly. Who knows? Maybe I associate a given thing with a given color, and seeing it differently would be freaky or just not right, like waking up one morning to learn that ketchup is really green.
If you came to me and said, I can give you something that'd cure your color blindness, I think I'd be inclined to say no. Life has been all right up to now without that "cure".
What kind of stupid, half-witted, pseudo-concern is this? This is the same as asking if a cure for cancer is morally wrong; after all, it, too, is [ultimately] due to faulty genetics.
I'm a consenting adult.
If I want to put a drug into my body, it's my right. If I want to put a penis into me, it's my right. If I want to put my penis into something, it's my right.
If I want my DNA changed, then it's my right. Anyone who says otherwise is a prohibitionist and a statist, just like people who support our government locking up consenting adults for other victimless acts.
I mean... WHAT?
I have AIDS, and that makes me unique. I don't care if you have a cure, I want what makes me and my life different!
When Qualia is concerned, nothing is certain. It's reasonable to produce scientific measurements of this and that. But what colours (or saturation) they *map* to inside the brain is another matter. For example, some creatures are monochromats, which means they can probably only see one colour. But what that colour actually is, is anyone's guess.
Apparently, some people have four colour cones instead of three. Do they see a new colour competely outside our range, or just have extra 'depth' to distinguish our current range more easily?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
I can see how the topic of meddling with DNA to augment/fix people can be a slippery slope, but by itself the question of "is it morally wrong to cure colorblindness" seems to be the same as "is it morally wrong to cure short/far sightedness". We already normalize things like this and it's entirely by individual choice. You can choose to wear your glasses or not and now you'll be able to get your color vision corrected or not.
No such conspiracy.
Well, see you in a bit. I gotta run down to Wal-Mart to pick up some LSD.
It can't be wrong if we are fixing an inability to process particular wavelengths of light.There are definitely other things that we could do when we mess with bio-engineering /genetics etc that could raise moral and ethical issues . Now, using DNA to provide someone the ability to hear like a dog etc etc, that is more serious stuff ofcourse or maybe not.
Maybe it is moral that if we have technology that can improve our senses, it is ok to improve it even if we humans were not gifted with it at birth. I dont believe Nature is perfect.
No. It's not "normalization". Being able to differentiate between colors is incredibly valuable.
Now if they were researching gene therapy to make swarthy folks more acceptably white we might have something to complain about.
In a related note: If I could get gene therapy to let me see further into the UV and IR ranges I'd totally go for it.
Colorblindness really limits you career choices in life.
I'd take that cure as soon as it is determined safe for humans.
How about you just let people invent the cure and then let them ask the individuals who are colorblind if they want to be cured or not? It's only "morally wrong" if you try to force someone to be "cured" from something they don't see as a disease.
Let's ask another question: Is it morally wrong to deny someone a cure because in your own infinite arrogance you think it's "wrong" to give it to them?
Liberty in your lifetime
"normalize"? We have a society and a world... forget that, we have poisonous foods and non-poisonous foods that can be differentiated by color. There are poisonous snakes that are differentiated by color as well. This isn't a "normalization" like gay or not-gay. It's a disability that has managed to propagate for a long time. I am glad not to be color blind. I would hate the driving related problems of being color blind, not to mention the disqualifications in jobs that may be experienced along with many other things.
I recall some stuff about deaf people wanting to stay deaf. Once again, it's just damned stupid. I would want more senses, not fewer. Perhaps these same deaf people are just wanting their sympathetic free ride through life to continue. Who knows what the reason might be, but it is pretty clear in that I have yet to hear of any hearing person wanting to be deaf or anyone having lost their hearing not wanting it back.
I have never heard of anyone losing color sensitivity before, but if they did, I suspect the same would be the case as with deaf people.
sometimes moral questions are just dumb - is it moral to repeat them?
Ahh... Another Dr. Pangloss who believes we live in the best of all possible worlds... We've been dealing with this sort of idiocy for quite some time now, at least since Voltaire satirized it in 1759
http://www.shmoop.com/candide/dr-pangloss.html
I say "fuck you" to your moral objection. Color blindness is a disability. It may not be anywhere near as serious as being handicapped, missing an appendage, or say, a whole eye, but it does cause problems nonetheless.
tetrachromat requires 4 color receptor coding genes...2 on each X-chromosome...the y-chromosome can only hold 1.
So I hope you're a female slashdotter. Otherwise, a gender-change seems to be an extreme price to pay to get your vision patched to tetrachromatic.
Are we talking about splicing? It went very wrong last time.
Infrared could be very cool. Especially looking at this girl who's often on my homebound bus ride...
Nhhhnnngngngngnggggnnnn...
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ok, so we don't want a "normalized" human experience. The next step should be trying to augment the "average" capabilities of humans.
slashdot would look kinda strange, wouldn't it?
to code or not to code, that is the question.
"Are we trying to 'normalize' humans to a threshold of experience?"
We who? Implying that the listener is involved is a simplistic means to maintain their attention. The listener certainly has nothing to do with the project.
Are the researchers doing these things? No, they're only trying to solve an interesting problem. They're not trying to do anything to anyone. They're only trying to make this available.
Only the potential recipient has the responsibility. Nobody else matters.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Ah, but where does it end?
"Would you like ultra-wide spectrum super-HD eyes with 60x optical zoom, Internet-connected HUD and complimentary laser cannons, just like everyone else has?"
Oh, I hope it doesn't end there!
*squee!*
You can't take the sky from me...
If I could get my colorblindness fixed/cured/eliminated and it's affordable, I'd do it. Seriously, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but there's stuff I simply don't see and I'm not even that color blind. The orange paint on grass used by contractors? Essentially invisible to me. Entire fields are closed to me due to colorblindness. Can't become an electrician due to color coding, for example.
The whole "moral" aspect is by people who think that an amputee shouldn't want their legs back just to be "normal" (obviously, an extreme example).
If I'm colorblind and that can be fixed, awesome.
If I'm blind and that can be fixed, awesome.
If I'm deaf and that can be fixed, awesome.
If I'm paraplegic and that can be fixed, awesome.
Seriously, how is this possibly a moral argument?!?
... to restore our lost squant vision?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
It would not be any more morally wrong than me using contacts or glasses.
I am unable to distinguish some shades of red and green. Do I want to be cured? Erm, cured? How about you go fuck yourself and let scientists work on useful stuff? My back is feeling pretty sore, go grow me a a pair of backbones. Get one for yourself too, figuratively speaking.
better link
Would curing a slow-growing cancer or rheumatoid arthritis morally wrong?
How about giving someone a pair of glasses, or contacts or perhaps laser-eye surgery?
How about restoring hearing to a deaf person (or simply the ability to hear about 20KHz again)?
How about vaccinating against rubella or meningitis to prevent deafness?
Or vaccinating people succeptible to polio or small pox?
Well one could argue that many of these are approximatly the same level of intervention as curing color blindness.
The article generally assert that if DNA is some magic new science to be wary of because someone else's "fix" can be another person's "enhancement" as if this is some sort of new issue. Sadly it is not. HGH is a recent example of something not-dna related. HGH is medically useful to accelerate the development of children that have development deficiencies and are used by some atheletes to gain an enhancement. Some people are taking ritalin and adderall to help with hyperactivity, but others to get better SAT scores. An older example might be taking antibiotics or steroids.
DNA retro-technology isn't moral or immoral, it's just a new technology like many others that spun out of scientific research. The people who apply the technology are either moral or immoral (or amoral) about it. Sadly there are some of each type that apply any technological advance. I guess the question at least keeps bioethicist employed.
Some folks just NEED dependents ... feebs & crips and "inferiors" who lick the helpers-hand -- building their ego and validating their power. Case-in-point ... right_sighting the color_blind. Wonder what the NEXT helper_be_gone genetic horror will be: slobbering stroke-victims standing up straight, spitting sunflower seeds and doing their numbers ?
What if they someday find a "gay gene" (or even just those for various intersex conditions) and cure those?
"Would you like to be heterosexual, just like everyone else?"
(The interesting thing about that is that you can piss off both sides of that debate. What if, in the future, being gay or not was indisputably a choice thanks to medical science? Would those who chose to cure themselves be seen as traitors or...?)
I do hope nobody's jumping to the conclusion "Colourblind = can't see colour", 'cause that's very wrong indeed. I am colourblind, but I can still see colours. Maybe they're not the same as what you see, but I can still see them. For example, a "Green" traffic light is much less saturated than the "Red" and "Yellow" lights next to it, almost white in fact.
http://www.eyecaresource.com/conditions/color-blindness/ is a good reference, as indeed is the Wikipedia article, which also states:
At which point, are we putting society as a whole at a disadvantage by denying this evolutionary quirk?
The other question you may get asked is "How will everything look different?". It's a tough question to answer, akin to describing the sound of music to a deaf person. For most colourblind people, barring a few speciality fields (pilot, train driver), their colourblindness is not a particular hurdle, and barring a few strange choices in the wardrobe department, many may not even notice their "disability" until it is pointed out to them. There are more than enough other clues, contextual or positional clues for example, for it not to make much of a difference. So all in all it's an aesthetic choice.
The thought occurred to me that many mutations that are disabling below some certain threshold would tend to propagate, due to the selective advantage of having a set of two parents with similar genetic defects, and the tendency of people to seek out mates with similar habits and abilities.
So, for instance, a deaf child with two deaf parents would tend to do better than a deaf child with only one deaf parent. And a deaf person might seek out a deaf mate. So this (even small) selective pressure would over time tend to segregate people by major disability and help to propagate them.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Morpheus: "I've explained the consequences to you, do you take the red pill, or the blue pill?"
Patient: "Ehhh..."
No. No it isn't. You'd have to be a fucking idiot not to want to be cured of colorblindness.
Ask this question again when a cure for homosexuality is found.
I'm actually curious how much these "sicknesses" play a role in our future evolution. I'm no geneticist but I'm guessing that alot of these genetic transformations are mutations of some sort or another. If this is the case could these mutations eventually change into something else? I mean when the dinosaurs arms started getting smaller and smaller, eventually evolving into wings, etc. do you think somewhere, it might have appeared strange or different? What about skin color, hair color, etc.? Do you think that variations appeared strange at first, or even consider some defect or disease? Could color-blindness or even blindness be some mutations that may after thousands of years lead to some variations in the species? If so, what do you feel could be some of the issues with DNA modifications - could it potentially effect our future evolution?
Just some questions and thoughts.
I think that I can see just like everyone else, but I can't see the dot patterns.
Actually, sometimes I CAN see the dot patterns, but even though I can trace them with my finger, I can't see it will enough to tell what the number or pattern is
Because I can't see that dot pattern, I can only fly during the day (fly as in pilots license). I'll also never be instrument rated.
I also can't see some informational graphics. My idiot local newspaper decided to publish election results of a contentious issue by using tones of red or green if counties voted one way or another. I had to ask someone if they could please explain what the results were.
If it limits me in those ways, then it is a disability. It does, and it is.
...it is to even ask such a question.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Obvious advertisement is obvious!
Actually, you have hit the nail on the head. The doctor goes to cure your son's colorblindness, and asks: "While we're in there, would you like to pay some more money to make him taller? Boost his IQ? Make him live longer?"
I'm taking this example from Dr William Leiss. The problem is not that this would be wrong for the child (just assuming for the moment that there wouldn't be nasty unintended side-effects). The problem is the impact on society as a whole. Rich people can afford to extend their lifespans, make themselves beautiful, smarter, and so on. The elite become physically different from birth: physically, mentally, perhaps even morally superior. Imagine a society in which the rich lived twice as long. Do you think this would be just? Do you think freedom and stability could exist under these circumstances?
If this happens, Leiss worries that there will be one more genetic tweak: some of these elites will make their offspring genetically incompatible with others. Differences between classes will be transformed into differences between species.
Of course curing colorblindness on its own will not do that. It may be extremely desirable. But at some point fixing things turns into improving things, and that can be a very dangerous road to go down. There is no clear line between fixing and improving. Before we start down this path, we should think very hard about where we draw that line. Once the line has been crossed, momentum and the power of wealth will be very hard to stop.
Someone I love very much is colorblind. But I think the dangers really do bear thinking about.
What 4 colors are you talking about? I thought there were only 3 primary colors?
Yeah, the 'moral dilemma' is kinda silly. But why stop at curing colourblindness? When can I get my IR and UV vision?
Here is a tale from one of the great Now-It-Can-Told memoirs of World War I:
Of Spies &
Stratagems by Stanley P. Lovell
Lovell was the director of R&D for the OSS. The man who became Bill Donovan's Professor Moriarty. You'll find no better introduction to the real world of spy tech than here.
A most important field of deception and concealment concerned the landing of spies and saboteurs on enemy occupied coastlines, and at the exact spot where he or she would be met by friendly personnel from the underground organizations. This proved to be a most difficult problem for us to solve. Such landings had to be made on nights with no moon.
Early in the war fixed lights and blinkers were used on the shore to mark the rendezvous, but enemy airplanes and sur face vessels often spotted them. Many an agent and his reception committee of resistance fighters were surrounded, picked up and summarily shot.
The ideal shore signal to guide the O.S.S. agent to the selected place was an ultra-violet beacon. A small UV bulb, powered by a single dry-cell battery, would flash intermittently for almost a year. The difficulty arose when we found that even a person with superior eyesight could pick out the ultra-violet signal in the blackness of night only from a distressingly short range. I could not detect it at all beyond one hundred feet. I was about to abandon the UV system of landing signal as worthless, when a surgeon specializing in cataract
removals told me by chance that patients who had undergone that operation had extraordinary sensitivity to ultra-violet light. We asked for volunteers and tested several people whose cataracts had been removed. To our astonishment we found that they could see and pinpoint the little, flashing ultra
violet light from over a mile away, whereas the rest of us could
see nothing but inky blackness.
Brave, elderly people, so selected, guided our operators
infallibly to these normally invisible rendezvous. I am certain
the Germans and the Japanese never had the faintest idea of
how it was done.
... of this article as I did of an episode of a TV show (ER or some similar medical show I only caught part of an episode of) where one of the main characters had a deaf child and the "specialist" they were recommended to for potential treatment asked them to consider the wonderful "gift" she had, or something like that. Like I said, I only caught part of the show, so if anyone knows the show/episode I'm talking about and has a clearer idea of what they were trying to say, feel free to chip in.
As for what exactly I think of that suggestion, and this one; It's really dumb, and likely an offensive concept to anyone who feels held back by their disability. Go "morally protest" something important and stop telling people it's questionable to want to be able to perform at a "normal" level.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
Can't call it a disease...some organization will spring up (maybe the National Association for the Advancement of Colorblind People) and say that Red and Green M&M's are misleading and we should only eat the gray ones.....wait aren't they all gray?
I do my best not to be irritated by this line of questioning, not least because it is almost always a rhetorical question with an implied "No", or else just a stalling tactic. But the most irritating thing is that it's the wrong question.
The question we should be asking is NOT whether we want to alter human genes. The real question here is whether *I* want to alter my own genes, and what the hell business that is of anyone's but mine and my doctor's. If the alteration extends to my reproductive cells, then there's a broader question, but I'd be perfectly willing to be sterilized as a precondition of curing any number of potential genetic disorders. As it happens, I had a vasectomy years ago, so I have long since ceased to be a concern for the human gene pool.
Should we be curing [insert condition here]? No. Should we allow people to voluntarily seek out whatever medical treatment they need (or want, if they can afford it)? Yes.
It's bad enough that we have religion interfering with people's medical choices. We don't need to open the door for idle philosophical speculation to deny people medical treatment.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
This brings up an interesting point. If we can use gene therapy to cure colorblindness or extend our senses, couldn't we also use it to give us certain disabilities to take advantage of handicapped laws? Or maybe we could change out our skin colors like the cool kids do with their ringtones. Or perhaps we could customize our abilities like we do our computers. Some of us may want a bare-bones system (literally?) or to be stripped of stuff we don't really need (like a complete vas deferns or Fallopian tube until we're ready to reproduce). I've seen a few commenters talking about a slippery slope, but what if you want to go skiing for a while (just to completely milk that metaphor)?
Quite a number of years ago my brother in law had a car that was getting small rust spots all over it so he decided it needed to be fixed. He called me up to come help him as there were a lot of rust spots. I went over and it took us nearly all day to sand them down and prime them up. He said he would handle the final painting of them. It was a dark brown car. What I did not know was that he has green/brown color blindness. He called me up a couple of days later to say he had it all done. So I went over to take a look at the finished handy work. I damn near busted a gut from laughing because he now had a dark brown car with dark green spots all over it. At first he would not believe me so he called my sister out (she had not seen the car since we started the repairs) and the look on her face and the question "How come there are dark green spots all over it?" started me laughing all over again.
'Being deaf is not about being disabled, or medically incomplete - it's about being part of a linguistic minority. We're proud, not of the medical aspect of deafness, but of the language we use and the community we live in.'
Deafness is a completely different issue from color-blindness (or even regular blindness) because LANGUAGE IS CULTURE. Almost every meaningful social experience you have is had in the context of language.
Think about losing every story, every song, every conversation you've had because your language has been rendered obsolete. On some level I'm sure everyone in deaf culture would like to be able to hear. But many of them won't trade hearing if it means their favorite songs, poems, and stories will not be passed on. There's a great movie about this called Sound and Fury
The color-blindness to me is a small issue.
If we can legitimately fix this in Humans, who choose to participate(the key for this fix, of course), then that leads us to the ability, once we get the genetic markers identified, to "repair DNA" for other diseases like Autism. Not the Hollywood glorified Rainman type stuff, but more like the 13 year old who can't read, and incessantly turns on and off lights. Or the six year old who can't even have the simplest of conversations with his mother.
LET'S FIX these things! For those who don't want the "repair" then don't worry about it. For those of us who have been praying for a cure for the incurable, let's use this technology to save those who otherwise would never be saved.
On the other hand, I could argue that it is more morally justifiable to genetically modify a person to fix flaws than other methods we currently employ. Take glasses as an example. Poor eyesight is a severe disadvantage that is all but negated by the simple application of eyeglasses. By doing this we are circumventing natural selection, and what is a trait that would normally be weighed down is allowed to propagate almost equally, and become widespread, polluting the gene pool. This leads to genetic degradation as a race. However, if you genetically alter someone to remove a flaw, this is passed on to children and the flaw is removed, resulting in a stronger gene pool. Why should being counterproductive with natural selection be morally right and being truly beneficial be morally wrong?
No, of course it is not immoral to cure a disease. Who asked the stupid question, a Jehovah's Witness? A Christian Scientist? Such crazy talk could not have come from anyone but a religious nut who thinks God wants you to suffer, or he wouldn't have punished you for your sins with a disease. People who believe since nonsense would have kept us in caves, or caused our extinction if they had run the world from the dawn of man until now.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
A lot of commentors have said, "just ask the person if they'd like to be cured", and of course that's the right answer, for a cure which can be applied to an adult.
The uglier questions come up with things like cochlear implants (for deafness), when the cure has to be applied to a child who is not old enough to decide (or even speak). The deaf community is arguing about this - many of them feel militantly that a child born deaf to deaf parents should be left deaf, and that curing the child is a form of cultural genocide. I'm really uncomfortable with this argument. What if the parents wanted to make their hearing child deaf, with a surgical procedure? Would that be okay? How about blind parents? On the other hand, what about a pill that an African American child can be given once a day to lighten their skin a few shades, so they can pass for white, or to gain advantage within the black community wherein there is still some shade prejudice? And then there's selective abortion for the really bad problems.
Personally I think fixing disabilities is a no brainer - color blindness, deafness, blindness, and so on. It seems like child abuse not to fix these if doing so is affordable and low-risk, no less so than inflicting blindness or deafness on a child intentionally. Normally I'd rather leave these things up to parents, but we don't leave discipline up to parents if it involves breaking the kid's bones - there are limits to choice where minors are concerned.
Note that I used words like "fix" and "disability" to plainly describe missing sensory abilities. The deaf community would disagree strongly about this, but I think they're wrong. It is objectively better to have an additional ability, than not to have it. The degree to which it is better depends on the ability, the individual, and their community, but I would always rather be able to hear music or see or see colors, than not to. That's not the same thing as saying a person who has the ability is better than one who does not, and it is not useful to confuse the two.
The societal question is where to draw the line between abusive denial of abilities, and allowance for harmless individual differences like skin shade, weight, acne propensity, and gender or gender preference.
People can afford to be different today and I don't see any problem with it. I don't hate wealthy people because they can afford nice cars, attain beautiful women (often more than one), and receive more specialized care. I see nothing wrong with their success and I hope to be one of those people someday. What I would hate is for someone like you to tell me that I can't strive to differentiate because it might upset a few people and make them envious.
It's natural
How about rephrasing the question: "Would you like to read traffic lights?"
Genetic manipulation is the logical continuation of the school of thought that brought you Ritalin, Prozac, and the host of other psychiatric medications.
It's probably not a bad idea to rehash the arguments for and against such things, but the precedent has been set.
Gattaca!
Gattaca!
Gattaca!
could it be morally wrong? no. in fact it would be morally right.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
If I am denied a cure to this frustrating debilitation because somebody thinks that it will lead to Gattica, I am going to track them down, take off one of their arms and tell them that prosthetics are unethical. And painkillers. Seriously, It sucks. Be glad if you don't have it, join me in moderate irritation if you do.
No.
Q: Could Colorblindness Cure Be Morally Wrong?
A: No. It would only be morally wrong if they forced it on someone.
As someone who is red-green colorblind, this would be enormously helpful. Think about all of the simple "safe vs unsafe" signals that most folks take for granted (status LEDs on routers/computers, red vs green channel markers for the nautical types out there and radar screens in airplanes).
Forcing everyone to do this would be bad, but I would volunteer to be at the front of the line for this kind of treatment.
i mean, there are certain jobs you cant do being color blind, not to mention its just helpful to see a broader spectrum of colors. Its not like (cosmetic) plastic surgery where you just want to look younger or closer to societies, rather fucked up unrealistic, standard of beauty. That is trying to "normalize" and that is morally wrong. Helping people see more colors is helping people see more colors. We do have a problem with the loss and persecution of individuality (whether its a lifestyle choice or something from birth that makes one unique), but this is not the issue to start a discussion about it over.
If a patient wishes to have the same number of senses as his neighbor, then it seems perfectly reasonable to offer a solution.
Being unable to sense the difference between some colors is the lack of a sense. But it also must be up to the individual if they would receive the treatment or not.
This is different than having yourself modified to have super strength or unnatural infravision, because it is something outside typical (or in some cases ANY) human abilities. I'm not saying I'm for or against enhancements beyond what nature provides, I'd just like to make sure we can agree that it is a completely different topic of discussion. Maybe it's a matter of degrees, but asking for a piece of birthday cake when everyone else got one is generally considered reasonable. Asking for TWO pieces of cake where others only received one is considered greedy. Cultural bias perhaps, but it is a viewpoint that is common over many human cultures (if not all of them)
Don't be greedy with your genetic modifications.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
As the rich pay the early adopter costs, the companies will continue to come out with better mods, reducing the price of the previous ones. The price for the older mods will soon come down enough for middle class folks to mod themselves, and eventually enough to be covered by insurance plans as standard. At least in the world we should strive to create, that is how it would work. There is nothing wrong with the wealthy getting it first, they pay more for it and thereby allow for a higher (if unequal) quality of life for all. It worked that way with lasik in the US. I'm not sure if it worked that way because it was an optional elective surgery so it wasn't the "pay-up or die" situation that allows for higher prices, or whether it was that the insurance companies were completely uninvolved, or for some other reason that the hops have hidden from me.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
You are completely misunderstanding the argument. What you seem to be describing is a form of meritocracy. The American dream you describe assumes that with hard work anyone can succeed. Anyone could be smart, anyone could be hard-working. The worst-case of the society I am describing is one without that possibility. It is utterly unmeritocratic: no matter how hard you work, you would be unable to succeed because you were genetically inferior. You fail because you simply aren't smart enough, or haven't enough stamina, or lack the inbuilt emotional intelligence or what have you. The elite would be like an entrenched aristocracy, except instead of being merely more wealthy, they would also be physically and mentally privileged - and they would pass those advantages on to their offspring. Those advantages could be insurmountable.
Also, I guarantee that the social barriers created on the basis of physical differences would be at least as much an impediment to success. If the rich look like supermen, there will be intense prejudice against anyone who obviously lacks those advantages. Prejudice would run rampant because it actually had a basis in fact.
Historically the aristocracy were in fact physically different. The rich ate a diet including meat and a variety of other foods. The poor had only a limited diet of nutritionally incomplete foods - with insufficient protein, for example. Imagining eating a gruel of millet and turnips every day. The difference between rich and poor was manifested physically. You could tell a poor person just by looking at him: his status was physically marked on his body. In a physical conflict the rich would be likely to win simply because they were physically superior.
You are also injecting an ideological implication when you talk about "hate." I never said anything about hating wealthy people. I spoke only of the kind of society such engineering would produce. If the poor could see that they had virtually no chance to succeed no matter how hard they worked, there would be constant unrest. As there was in the middle ages, when peasant revolts were a constant fact of life.
is it morally wrong to cure cancer?
TROLL
So-called color "blind" men have frequently been shown to have advantages in seeing through camouflage in a natural environment - a useful trait for hunting. Like sickle-cell anemia and attention "deficit disorder", these "disabilities" turn out to have survival advantages for the species. In sickle-cell just one copy of the gene makes the owner more resistant to malaria, and so is a net win for species survival even though those who inherit two of them die. Attention "deficit disorder" - a short attention span and high distractability - makes it possible to be more aware of everything going on in the environment around you - like the prey lurking under a bush, the odor of a big cat, or that (possibly fatally-infected) fly landing on you, all things that a highly focused individual might miss in concentrating on chipping his flint. Many such traits are still in the gene pool for a reason.
I haven't read TFA (surprise) but the treatment probably only affects the somatic cells. The trait probably would not be passed on to the next generation. Most likely, talk of creating a new species is premature.
Fixing single gene defects, like color blindness, is like changing a bad capacitor. Big deal. A keyboard with a broken button isn't really valuable* to anyone (unless that broken key is caps lock and it's a gift).
Changing polygenic traits like height, IQ, sexual orientation, or predisposition to obesity is completely different. Those traits are a result of many genes interacting. Changing them would be like rewiring the whole circuit. Besides being technologically infeasible, the ethical issues apply particularly strongly here.
* I mean this as in the "trait" doesn't really enrich the person who has it, not that the person is worthless. I suppose color blind people see the world differently, but if they want this procedure then I see no reason to deny it to them.
Those that lambasted the person asking the question are both ignorant and stupid. First, such a question is designed to begin at may seem to be an innocuous choice and then progress through the various 'levels' at which different people 'draw the line'. Some are going to say creating enormous gilled low IQ undersea manual laborers is fine. Others will have other points of inherent "badness" and their own rational for those choices. Intelligent people understand that others may have data, analysis, or creative theories to share. They may also understand that even "wrong" or irrational views may provide other insights into otherwise unforeseen issues.
Second, the 'normalization' of human experience and the physical 'normalization' of humans have some interesting consequences which should probably be considered. For instance, while many consider color-blindness a 'defect', one of my brothers happens to be extremely color-blind. My eyesight has always been clearly superior in finding lost objects, especially outdoors. His eyesight has always been clearly superior in detecting movement outdoors. This may be caused/influenced be an enormous number of variables, but I have noted it to generally hold true, especially among adults. Which is 'better'? Evolution says whichever keeps you alive.
Do eyes which can see the larger spectrum require better ocular nutrition? (is there a greater cost?)
Do eyes which can better detect movement or at least eliminate some of the 'color clutter' from visual processing provide an advantage?
Beyond the strictly physical issues are the changes to the way different individuals interpret and understand the world around them. Who gets to decide what is normal, better, optimal? How do we measure the tradeoffs and avoid doing damage to the species? Probably something we should think about before we charge off, at least for those of us who believe that the larger grey mass between our ears is there for more than sarcastic comments and figuring out how to bash things with a tool instead of our skull.
Simple, no it wouldn't. It's curing a disability. A minor one by most standards, but a disability no less.
Some people think this would lead to "curing" normal differences like height, build, race, etc. The way I look at it, the way to distinguish difference from disability is whether it would affect the person if they were stranded on a desert island. Deaf? Color blind? Unable to smell? Disability. Shorter than average or a different skin color? Difference. (note that height can fall in to disability when taken to extremes, I'm talking normal variation levels)
I'm also with the poster from #31635162 in that deaf parents who actively try for deaf children are evil and should not be allowed to have kids.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
I don't agree that it is easy to differentiate. In some cases perhaps. But in most there is no objective standard for what is "normal." Our idea of normal is cultural, and some people draw the lines in very different places (there is extensive scholarship on this point). Genetics are not normative: evolution makes no value judgments about which characteristics are good and which are bad. Some turn out to be more successful in a given context, but that doesn't make them "good" in a human sense.
I recall a news report that claimed introversion was a disorder that afflicted 25% of the population. Well, maybe in America. In China, if anything it would be extroversion that was considered abnormal.
I always see two different numbers in a set of dots, when the fellow with the dots says "what number do you see", I say "i see two numbers, there.........",
It's been the single most defining element to my life. Colorblindness shaped my world view from my early youth and has only served to reinforce that view. I'm colorblind. Typically Red Green and I've known since right around my 6th birthday. My grandfather and older brother were as well and when I started getting things wrong I experimented to see if I was or not. I'd pick crayons that had a basic title: Skyblue, Brick Red, Lemon Yellow and I'd find a selection of men and women (teachers, aunts, uncles), without the label, I'd ask them: What color is this crayon? I found if I asked 10 separate people I got 10 answers. If I asked 10 people in a group I got about 4-6 answers and an argument amongst them. One Christmas gathering I did this and it ended up turning into a huge family argument. Granted they're a bit dysfunctional. This taught me that we clearly live in our own shell of a world. Each of our perceptions are unique unto us. I find it a miracle that we've ever communicated or agreed on anything at all. Men already see 30% less of the spectrum than women, yet a colorblind man will insist (very often) that he's correct. I sincerely doubt that any two people have a 100% understanding or perception agreement on anything they experience together. If I were ever a juror and had to decide on a case that was based on eyewitness testimony I do not care how I felt, I'd dismiss it entirely. We are grossly flawed in thinking there is a universality to our understanding of our life. We live in bubbles only barely seeing into someone's bubble.
I'm not grayscale colorblind. But I have trouble, at times, depending on context, differentiating between blue-green, blue-purple, green-brown, brown-red, red-green, purple-gray, gray-green... I'm sure you get the picture.
I'd love to be able to tell when my cellphone or DS Lite needs charging just by the light of the power indicator.
I'd love to be able to tell my girlfriend that the red of her blouse goes great with the highlights in her hair.
I wish I could see those Magic Image thingies.
I hate picking out "the wrong shirt" on St. Patty's Day.
I can't tell resistor colors apart - I had to get help in that class in school.
I had to tell a Navy Sub recruiter that I am colorblind. He stopped calling.
I can't play a lot of video games because of color problems. Metroid Prime, Devil May Cry. Had issues in certain zones in Everquest; still have issues in certain zones in World of Warcraft.
It would make my life easier.
"The American dream you describe assumes that with hard work anyone can succeed."
I am sorry that I actually believe this due to the fact that I am an immigrant and never learned the entitlement mindset. "The worst-case of the society I am describing is one without that possibility. It is utterly unmeritocratic: no matter how hard you work, you would be unable to succeed because you were genetically inferior. You fail because you simply aren't smart enough, or haven't enough stamina, or lack the inbuilt emotional intelligence or what have you. The elite would be like an entrenched aristocracy, except instead of being merely more wealthy, they would also be physically and mentally privileged - and they would pass those advantages on to their offspring. Those advantages could be insurmountable."
Has this ever *not* been the case throughout the world? Women for example will rarely mate with someone shorter than themselves. Women look for mates that can provide security (or at least the best they can attract). Men look for healthy (beautiful) looking women. Would you rather turn this upside down? I've personally seen this kind of nonsense in communist China where janitors were given the title of professor or doctor while the professors were drowned and doctors were sent to work the fields. I've personally suffered from this kind of upside-down society as have millions of other Chinese people
Technology is actually the great equalizer as the cost of technology comes down. When in the history of man kind could anyone publish written or video content to the entire world on a shoestring budget? If humans could buy technology to improve themselves - and businesses will strive to ensure that the masses could afford the technology while still earning a healthy profit - it would equalize the difference.
If I want the "cure" then fine But should I be forced to receive it (like maybe due to a Military Draft) HELL NO.
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
The fact that colorblindness is so pervasive is because it has been naturally selected for along the evolutionary chain.
What can colorblind people do better than color-sighted folk: a key one for survival is that they are less likely to be tricked by camouflage (studies show).
So it's not "curing" but rather "normalizing".
Also, where is the cure for the color-sighted to make them colorblind? They are limited by input overload and their minds tend to develop to be to sensitive to trivial, rather than critical environmental elements.
In short, the color-sighted are less evolved.
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Is it morally wrong to install toilets? Are we just trying to 'normalize' humans to a common experience of not dying of dysentery?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Would you like to see infra red light?
Would you like to hear super sonic sounds?
Fuck yeah!
Than curing Diabetes. Sure this bitch wouldn't be speaking up if that was the case.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
I can plainly see this is not a black and white issue.
Are we trying to 'normalize' humans to a threshold of experience?
There are some poor word choices in that question.
First of all, 'normalize' is not the objective. The human eye has taken many thousands of millennia to reach the current state of evolution. The human eye has developed over time to see a spectrum of frequencies of radiation that enable us to distinguish poisonous food from edible food, to know when someone's pulse rate is elevated, and a lot more useful observations that help to keep us alive. To 'correct' a genetic defect in a highly evolved sensory organ is not normalization.
Second, what 'threshold' are we talking about? The most relevant definition of threshold is, 'the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested'. So, what magnitude or intensity is at work that would need to be exceeded to experience color vision, other than the frequency of light that is *not* being perceived by the aforementioned defective sensory organ?
Don't get me wrong. I don't think the philosophical and ethical questions of restoring the evolved function to the sensory organs of an organism should be ignored. I think the question as stated is poorly conceived and is rendered invalid by the practical concerns of human survival, even in the modern societal context. There are some clear disadvantages that color blind humans have to overcome in order to function within nature AND society, even today. To me, it would seem that the person who asked the quoted question above is wrestling with the thought of "playing God", and thereby altering the path of evolution, but I don't think that's a rational argument in this case. Evolution has determined the 'normal' condition, not society. If the affected human chooses to restore the naturally evolved functionality of their defective organs, where is the moral or ethical dilemma, and/or where's the sin?
Either let me cure my colorblindness or EVERYONE has to stop using red/green LEDS for status lights.
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I am not sure why anyone would consider this morally wrong? Is there something about the operation that I am not aware of? How are they defining "morally wrong"?
Well, I'd say let the person decide. I had a friend who was offered a full ride to the Air Force Academy, and they were going to train him to be a fighter pilot, which is what he had always wanted to be.. All of this was contingent on a physical and psychological exam. He had both, he aced both... except for being colorblind. They ended up completely taking the offer away because of it. He would have said yes to this procedure, it was his dream. I'd say if the person doesn't want/need it, they shouldn't get it. If the do, then don't deny them. Maybe put an age limit on it, like Lasic and all of those procedures.
Those of us that ARE colourblind would LOVE to have it corrected. People don't realise how much of an impact it can have.
I work in IT, not because it's what I dreamt of doing as a kid, but because I wasn't allowed to be a Pilot, a Captain (my father used to drive tugboats for a living) or even a Police officer.
If you haven't experienced it first hand, then you have no right to question whether people who do experience it every single day of their lives, should be "allowed" to change it.
I want the same employment opportunities as everyone else, and I want my nephew (son of my sister) to have the same employment opportunities as everyone else too, whether he's inherited the gene or not as well.
I am nearsighted, but since glasses have existed as a "cure" for near-sightedness for hundreds of years that is no longer considered a disability.
And behold, lenses are evil technology, small boys will use them to kill ants, should we really mass produce those and kill all the ants?
For most people old problems does no longer counts as problems, but we still fail to see that history just repeats itself.
Yes, there will be people who will check boxes to get the kids they want if technology is there.
Why? Because different people value different things in life, some drives a hummer others are vegans.
Don't worry, be happy.
There was so much that was grim, bloody and sordid about the creation of new and special weapons to kill people that I searched for comic relief.
The anthropologists in O.S.S. were asked to come up with some tabu that was uniquely Japanese, something to which only that race was sensitive. I was told the answer was bowel elimination. A Japanes thought nothing of urinating in public, but he held defecation to be a very secret, shameful thing. A Japanese soldier, even in jungle fighting, even at great risk, would seek a private place to defecate. Here was my comic relief.
I had a group of chemists work out a skatol compound, a liquid which duplicated the revolting odor of a very loose bowel movement. It left no doubt in anyone's mind as to what it was. We put this obnoxious chemical in collapsible tubes, and I named it, "Who? Me?" The tubes were flown over the hump to Chungking and distributed to children in Japanese-occupied cities Peiping, Shanghai, Canton, etc.
When a Japanese officer, preferably of high rank, came waling down the crowded sidewalk, the little Chinese boys and girls would slip up behind him and squirt a shot of "Who? Me?" at his trouser seat. As a sort of extra dividend, our chemical was insoluble in soap and water, but very soluble in dry-cleaner's fluids, so, when sent for cleaning, the contaminated uniform endowed all the clothing in the batch with its offense.
"Who? Me?" was no world-shaking new development,but it cost the Japanese a world of "face."
Sometimes a joke can go too far.
A small supply of "Who? Me?" tubes, which were our original test samples, began to disappear. I had the cabinet locked. The lock was picked, which was not at all surprising, since we instructed all of our saboteurs in the art of picking open all makes of locks and door latches. With the help of an assistant I booby-trapped the locker by having a tube of "Who? Me? 7 ' filled under such an aerosol pressure, that when the cabinet door was opened it would spray the thief, causing him to lose both his self-composure and his anonymity. That stopped all the monkey business but the culprit, so easily identified, was too highly placed to be scolded.
How can helping someone be "morally wrong" ?
I'm pretty sure if you took a survey of colour-blind people, there are very few who would choose to remain colour-blind.
This isn't some aesthetic thing like having a nose job or botox injections for vanity / popularities sake. Neither is it a racial / cultural thing so that people can be "normalized" and assisted to escape from some perceived minority. It's about helping someone with an annoying affliction.
What's next ? Are we going to start questioning the morality of helping people with short-sightedness or hearing impediments, just in case it further marginalizes those tiny minority who choose NOT to have corrective lenses or a hearing aid ?
Fucking namby-pamby nonsense from do-gooders with too much time on their hands, if you ask me.
Why not, it would help battle the "Stupid people are breeding" problem. I live near many neighborhood/trailer parks where some people don't seem to do anything besides eat, breed, and live off the government. They don't seem to have any motivation to do much else. Some of the more intelligent people I know are not interested in having kids. If its a bad thing, it will go to hell really fast. Why not just see what happens.
It is only wrong if the cures and modifications are limited to the wealthy. Curing, Diabetes/Color blindness/Amputations/Disease/Deformities/etc etc is not the same as coveting a Rolls Royce. Technology will advance and we will integrate it into our selves. It was not that long ago, flight belonged solely to birds and people died of numerous plagues by the millions. Is it immoral to fly in a plane or take antibiotics? To some it is. There are also a few who believe the world is flat, even more who believe we never set foot on the moon. This is the very same frontier. Only the generations change. Dont sail there... You will fall off the earth. Man was not meant to fly. Antibiotics will cause insanity. The moon can not be reached by mortal men. Nuclear weapons will detonate the atmosphere. The Hadron Collider will create a black hole. Genetic cures will only be available to the wealthy... Ad nauseam... Anti-biotics are available to most, most of us can afford to fly. The only disadvantage is generational. Early on, only the wealthy could afford travel, medicine, flight, orbital excursions, name any advancement, plumbing, electricity, cars, phones, cell phones, hair replacement, at their advent the well to do were the only patrons. Were any of these advancements (any you can name) immoral? If that is the case then we should head back to the fields and forests to forage.
Someone's worried about a cure for "the gay," I think (or something similar, apologies to Rachel Maddow). That would be an ethical quandary for the listeners of NPR. You might even see avowed atheists come out and say such actions are against un-God's random mutative Will, until the Holy Retrovirus of Antioch turned them all into Mormons. ;^)
Let's ditch the politics. The problem isn't the morality or ethical question of "curing" colorblindness, if that is a person's choice, any more than hair coloring is an ethics issue. It's that we would have to be very sure that the virus was constrained by the wishes of the curable. In other words: non-communicable. Otherwise, this sounds like the sort of health care mandate that would not be appreciated, or ethical. The preservation of that choice is paramount.
The link appears to be dead, Jim, but I'm guessing that's the gist of it.
--
Toro
I have severe attention deficit disorder. Of the people I have met, my ADD is one of the worst. Compared to my father and grandfather, I have it worse simply because my mother went into premature labor which the physicians treated with alcohol. My ADD is so bad that there are certain things my brain simply CANNOT do. For example, when I was in High School, I could understand analytical geometry. It is not a "learning" disorder because I can learn just about anything. It is a cognitive disorder because it prevents me from cognitively DOING some things. I could explain it well enough that a struggling student could improve markedly. However, I couldn't DO the problems. It is something I struggle with every day. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to understand a problem perfectly and how to solve it, but be unable to solve it.
Everyone in my family that has ADD is quite successful. Even my great-grandfather probably had it and he was a very important chemist in his day (Morris William Travers). My own experience is that the struggle against this disorder has forced me to excel far beyond what I would have otherwise.
I am not alone. Sir Richard Branson credits his success on his dyslexia. I have always been a stubborn one..... Even if you asked me during the worst years of my school experience if I would trade in everything to be normal, I would have said no. But what of my parents who were really worried about me? Would they have done something against my will if it was available? I hope not but I am sincerely glad that was not an option.
My son has ADD and is struggling in some ways that I didn't. My wife wishes horribly that he was normal. I am glad he is not: I am sure he will have a happy, fulfilling, and successful life despite the added challenges and will be stronger for it.
I think that this sort of therapy does pose moral issues because it is too close to some of my own difficulties. Yet those difficulties have made me a better person. Moreover, those difficulties (including the fact that I was bullied repeatedly during my years in elementary and middle school) have provided me an opportunity to be cheerful through misfortune that I might otherwise have been overcome by. I have the courage to go my own way and the inward strength to be happy even when circumstances are fairly adverse. I sincerely hope that this sort of therapy for things like ADD is NEVER an option.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Folks, most of the posts on here seem to be jokes about upgrades to vision. I have a mild form of the red/green thing, and to me, there is no moral dilemma, to fix or not to fix. Rather than extrapolating the point of view that there are moral implications towards people augmenting nature, consider the opposite. If it is morally questionable to help someone see the entire "normal visible spectrum", then it should be considered just as morally iffy to fix someone who is nearsighted, farsighted, or has astigmatism, myopia, etc. If we can fix, by adding an appropriate lens, or by using a laser to adjust the shape of the lens, if we can, without having any trouble sleeping at night, then I think we CAN in fact do this, because it's not really any different from what is done when people are given canes to walk with, or hearing aids to hear better with.
What you seem to be describing is a form of meritocracy. The American dream you describe assumes that with hard work anyone can succeed.
You're mixing up quite a bit here.
Merit: it includes IQ, looks, strength, etc.
American dream: everyone is ALLOWED to attempt success (unlike how some parts of the world work, with castes or nobility)
Nothing says hard work will be enough.
Anyone could be smart, anyone could be hard-working. The worst-case of the society I am describing is one without that possibility. It is utterly unmeritocratic: no matter how hard you work, you would be unable to succeed because you were genetically inferior.
Genetic superiority is one kind of merit.
You fail because you simply aren't smart enough, or haven't enough stamina, or lack the inbuilt emotional intelligence or what have you. The elite would be like an entrenched aristocracy, except instead of being merely more wealthy, they would also be physically and mentally privileged - and they would pass those advantages on to their offspring.
This is how it works right now. Note however that there isn't a sharp line between elite and non-elite, and that the elite barely ever reproduce.
Example: I chose a wife based on exactly those attributes, and she chose me in the same way. If you could add up all the attributes to make an eliteness score, you'd likely find that my score is nearly the same as my wife's score. There is an obvious reason for that: we all chase after the best we think we can catch. Now, unsurprisingly, my kids are turning out like my wife and I. It looks like I have passed my advantages on to my offspring.
Historically the aristocracy were in fact physically different. The rich ate a diet including meat and a variety of other foods. The poor had only a limited diet of nutritionally incomplete foods - with insufficient protein, for example. Imagining eating a gruel of millet and turnips every day. The difference between rich and poor was manifested physically. You could tell a poor person just by looking at him: his status was physically marked on his body. In a physical conflict the rich would be likely to win simply because they were physically superior.
Historically??? You can tell today. Obesity is very common among the poor people who live on corn syrup and trans fats. The rich folk subsist on organic produce and seafood. Lots of desirable things are associated with each other: having money, being educated, being tall, being non-obese, looking attractive, facial symmetry, not having STDs, etc.
The difference is that today the poor are not excluded by law. They are unlikely to succeed, but they are allowed to try. We have social mobility, not a social lottery.
I'm red/green colorblind. Don't I get a say in whether I get that corrected?
Is this the culmination of the "differently abled" nonsense? I know -- let's ban glasses. It's morally wrong for people to be "forced" to be able to read street signs.
Bah!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So if you've got a Darwin sticker on your car you shouldn't be in favor of any health care since "only the strong survive."
Let's make a deal: we provide the health care as long as they don't reproduce.
Colorblindness is 100 points of badness, minor hearing loss is 10 points, severe hearing loss is 50 points, total hearing loss is 300 points, diabetes is 50 points, each infection requiring antibiotics is 1 point...
When you reach 1000 points, we sterilize you.
No, we'd have to cure the pedantic gene, first. Summary aside, I don't see why you focus in on the colorblindness aspect of this and ignore that we're talking about the morality of genetically modifying humans toward normalcy.
In short, I can't see how I would be as far off-topic as your pedantry is. Whatever you may think about homosexuality, it's only dominant in a small segment of the population, and that segment is large enough that a subculture has formed around it (as it also has in the case of the deaf community).
Now, given that the whole point of arguing over the morality of something like this was the "where does it end" aspect, I really don't see how it's off-topic to discuss another potential gene (especially when, as you well know, the gay community takes the stand that their homosexuality was not by choice) and the fact that it could be cured. (Even if there's no gay gene per se, there may very well be some genetic basis, especially with respect to the production of sex hormones.)
And I don't see how you get that I posted that for "the sole purpose of being controversial." Does this topic make you uncomfortable? Sorry, but we're discussing morality here. You can't just squirm away from the uncomfortable questions that come up when it's discussed if you expect to be taken seriously.
Major problem with your logic is that any harm you can do to others they can do to you and very possibly worse. It follows the flawed conspiracy theory that corporations hire people to assassinate people. But if that were true, why aren't we seeing more deaths to important corporate people or politicians or their families? Assassins work for relatively cheap compared to Stanford graduates and it's very affordable to corporations but why aren't they doing it? Why aren't wealthy people paying off assassins much less on an institutionalized level?
Couple reasons for this. Even mobsters who have murdered people eventually have families they care about and they eventually go legit (e.g., Las Vegas). They trade in their assassins for Public Relations, Marketing, Engineers, Lawyers, Lobbyists, etc even though all of these professions are more expensive than some meat head that knows how to off people. Now if mobsters default to this kind of behavior, what are the odds of someone who grew up shielded from violence, who has even more to lose in life playing this dangerous game?
The outcome that you're suggesting would never be permitted on a societal level in a democracy. The disadvantaged will always outvote you.
...till they find the gene to "cure" homosexuality. Hoo boy.
There seem to be some advantages to colour blindness. Apparently people who are completely colour blind (almost exclusively men, and very rare) can pick forms out of distracting foreground/background patterns better than people with normal vision. They also seem to enjoy an advantage in night vision. Presumably people with red/green colour blindness (the common form) also enjoy some advantages over people with normal vision under some circumstances.
Knowing these facts, it seems overwhelmingly obvious that curing the problem is the way to go...and the cure would very likely include the possibility of restoring the condition or creating it, should the need arise.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
There's a political position that "curing deafness" can be immoral. It's even been called "cultural genocide". See this National Association for the Deaf position statement, Deaf Culture, Cochlear Implants, and Elective Disability: "Many within the medical profession continue to view deafness essentially as a disability and an abnormality and believe that deaf and hard of hearing individuals need to be "fixed" by cochlear implants. This pathological view must be challenged and corrected by greater exposure to and interaction with well-adjusted and successful deaf and hard of hearing individuals."
I am colorblind and it is a serious handicap.
Before the euro, my country had two bank notes of similar color. I couldn't tell one from the other by color. One of 10 times the value of the other. On a few occasions, I received more change than expected.
I can't open an atlas and use it like you normally would. On every high school exam, the teacher had to help.
I am also a physicist and I couldn't do the spectra analysis practicum during my first year of study. I am likewise limited in the amount of colors I can use to graph data. Some data are multicolored 2D contour plots. Either I have to ask someone what the values are or make educated guesses or apply other time consuming tricks.
On the traffic lights, red is up, green is bottom. I hope they never change it/make it random or my life will be cut short.
It limits my options in life. I can never be a chemist for example.
I also feel I am missing out on some of the beauty in the world.
And so on and so on.
If someone loses a leg in an accident, do you deny him a wheel chair or prosthetic limb? Do you deny someone glasses as their eyesight deteriorates with old age? What about someone who is born deaf? Do you do deny that person the hearing aid implant?
I am colorblind and I want a cure, damnit !!!!
comes when this goes beyond fixing "issues", and starts improving on aspects of the human body.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
It seems as if they are trying to liken this to the opposition of some of the deaf community to cochlear implants. A much better example would simply be poor eyesight. It's not as though colorblind people are typically unable to function easily in a world designed for the full spectrum'd (?) to the point where they form a communal bond.
Making people more like the average, for example, curing colour blindness, is free, but enhancement costs you your balls. Making enhancement always cost and never allowing it to be got for free from parents' dna doesn't eliminate, but does reduce, some of the social implications. The rich still have an advantage, of course, but that's hardly new.
Loose lips lose spit.
That's a pretty simplistic attitude.
"Would you like to not have red hair, like just about everyone else?"
"Would you like to be shorter/taller than you are, like just about everyone else?"
We build our surroundings inaccessible to people who are short or tall beyond the standard deviation. We discriminate - some of us, at least - against those who are "different". The moral dilemma is that we really should change that rather than change those who are "different". As long as we don't, there's an enormous amount of pressure on those "different", to the point where many of them might actually answer the above questions with "yes".
"Would you like to have darker/lighter skin than you do, like just about everyone else [where you live]?"
"Would you like to have straighter/curlier hair than you do, like just about everyone else [where you live]?"
At that point we're dangerously close to racism. Which is just one form of discrimination; you can just as easily discriminate against the red-haired, the deaf, or the colour-blind.
If that's what you catch yourself doing, change yourself, not them.
It is if you have to resort to animal testing.
Sadistic asshats.
Dischromats are not handicapped, their color space has the same resolution as anyone else's but is layed out differently, giving them a well known advantage in camouflage detection for example.
Correcting major genetic defects is ethically tempting but correcting a genetic non-defect would be absurd.
Who can guarantee that this specific genetic peculiarity will not protect the species from some future lethal epidemy? I don't like geneticists playing god with a toy they do not understand at all.
Normal (to humans I guess) light is seen in the normal vertibrae way.
Infrared light needs a longer focal length, and the thing that matters is the nest below the bird. The solution is an infrared-reflective patch at the top of the eyeball, and an infrared-sensitive area at the bottom of the eyeball.
(some kind of soaring bird I don't remember, like an Eagle or vulture)
So you are gay, that can be fixed.
So you are a redhead, that can be fixed.
So you are black, that can be fixed.
We had people who wanted to create a super-human race. No thanks.
I am seriously near-sighted. It is who I am.
Now take a look at yourself, are you a blond arian god? Then someone thinks you are not perfect enough.
If you think there is no moral problem, then you have no problem with genetic screening and having your mate chosen for you on the best match and any offspring that doesn't meet standard, terminated.
That is the moral question. It ain't hard.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Are you performing at the normal level? No, then you must be fixed.
If you paid some attention to history, you would have seen the results of this desire to have everyone be "normal".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Color Blind Aid for the iPhone.
http://www.idisrupt.com/ColorBlindAid.html
I can't see the article at the moment for some reason, maybe they didn't like the Slashdotting. But as various people have said, offering the choice to be cured / altered doesn't seem wrong. However, possibly there's a real underlying point that curing these conditions isn't wrong per se but perhaps curing them wouldn't be necessary if we could fix some of society's behaviours. If we didn't always assume that everyone had the same perceptual experience then we wouldn't need to normalise people in order to participate. The flip side of a cure being everyone's choice is the tendency to say "Well, you can get a cure if you want" and not bother to make things accessible to people. Which if they have a fear or moral objections about gene therapy (say) implies pressuring people to do things they're not happy with by excluding them if they don't do the necessary actions to conform.
For the case of colour blindness it's not *that* debilitating for most people and it's probably too small and inconvenient an issue to pervasively "fix" in society any time soon simply because the condition isn't obvious to others and most people don't have it anyhow. Not having the cure isn't a serious problem and having the cure would also provide personal benefits beyond simply conforming, seeing more colours means you're getting more interesting inputs about the world. And various professions "discriminate" somewhat legitimately against colourblindness anyway so having the cure would at least give people options (examples include astronauts, pilots - you really want them to see the red warning light, though I'm skeptical about how much of a difference colour blindness really makes here if you still know where the lights are!). So I don't see that there's a great risk of unduly pressuring people to conform with this treatment.
There's a wider issue, though, which could become significant with other treatments for other conditions and so it's worth thinking about even if it's not the problem here.
Where's my ability to distinguish red from infrared and violet from ultraviolet?
I'm colour-blind and of course I'd like to see more, there's nothing to lose and a little to gain.
If they could just change the red/green LEDs to red/something-that-isn't-even-close-to-being-mistaken-for-the-same-fucking-color-by-us-daltonians LEDs, I wouldn't need a cure. You know, red/blue would work. That is the ONLY thing I resent in everyday life. Assholes. Instead they wanna prick my eye with a needle, fuck that. I don't care about being a pilot, or a chemist.
Hmmm, some people aren't affected by a disease, and providing a vaccination for others could be ethically wrong because we are trying to normalize human experience.(/sarcasm)
There are some possibly unintended consequences to seeing in IR and UV.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It is a cycle setting on a washing machine. The term "Normal" as applied to humans is medical bullshit!
What is morally wrong is telling someone with a disease or defect that they are not allowed to pursue curing themselves. People should have sole dominion over their own bodies, and if someone who is colorblind wants to see colors, it is not within the rights of The State to tell them they can't.
Mixing viruses and genes in order to "cure" something seems like the sort of situation that is bound to end up with unintended consequences.
Viruses are masters at what they do: adapt and proliferate.
Maybe I have read too many books or watched too many movies, but I wonder what the possibilities are for this to mutate, or spread, or just go horribly wrong.
I am colourblind (I do see colours, but have difficulty disguingishing) and I read about these monkeys about a year ago.
I want this treatment!
So go f*k yourself Moria Gunn, obviously, you're not colourblind.
It is morally wrong to cure your breast cancer though. Bitch!
We could just go the other way and make everyone else color-blind, like in Harrison Bergeron.
Patch Tuesday.
There are provocative questions; there are stupid question; and there are questions designed to draw attention to the asker. Is this the largest number of comments to any /. posting?
Where do I sign up to be like Susan Hogan.
Too bad my TVs and computers and even my books and newspapers are only tri-chromatic :(.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Even if a cost-effective treatment is found for most forms of deafness, there will be people who won't be able to take advantage of it and will need to be accommodated.
*Those who suffer certain sound-robbing injuries or illnesses may not be able to take advantage of treatments like cochlear implants or genetic manipulation
*Those who were deaf during their formative years will have a long, hard effort in front of them to learn to process sound and aural language. For some, their brains may not be able to adapt, for others, the effort required may simply be too much. At a minimum, it will be as difficult as learning a new spoken language, something that is very hard for most adults.
*There are many organizations out there who provide finances and other assets to help the deaf, particularly deaf children, to hear as much as technologically feasible.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A camera with an implant to the brain could someday give you 3-color vision. Think of it as a cochlear implant, but for the eyes. Due to the inherent risks of any surgery though, I doubt any American doctor would do such an implant merely to correct something as minor as color blindness.
Another thing that could be done in the very near future is to use augmented-reality glasses that highlight things which are distinguishable to most people but not to you and mark them so you can tell them apart. These same glasses, or more likely, the same technology in a digital camera, can be used by product designers to make sure their products don't cause problems to people with common forms of color-blindness.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
This situation seems to be similar to the ongoing debates about the morality of cochlear implants (for the hearing impaired): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant#Controversy
A few thoughts...
First, I'm colorblind. I'd say it impacts me maybe 1% of my life. Graphs at work must use primary colors. Earlier in life I had the damnedest time with resistor markings. Even now when I crimp CAT5 cable I have someone double-check the colors. For a lot of colorblind people, they can detect the colors, it's just really hard and they have to stare and concentrate. Of course total colorblindness (no color at all) is a different, more rarer condition.
What I wanted to point out though is that earlier in the thread someone got chastised for asking what people would think about a "cure" for gayness if it turned out to be due to a genetic difference. The reason that's a good question is that, unlike colorblindness, it brings into the picture concepts of self-identity and culture. AFAIK no one identifies strongly as being colorblind, or considers themselves part of the "colorblind community".
We ran into this exact problem with my son, who has the Connexin 26 mutation, making him profoundly deaf. We were faced with a choice regarding the "cure" of cochlear implants. The deaf community is strongly against them, in large part because they see the coming demise of sign language and their culture (IMHO). They would go so far as to use disingenuous arguments like "let the child decide when they are 18"--way after the period of language acquisition. In the end we decided that being deaf wasn't "normal" despite what the deaf community said. Was that elitism or practicality? Being deaf has a much bigger impact on one's life than being colorblind.
Before the euro, my country had two bank notes of similar color.
Until recently, all of my country's bank notes had a similar color. I and my then-250-million fellow Americans somehow managed to cope.
I can't open an atlas and use it like you normally would.
There are enough colors that printers and online-map-makers should be able to use color combinations that don't impact the color-blind.
I am also a physicist and I couldn't do the spectra analysis practicum during my first year of study.
Yeah, this hurts. Photographers have similar issues. With technology, there should be a way of having a computer tell you and other color-blind scientists and photographers what color most people see when they look at the image, but that's not necessarily cheap or easy to do.
Some data are multicolored 2D contour plots.
Again, software that generates these plots should have a "color-blind-safe" option, and journals should require their use OR require that the authors include enough additional information to make it clear what the data is to color-blind people. This is not an unreasonable accommodation. On a similar vein, web-site design- and accessibility-auditing tools should point out color combinations that won't work for the color-blind.
I can never be a chemist for example.
Yea, this is a drag. You can't make a rule ordering Mother Nature to change the colors of chemicals to accommodate color-blindness. Well, you could make a rule, but good luck enforcing it. Sorry.
I also feel I am missing out on some of the beauty in the world.
None of us can see all of the beauty in this wonderful world.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
After a few generations of letting infants play with power tools, who knows what carpentry skills would evolve.
The ability to work effectively with a few fingers or limbs missing comes to mind...
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So is being much shorter or taller than average, being left-handed in a right-handed culture, having uncorrectable or corrected vision less than about 20-40, having a lot less physical stamina than average, uncorrectable noticeable hearing loss, having an IQ below about 80 or 90, having a lot less common sense than average, having the infirmities normally associated with old age, easy-to-accommodate food or medicine allergies, etc. etc. The list goes on and on.
My point is there are many disabilities that are minor in impact. Most of us will have at least one during our lifetime well before old age, and those who don't will likely have an immediate family member who does.
Yes, society should make reasonable accommodations, such as designing tools that left-handed people can use and where practical using color schemes that don't impact the color-blind. However, it's not a major handicap like near-total blindness, having only enough physical stamina to walk short distances without a rest, or food allergies so severe or complex it's hard to eat without hurting yourself.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Cue the old Yorkshireman...
Seriously... I was -7.5 OD and -6.5 OS, before my PRK, not to mention the severe astigmatism. Pre-surgery, I would have killed to be -1.5.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm colourblind (at least that's what they say). I think, though, that everyone else sees the world wrong: it's a massive consipracy against me.
The only trouble I've had with this is that I had to cheat in the vision test when getting my drivers license. It went surprisingly well :P
Enjoy: First mate, bring me my red shirt!
If your brown pants are a shade of green, are you a Vulcan pirate or a Romulan one?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why every time somebody does or says something monumentally stupid there is always somebody ready to invoke the cheap spectre of political correctness???
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Simple statistics and common sense should suffice to kill such stupid idea quicky.
If they were advantages they would have propagated amongst most people.
They haven't
End of discussion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How could it POSSIBLY be a bad thing to offer someone a chance to see what they have been missing? This is one of the dumbest concerns I think I have ever read! People are not going to be forced to undergo the procedure so the moral aspect is kind of a non-issue. As for the "where does it stop" argument, that has always been a bullshit excuse to disagree with something you might slightly disagree with. The even funnier part of that is that the examples that are listed are usually mostly unrelated to the argument at hand. So being someone who IS red-green color blind you ask if I want to see what I've been missing... HELL YEAH!
The choice model works well for consenting adults. It gets sticky when it comes to "fixing" your children.
If my baby has a gene that makes him have terrible, uncorrectable body odor and I choose not to fix it, then I enroll him in public school kindergarten, do the teachers and other students (and their parents) have any say-so about it? What if the body odor is so bad that it affects the learning environment for the other kids, what then?
What if I'm an anti-gay bigot (maybe my dad ran off with a man, leaving my mom to raise us kids, or maybe I'm a bisexual who is half-self-hating) and they discover a gay gene and I "fix" it in my kid or use genetic screening to make sure I don't have a "gay kid?" Is that immoral?
What if I'm a rabidly heterophobic lesbian and I use genetic screening to make sure that my egg and my sperm-donor sperm will produce a gay or lesbian child? Is that immoral?
Substitute tall, short, light skin, dark skin, blue eyes, brown eyes, egghead, average intelligence, musically gifted, athletically gifted, etc. for gay/not-gay if and when genes that control these traits are discovered.
THAT is the thrust of the moral argument.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
People wouldn't need eyeglasses if documents didn't have small print! They should mandate a minimum 72 point type in all books and displays instead!
I read an argument that humans have always extended their biological capabilities with technology, that this may even be true of proto-humans -- a human with a stick is a cyborg.
(I wish I could find where I read the argument originally.)
Given the possibility of enhancing our abilities with technology, people will do it.
The problem I can see with the original scenario is the worry that normalizing people's biology may have unanticipated consequences -- that color-blindness might have some advantage, that may not be obvious. Think of the sickle cell trait, which helps resist malaria.
Could a cure for deafness be immoral? How about congenital blindness? How about epilepsy?
Some people have too much time and money if they sit about worrying about nonsense like the morality of curing color blindness. And why in the world should society get to decide if something is moral or not. Why not let the person who is about to have a color blind child or a color blind person deal with their own issues?
I am colorblind and it is a serious handicap.
I am colorblind as well, and it is only a handicap, because people make it one.
I am also a physicist and I couldn't do the spectra analysis practicum during my first year of study. I am likewise limited in the amount of colors I can use to graph data. Some data are multicolored 2D contour plots. Either I have to ask someone what the values are or make educated guesses or apply other time consuming tricks.
I am a physicist as well and except for spectras it would not be a problem unless people made it a problem.
Using colors to distinguish between data is discriminatory. Use dashed and dotted lines, there would be no problem. The problem comes when people use colors for these kinds of thing, without considering what colors would be good for everyone.
On the traffic lights, red is up, green is bottom. I hope they never change it/make it random or my life will be cut short.
My rule to remember, red is up, I'm not going to heaven, green is down...
They should have used different colors, and symbols to distinguish as well. A man made problem, designed to discriminate handicaped.
It limits my options in life. I can never be a chemist for example.
I always hated in chemistry when if it turned purple it meant one thing and if it turned blue it meant another.
I also feel I am missing out on some of the beauty in the world. ... ...
snip
I am colorblind and I want a cure, damnit !!!!
If you feel like that, then you must be seriously colorblind. I'm more colorblind than most and I never felt that I miss out on the beauty in the world. But there are some people who have really rare conditions of colorblindness.
What a stupid argument. "Is it wrong to help someone that was born with a defect that inhibits their abilities in the real world?" I suppose giving prothetic legs to amputees is morally wrong too.
Say I accept that we can reach agreement about a definition of normal sight. That does not change the argument I am making, which is that once we start using this technique we will almost immediately come up against a different question of normal for which the answer is not obvious, and it would be very easy to cross that line without realizing it until after the fact. There is a slippery slope here. Which is not to say we shouldn't do it at all. But we need to carefully weigh the consequences and determine where we wish to stop before we begin, because if we do it after it may be too late to slow the momentum for improvement and prevent the fracturing of society into physically distinct classes.
The fact that anyone would even ask whether or not it would be moral to cure color blindness is a symptom of the fact that morality is still considered to be outside the realm of reason, that there is no way to get from an 'is' to an 'ought'.
Ayn Rand pretty much blew that notion out of the water when she identified the purpose and nature of morality in her essay "The Objectivist Ethics" in her book "The Virtue of Selfishness."
Some women can see even better then Normal. We see in Red, Blue, Green, but they have a 4th. How about curing me of not being able to see the 4th?
There's a huge assumption in the phrase "colour blindness". Most languages call it Daltonism, after the discoverer, which makes sense because most of us can see colours, just not quite the same ones you do. For most of us blue and yellow are seen the same as an ISO standard human. Green is more interesting. I see several colours which I've had to learn to group together as "green", since they don't have much in common to me. Yellow-green is obvious, but I also see blue-green (not turquoise - different colour) and red-green. Those infernal bi-coloured LEDs show red-green. Blue-green is the colour of a "go" traffic light green in my country (UK) and in most countries I've visited. Twenty years ago I would still see the odd old red-green traffic "go" light, but they seem to have been replaced as a matter of policy. The difference between a blue-green "go" and a red "stop" is huge for me: no chance of confusion. An amber (I think it's called yellow in the USA) traffic light is much closer to red, and I have to use the position to distinguish them.
Size of the colour patch also matters: I can distinguish finer gradations in colour if the patch is larger. Luminance differences also help. This is part of the reason why specific mains wiring colours in the UK (and I think the EU) were chosen: for most colour-blind people, there is no risk of confusion.
Would I get it changed? Possibly, but it would be a risk trade-off like laser eye surgery for my myopia, with a much more restricted up-side. It would be useful for getting the right white balance for my photography, but not as much of an advantage for that as you might expect.
Much more important, lower risk, and easier is to make sure that you use the right colours for user interfaces - road signs, software etc. - or provide some sort of word-around. Let me give an example: I have to prepare a weekly Powerpoint 2003 slide summarising the state of my projects. There are two places where I have to colour something red/amber/green. One is a cell in a table, and the other is a filled circle. Unfortunately there are different dialogs for editing these colours: one contains two rectangles - the first containing recently used colours, and the second a wider palette. The other dialog contains a hexagonal palette. It doesn't matter hugely exactly which amber or green I use, but I'd like it consistent across the slide. This two-dialog arrangement means that I can't use the position of a colour in a palette to get a consistent selection.
Since come what may, you will always be dealing with people with uncorrected vision even if an upgrade is available, it's worth taking a few minutes to get this right when you are doing design work. It doesn't need to compromise the experience of anyone with standard sight, any more than a blue-green traffic light bothers them.
A lot of human genetics is actually based around some people being designated more as caretakers for their relatives and other community members than sources of future offspring themselves. Take menopause, for example. Menopause extends the life of women by stopping them from risking their health with childbirth. This preserves women to live on as reservoirs of community knowledge and experience to teach to children. (If you'd like to read more about that, I recommend Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee.")
Homosexuality (in men, at least) is most frequently found in later born sons. Past a certain point, extra sons are not really needed to pass on the genes of both parents and could fulfill similar societal roles as old people in assisting in the care-taking of the first-born's children. I think I remember reading somewhere that a study in Samoa showed that gay men were likely to dote over their nieces and nephews. Here's an article on that.
In tight-knit communities (i.e. the kind of hunter-gather tribes that dominated thousands of years of human evolution), having additional hunters & gatherers to provide for your grandkids in the forms of sons and daughter that provide for your firstborn's children may be of greater advantage than just another source of mouths to feed. In many hunter-gatherer societies, infanticide was used as a means of "birth control" to keep the task of feeding ones children manageable. This became less frequent with the dawn of agriculture, but having additional relatives around to provide the children of others is a survival strategy for yourself and for your first-born (and best provided for) children because it means that you have less need to limit the children you do have. (You can think of homosexuality as a "parasitic" trait for latter born children to aid the earlier born ones.)
Additionally, cultural norms in many pre-modern societies either forced homosexuals to adopt heterosexual lifestyles or allowed for homosexuals to engage in sex with their own gender for pleasure while being required to perform their "spousal duties" with a wife. (Think of ancient Greek pederasty for example.) Bisexual practices allow for homosexual preferences to survive and even flourish, as in bonobos who use lesbian sex for social bonding.
Another study has suggested that homosexual men tend to have more fertile female siblings and more homosexual relatives on their mothers' side meaning that homosexual genes could be passed down through unaffected maternal lines. This jives well with the theory of homosexuality as a tool for putting more of your eggs in the best basket and designating other children to a support role.
Lastly, as the order of birth examples above hint, homosexuality is only partially genetic. Environmental pressures both before and after birth can influence sexual orientation. Genes that increase sensitivity to these pressures can exist in heterosexuals and be passed on with no ill effect on survivability (or increased effect on survivability by assuring extra care for children with a homosexual uncle).
All of the above factors provide a rationale for homosexuality as a positively adaptive trait and one that has a clear mechanism for being passed on.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you read the article, it's pretty thought-provoking. The UK government allows for couples to select for hearing children via IVF (i.e. they can choose to throw out an embryo for being destined to be deaf), but deaf couples do not have the right to select for deaf children. The deaf couple in question is livid because this essentially is a eugenics program where the UK government says that it's okay for parents to decide that a child should never be born because it might be deaf -- but refuses to allow deaf people to do the same with children they don't want. The end goal is to allow deafness to be utterly eliminated from society. To those who can hear, it might seem like the laudible elimination of a tragic disability. To those who grew up deaf, it's nothing less than a declaration that their lives are intrinsically less valuable than ours -- that they are less worthy of legal protection as humans.
But if after growing up deaf, you became upset at your parents for "denying" you hearing, what would be the grounds for the case? Your parents didn't splice deaf genes into you before birth. They simply allowed you to be born and didn't allow someone else who could hear to be born. Basically, you would be suing them for not killing you and not allowing someone else to be born in your place.
How could a court let a case like that go forward?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
A few reasons it's bad:
1) It violates the "no duty to act" principle in civil torts by attaching a duty to the parents to somehow correct such an embryos defects before allowing it to be born (which is currently technologically infeasible) or else face liability for circumstances beyond their control (i.e. which genes that particular human embryo inherited during fertilization).
2) It places state control over a parent's right to choose to keep a child which is as or more offensive to many than the notion of state control of a parent's right to abort a child.
3) It establishes a eugenic precedent that could be extended to other traits that become unpopular which may have beneficial side-effects. (Think schizophrenia and artistic creativity.) Downs is pretty universally awful, but what about autism?
4) It creates horrible issues of standing, particularly in the form of legally cognizable harm and redressability. (I'm talking from the perspective of the American concept of standing, so I don't know if this applies in the UK.) You are suing because your parents didn't choose to kill you before birth. If they had done so, you would be dead, which most if not all civil and criminal courts consider to be a worse fate than mental impairment. How much money does it take to make up for the fact that you were born?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
No, of course it is not immoral to cure a disease.
Is color-blindness a disease which should be cured whenever possible or a valuable human trait that gives enhanced abilities in certain situations (such as in low-light or against certain camouflaged targets)? If you don't assume that it's a disease, then is it acceptable to eliminate a trait from humanity simply because our society designs itself around the visual abilities of the majority?
And then where do you draw the line on what is a disease and should be eliminated at every turn and what is simply an acceptable different between people? Color-blindness seems to cause far more disadvantages than advantages, but what about certain mental / personality traits, like mild Aspergers or transsexualism? Who gets to decide what is a disease and what is a variation, and which way does society default when it's vague? Do you let parents get to decide what kind of abilities and personality their children will have, and will it be worth it if a child decides not to purse the career their parent engineered them for?
(Personally, I'm in favor of allowing a cure for colorblindness -- even before birth -- but I'm not so arrogant to decide that it's a crazy thing to even think about objecting to or that people are reactionary lunatics for being upset by it.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
huh.
Indeed, I have met many a cow that thought like a woman.
I am colorblind and it is a serious handicap.
Before the euro, my country had two bank notes of similar color. I couldn't tell one from the other by color. One of 10 times the value of the other. On a few occasions, I received more change than expected.
Can't you look at the numbers ? Sorry if this sounded offensive, I'm not colorblind but generally recognize banknotes by their stated quantity.
I am also a physicist and I couldn't do the spectra analysis practicum during my first year of study. I am likewise limited in the amount of colors I can use to graph data. Some data are multicolored 2D contour plots. Either I have to ask someone what the values are or make educated guesses or apply other time consuming tricks.
I'm assuming this is done on the computer. Isn't there some kind of program that would shift colors on screen to more friendly spectrum ?
If there isn't then it should be easy to do as a compiz plugin or standalone compositor (or their equivalents on win/mac).
You could also make a similar app for any programmable phone with camera and big screen to help you in the real world.
On the traffic lights, red is up, green is bottom. I hope they never change it/make it random or my life will be cut short.
Don't worry, nobody will change it, precisely for this reason.
No such luck, you are from the 3rd world. Here in America, where physics students aren't studying highschool science constructs, we do not tolerate such whining!
...or is that more of a cadet blue?
Moira Gunn is just an idiot.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
If I wanted to be normal I would probably have said yes.
So far nothing has shown me that would have been a wrong choice.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Screw the self-serving pontificating. I'm colourblind and would give a great deal not to be. Part of my body is incapable of performing basic operations that others do with ease - if that's not a disability I don't know what is. If there's a fix, and it's affordable, I'm grabbing it with both hands! I respect the views of other colourblind people who feel differently about their condition, but it's pretty offensive to be told by people with perfect colour vision that I should be happy with my lot, or that people shouldn't "judge", or whatever PC crap happens to be the flavour of the day.
Stupid people have to have something to worry about. I think she has been watching too much Star Trek. At the college To me it is hardly a moral nor ethical question. Not treating them is like the arguments we used to hear about not giving someone with a broken arm or suffering from something like kidney stones some narcotics. It's unethical and morally bankrupt. She should admit her error.
I'm bald in red, green, blue, monochrome, or acoustic emissions (for any bats reading this). And the blind would figure it out if I let them. The question is will this approach cure baldness? If colorblindness is a by-product, that's fine with me.
Applying the same rationalization to other medical problems is it morally wrong to give immunizations, blood transfusions, artificial limbs, false teeth, fillings, even band-aids?!
The traffic lights thing is poor design. I heard that in Australia the green light has some blue mixed in so it looks different to the red one for red/green colourblind. I don't know if there's any truth to that statement because I'm not colourblind myself, but it is what I heard.
This is the exact same argument that has been raging in the Deaf community since Cochlear Implants became available.
This isn't eugenics or baby engineering here. My daughter is mildly autistic, I love her more than myself, but I would cure her autism in an instant. Believe or not, some parents of autistic children think I'm a monster for that.
What's so hard about this: "Would you like us to fix X?" I suppose the word fix implies something is broken, I'll let the PC wordsmiths work on some fluffy feel good substitute.
But holy crap, it's colorblindness, an affliction for which there is practically no social stigma, yet it does make colorblind folks' lives harder, so yeah, get a cure and offer it.
We have sideways traffic lights at some of the small intersections here (generally neighborhoods where trees, small roads, and no trucks allowed mean low poles and wires). Just for you, a hint: red = left.
If you really want to ask, is putting plastic covers over outlets for safety of our children morally wrong? Is all the safety training and safety equipment morally wrong? Without the advances of safety we would have millions of people dying and darwinism would actually be working in the human race. Humanity would actually be able to evolve to our next level except because of our intelectual abilities, we have staved off our next level of evolution.
Change the question, is curing cancer morally wrong? Curing color blindness wont change much. Those who are color blind know not to go into bomb diffusion jobs or other color coded problem jobs. Evolutionary wise those who are color blind are not getting themseleves killed or dying out of the human gene pool and instead are passing on the 'damaged' gene set.
Question now is, do we now chose our evolutionary paths now?
Yes.
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
Be careful driving if you find yourself driving in the village of Tipperary Hill, Syracuse NY.
The light at the end of the tunnel is a train.
I'm an American. I can't tell banknotes apart by color either. am I handicapped or disadvantaged???
> people make that choice everyday when it comes to choosing a profession and no one ever suggests that such choices are morally wrong.
Prostitute. Crack dealer. Money launderer. Gun runner. Gold smuggler. Thief. Con merchant. Banker (but I repeat myself).
Color blindness makes it near impossible to see Cyan/Red Anaglyphs.
As a Stereographer, If I had a child that turned out to be color blind... and there was a procedure that could let them see color, I would want to be able to give them that as an option.
As with all medical advances (and technological advances)... the developments... and options they provide aren't moral dilemmas... it's what you do with those options.
Mood medications have uses (anti-depressants can be helpful for people that struggle with depression, for long-term, or short-term).
What I wish people would focus on... is not the moral impact of giving someone without site, vision... or someone who is deaf, the gift of sound.
I wish people would focus on the misuse and over prescription of Mood medications.
A.D.D. medications are the worst.
The human mind is in a constant state of development from childhood... into adulthood.
If a child has difficulty paying attention... or sitting still... it's time to deploy a different teaching style for the child in question.
I was given A.D.D. meds on two occasions durring my childhood.
Before meds... I was a happy-go-lucky child. Within the 1st month of Ritalin, I went from an imaginative energetic child, to a robotic, paranoid, hypochondriac. I pulled out all of my eyelashes (and I have no idea why).
I was nine years old... and had my 1st suicidal thoughts.
After I was taken off of Ritalin I went back to somewhat normal after about 1 year. I struggled with depression occasionally.
2 Years later, another lazy teacher convinced my parents to try meds again... Norpramin.
This time within a month I stopped sleeping altogether, started hallucinating. I became dehydrated, my spit turned to foam, my lips bled onto my pillow every morning.
I became even more paranoid, and depressed than before. I was so emotionally unstable that I had to be pulled out of school, and weened off of the meds.
Even a year after being weened from the meds I still had extreme mood swings for no reason. I would be at my desk and my pencil would break... and I'd laugh at it hysterically... and then start crying.
All throughout my teenage years... and into adulthood I continued to struggle with mood swings, and depression, that had never been present before I was put on meds.
I tried all kinds of mood meds to control this.
It wasn't until age 28 that I finally felt emotionally stable enough to ween myself from depression meds.
Now that I am med free, I've become more creative. More social. More easygoing... and generally... more happy.
It took me 18 years to recover from the damage that A.D.D. meds did to me as a child.
That's 18 years I could have been making more friends, creating more art, being generally more productive, and more happy.