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Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome
An anonymous reader writes: We've previously discussed a system called CRISPR-cas9, which is dramatically reducing the cost and effort required to do gene editing. In fact, the barrier to entry is now so low that a group of biologists is calling for a moratorium on using the method to modify the human genome. Writing in the journal Science (abstract), the scientists warn that we've reached the point where the ethical questions surrounding DNA alteration can be put off no longer. David Baltimore, one of the group's members, said, "You could exert control over human heredity with this technique, and that is why we are raising the issue. ... I personally think we are just not smart enough — and won't be for a very long time — to feel comfortable about the consequences of changing heredity, even in a single individual." Another group of scientists called for a similar halt to human germline modification, and the International Society for Stem Cell Research says it agrees.
I can see fathers objecting to their daughter's suitors on the grounds that they are GMOs. They'll start to demand labeling.
-Dave
You can't stop it if there's money to be made or a country sees it as a security advantage. How is eliminating a hereditary malady any different than a vaccine?
Ask anyone with Cystic Fibrosis about the morality of gene editing.
While this time he does have a point - there needs to be an ethical discussion - he is another character who has ruffled a lot of feathers after winning his Nobel Prize. He's up there with James Watson and Kary Mullis in the realms of prize winners who some of us wish would just go away so we can go back to just doing science.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I don't think a resolution passed by an NGO or a couple of research groups are going to stop this. There's too much profit potential for successful edits. What would a parent pay to have a child that was free of a genetic defect? Blonde hair and blue eyes? Etc...
(name withheld by request)
Even if scientists in the Western World ban human editing, there are many parts of the world (For example China; India; South America) where ethics are not always that high up the list of priorities. The technology will be used, as long as there is money to be made by doing so.
From that point of view, we might as well open up the technology for every one to use, and let everybody handle it as he or she sees fit.
I know that 'genetic engineering' is something that attracts somewhat nebulous 'ethics' questions like shit attracts flies; but the concerns in TFA seem more like 'risk questions' rather than 'ethics questions'(except in the weak sense that it's very plausibly unethical to do highly risky things that will end up affecting large numbers of people if they go badly).
I don't wish to say that there aren't ethical questions(or, if there aren't, they could be raised); but "Scientists say that germline modification is a dangerously risky idea because we don't really know what we are doing, and once we do it the only way to stop it will be to track down the one we modified and sterilize or incinerate all his/her descendants." and "Scientists have ethical issues with genetic engineering because it is squicky" are two very different types of argument.
In terms of risk assessment, the argument against germline work seems much stronger, since you will pretty much have to get eugenic on a potentially nontrival number of people if you fuck up; but modification of individuals seems to slot rather neatly into the same basic cost/benefit calculus that we use for drugs, surgery, and other matters medical: yeah, it sucks that there are risks; but the world is rotten with diseases and conditions where the current standard of care is really depressing, so as long as you keep it to informed-consenting subjects, what's the problem?
Yes, lets let these Drs Frankenstein create a slave race of humans bred for their genetic material and then discarded. All so Brent and Muffy can edit their designer child. Disgusting.
Once we decide that editing the human genome is ethical, it will only lead to another huge controversy. Do you use vi to edit the human genome or Emacs?
I think these idiots watched too much Star Trek and took that show's paranoia as truth rather than fiction.
This is progress and we need to embrace it.
The fittest genes – edited or not – will survive. Ivory tower academics debating whether we should edit or not won't stop it from happening.
There's no stopping technology, and many cases, e.g. genetic disorders, where there will little desire to do so.
But starting the discussion is a good idea.
Sooner or later gene modifications will happen. If not legally - then underground. And especially so, when companies start testing DNA for business purposes. (Health insurance, job insurance and etc..). So why push it underground instead of facing it and perhaps reasonably regulating it?
That's pointless, So there are genetic Diseases that can be cured using Germline modification, techniques that don't work in "Adult" individuals.
Even if you outlaw human germline modification other less scrupulous countries won't, As such people who want children but don't want to pass on genetic illnesses such as these can merely get such treatments abroad assuming they are wealthy enough, serving only to keep the benefits of this technology in the hands of the powerful few.
Why the comment title? A Godlike Trans-human AI is trapped in a box. Should we let it out even if it can subvert our society? The argument goes that if it exists the technology to create others like it already exists as such locking up that particular specimen is pointless, if you agree to let it out at least you have some chance of guiding it's actions.
OK, we are a bit late, but
KHAAAAN!
post!!!!111111111111
Thanks to genetically engineered faster than human reaction times.
Humans are rationalising, not rational.
Throughout history ethics and morality (religious strictures) have been determined by what was most advantageous to the society/rule makers. Women weren't allowed out of the seraglio until we had birth control to prevent expensive children (and brains became valued over brawn). Slavery died with the industrial revolution and more efficient forms of motive power replacing jobs that could be done well by unmotivated workers.
So academics will fill journals with arguments and have endless wankfests in exotic locations (as for recent issues surrounding test tube babies, genetically modified crops, carbon taxes etc) but ultimately society will choose gene editing because of the economic benefits of smarter children and less disease.
"Though such a moratorium would not be legally enforceable and might seem unlikely to exert global influence, there is a precedent. In 1975, scientists worldwide were asked to refrain from using a method for manipulating genes, the recombinant DNA technique, until rules had been established."
I don't know enough about the recombinant DNA moratorium mention in the article as precedent, so I don't know if that really worked as well as they seem to think, or why. Maybe it really worked, or maybe experiments were done in secret.
But if I was a genetic researcher in one of the referred-to countries with more lax regulatory environments, I would be rubbing my hands in anticipation, and thinking "Yes, please have a moratorium so I can get the jump on you." Seriously, Russia, Iran or China are going to not research this stuff because some American scientists asked nicely? Give me a break.
I've been "editing the human genome" with my wife for years now...
The fact that hereditary edits can me made, does not imply that we can immediately cure all hereditary diseases as well.
True but fatal, genetic diseases are a good reason not to ban use of the technique so that research on using it to cure them can proceed. However I would support strong regulation to limit it to cases where there is severe disability or greatly shortened life span. Indeed I would go as far as to say than an outright ban in these cases is unethical because of the potential to cure these diseases.
There may be risks for the first to undergo any treatments developed but this has to be set against the risk of certain death in some cases. We allow this to happen - with proper controls in place - for new drugs, why should this treatment be different?
It does, but won't stop panty twisters getting theirs in a bunch.
We perform a human genome modification every time we make a baby. The results are not spectacularly successful; we've an enormous number of genetic defects.
Time to kick the dice bag away, and let humans sort it out instead of god. Modify away. No more diabetes. No more lupus. No more EDS. Let it end. Human evolution is now in our own hands.
Most of the fear around genetic manipulation falls around Science-Fiction scenarios. Which in order to make it entertaining they will often play with the worst case scenarios. Super soldiers, Freaky Person/Animal hybrids, etc. which to get such a case means a lot of experimentation, that would lead to a lot of dead or grossly Ill people. Such science on humans is already unethical, as your are giving birth to a bunch of people with a high chance of failure, and Illness.
However the goal for Genetic Manipulation in humans, isn't making someone a super human, but an average human. For people with genetic traits that make people sick and prone to disease. Giving them a chance to live a healthy normal life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I think this is a problem that will eventually work itself out. Genetic modification is, essentially, not much more than a far more efficient form of eugenics/breeding; this has gone on since humans found out two black goats don't get a white one.
At least so far human nature has shown to prefer the natural over the synthetic when given the choice; the presence of flaws and irregularities is often seen as a sign of beauty in small amounts. There will be people who choose to genetically alter their offspring to better suit their wants, but people will grow accustomed and able to pick out the slight tells in this, just as we get an eerie feel of fakeness with people raised extremely strictly; their flawlessness is offputting.
It'll be great for solving some of the obviously awful hereditary diseases and conditions, some people will go overboard and be a great lesson for the rest of us.
Natural evolution takes millions of years and doesn't select for traits we would find useful. It is time to take matter into our own hands. Start hacking genome. Sure, there will be numerous failed experiments and disasters along the way, but self-programming is the only way we can get better. Do-nothing alternative eventually leads to resource exhaustion and collapse of our civilization.
Ethics? Who cares about some rigid individualist standards that are based on logically bankrupt bearded-man-in-the-sky concepts, ones still subscribing to such dated notions will be left on the heap of history. There is no ethical problems with species struggling for improvement, but there is imperative to do so.
Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease.
But not yet please. I have two issues: First, We still don't know enough to prevent unintended consquences or complications. We could edit-out one problem and accidently edit-in another.But one day, in the not-so-distant future, perhaps another generation or two, yes - definately. We should erradicate all heritable diseases.
The second thing, I would draw the line between correcting errors/curing diseases and between creating eugenic supermen. Please no Gattica-style selection of socially prefered traits to create a dis/u/topia of ubermenchen and untermenchen.
The quote was from Bob Edwards who until a few years ago was host of NPR Morning Edition. (BTW, the quotes in the game were all narrated by Leonard Nimoy, which was super cool)
Define "scum." I find your comments abhorrent. How certain are you you wouldn't be selected for "removal?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Who wants to live forever?
Time to hack the aging gene.
1) Copying DNA from one human to another.
2) Copying DNA from a non-human into a human (or a large amount of human DNA into a non-human creature)
3) Creating our own DNA from scratch.
These three things are dramatically different. Set 1, modifying a human to be like another human - for example giving anyone that wants the gene for blue eyes, the gene for blue eyes, is almost within our grasp - technologically and ethically. I see no problem with allowing that at all.
Set 2 is much more problematic. We don't know enough to do it safely and need to set up a long term panel to do it. Luckily right now it is too difficult for us to intentionally do. Hopefully by the time we learn how, we will have the proper safeguards in place.
Set 3 is pure science fiction now. Our knowledge of DNA is no where near advanced enough to attempt this in any but the most random manner. It should be forbidden at least until Set 2 becomes routine, then we might be able to do it safely, along with whatever new safeguards we will need to enforce.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"An idealist is one who helps the other fellow to make a profit" -- Henry Ford
I don't see any ethics problem with treating genetic diseases, which is where this tech will be applied first - though I'm sure that in both the more progressively-inclined and the most God-fearing parts of the US and Europe there will be a Natural Disease Coalition, led by the likes of Dolce and Gabbana, promoting breast cancer as the Lord's will.
The ethics will get interesting when we start to see lines of humanity modified to fit extreme environments, such as microgravity or underwater. At some point there will be speciation, when humans adapted for one environment can no longer breed with "root" humanity. Our common heritage will eventually have to be taught as history.
There will be life on Mars, and it will probably be the result of intelligent design.
It's time to resolve the ethics of telling other people what they can and can't do with their own DNA and reproductive choices.
And the resolution is: you can butt right the fuck out. It's none of your god damned business.
Ask people who try to download movies how effective American law can be. Doors are being kicked down all over the world - and after the new secretly negotiated treaty is slammed up our collective Terran ani, watching Dobie Gillis illegally will subject you prison time all over the planet. When Americans get Jesus about their notions, armored goons move in all over the world. Genetic modification will be no exception (except in cases of corporate profit, of course).
It literally makes perfect biological sense as a species.
There are many more aspects to humanity than biology. And I suspect your idea of "scum" has very little to do with biology as well.
Anyone who disagrees is disingenuous at best.
How very scientifically minded of you.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Should we really eradicate all heritable disease, or post-edit the afflicted to mitigate effects?
Like for example, the often cited benefit of being heterozygous in the sickle-cell anaemia gene. You are more resistant to malaria, a definite survival trait.
My point is that if you reduce genetic variability by always using the 'best' gene variant, your species becomes more vulnerable to extinction due to a sudden environmental change.
If you come up with a lot of gene variants as a patch for a broken one, all of them far more workable than the broken one, then gene editing could result in MORE genetic variability and a more resilient species overall, however, I doubt investment would be done to come up with multiple good solutions.
--PM
If there's a "troll" gene, then Tyrannicsupremacy is a candidate for treatment. If there's a "fall for trolling" gene, then you are.
I have to suspect that the real reason they are arguing against mods is that suffering and dying of muscular distrophy, or cystic fibrosis, or any other horrible genetic condition, is "natural".
Those people out there that are willing to accept the risks inherent to genetic modification shouldn't be limited by cowards that are OK with people dying, as long as they don't get their own hands dirty.
My ethical problem would be that in the short-medium term, we don't understand what we're doing and will hurt more than we heal.
So need a few more decades with animal testing.
After that? Open the floodgates. Not everyone will want the 6'2" white blonde blueeyed children. I can see a market for catpeople, dogpeople, merpeople (colonise the oceans!); I'm sure there'll be one or two who want to incarnate Cthulu; wings capable of unaided flight might be difficult.
Never worry about being the wrong skin colour as everyone will be any colour of the rainbow - or even rainbow coloured!
Nightvision - eyeshine a reality!
Solar powered - get a lot of your daily calories just by standing naked in the sun.
Turn hair-growth on and off. Never have to shave again.
People who worry about eugenics are just lacking in imagination.
This technology will be developed to the point where traits like intelligence, disease resistance, emotional stability, beauty, et. al. will be almost guaranteed. If it's outlawed in one nation state, wealthy people will just have it done in another. Their children will benefit. The poor will be at a financial AND genetic disadvantage.
The hand wringing ethical concerns of "scientists" will have no effect on this whatsoever.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Yep.
Not only that, but "ethical" is all too often is synonymous with "what won't ever lead us to getting sued" and has nothing to do with greater good or even doing the right things for a group of individuals.
"Sixth Day" laws.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
See, a real person is created and has to LIVE WITH and SUFFER FROM the changes you've inflicted upon them.
Think about it. Standard reproduction, you have no control over the result except what you can do with nutrition and environment. So your liability is also limited. However, if as a result of your DIRECTED genetic change, someone lives a life of suffering, well, your liability is enormous. You controlled it and caused it, therefore, you are responsible.
And it's a mind-blowing responsibility. If in my hands, I'd restrict myself to JUST trying to help with the very worst of genetic defects until I was VERY sure things would work out well for the modified people.
--PM
And now they're complaining they can't put it back in?
Tough.
I can see that they're just scared about superior humans even without low light infrared vision, which I want.
I was thinking about a comment along these lines.
You've summed it up in the most succinct manner I can imagine.
Again, thank you.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Ethics is in the jurisdiction of philosophy and moral theology, not science.
For science, as long as the scientific method is followed, ethics is optional.
This does not mean that science is evil, but that science does not have the ability to regulate itself according to its own standards.
There is no "peer review" that screens for ethics.
This is the making of the atomic bomb all over again.
It's all amazing science until someone decides to engineer a virus capable of targeted infections then expressing genetically altering proteins, subsequently giving the engineers the power to tamper with the victims full biological development over time.
Human kind is now attaining the power to artificially alter genes. The best fail-safe guard against any potential misuse or harmful consequences is to also attain the power to reverse the alteration.
I say we are doomed.
It seems that we have a group of people who just insist upon applying theories of morality to every little situation. We still have people protesting abortions for example. Yet none of the abortion protesters take into account what our population level would be like if we had not allowed abortions. Obviously the offspring would be a huge number and might have been such a great burden that our nation could not survive. The same thing can be said about subjects like the Civil War. Without that war we surely would have now had several hundred million extra Americans. War is not completely negative. Pregnancy is not completely positive. Weak minds latching onto an absolute position simply demonstrate the absurdity of modern life. Yet we have numerous pumpkin headed citizens that fixate on really stupid issues and just make their entire life all about pushing some supposedly moral platform. As far as the human genome goes we can store it and revert back to unedited DNA any time we like. It is simply a matter of not allowing people to reproduce who have had unwanted consequences from edited genes.
I'd like them to figure out how proteins fold before messing with the code that makes the proteins that they don't understand. Just sayin'.
If you edit a human egg and wind up producing a new &/or murderous in-nonhuman species, do you have a right to kill it?
ultimately where does this technology stop? we have seen so many human progressions just within the past 20 years its exponential.. i think ultimately we are discussing developing a infinite lifespan.. we can create Jesus.. what will zealots say then? and while we still are clueless to deaths process, we fear it, and ultimately we can and will modify ourselves to live life without any fears.. if you visualize the progress of technology its very easy to project this outcome..
Show me just one example where humans have messed with nature and got it completely right.
No ethical questions have put off. People thought about it for decades (people have entered the field, worked, and retired) and decided. The author just doesn't like the answers they came up with, and the urging of a "moratorium" (oh not, it's not a ban!) confirms that.
If you actually oppose something, then don't try to conceal it with vague bullshit like that. You sound like a self-labeled "global warming skeptic" when you lie in that fashion.
It's actually easy to do this stuff honestly. Just say "I disbelieve that observation reveals reality" instead of "We don't know global warming is happening" or "Intelligent Design is a theory too." Just say "I want to prevent people from doing this, because it's a bad thing" instead of "We need to face the ethical issues first." You know what? When you say "I want to prevent people from doing this" you're taking a reasonable (though controversial) stand and actually sound vastly less loony than the creationists. You will be treated with respect. But when you lie, you sound just like those fuckwits. So, choose your words wisely.
What you call science I call the rape of the natural world.
No scientist claims we can build a better human than nature, but every priest, politician and witch doctor is busy doing just that.
As Nancy Reagan famously suggested to keep kids off drugs,
we should tell people with undesirable genes (like stupidity) to Just Say No to Sex.
That will solve all our problems in a single generation !
sheesh, not so hard, was it?
Hey, if we could edit out the "stupid" gene, I'd be all for that. Hint: people who think they are oh-so-smart have this gene.
Ok, lets say the UN decides that genetic modification on humans is bad. Do we really think it will stop? So there are going to be GM people in the world.
What then is the ethical thing to do? sterlize them for the good of humanity? execute them?
Or maybe, just deal with it. As they are probably just as likely to have an average human number of problems (social ones if maybe not genetic ones), so we might as well treat them as an equal?
Editing plant genomes of the food supply? No problem. Touching the human genome? No no!
The former, sadly, is not done to exhaustive lengths for, what I would call, statistically unquestioning practice for implementation. If we're to alter plants for consumption, or to fight disease, or to fight pests, we should do it in a manner that is never based on profit. Entirely 100%, scientifically founded from start to finish.
The latter? We're infants with powerful tools, we have yet to fully understand. Raising the concerns now? This was brought about 20 years ago, and though had minor discussion, was all but laughed out of the room. The myopia around technological and scientific progress that our 'leaders' display is downright staggering at times.
a) Direct and indirect genetic modification of human genes with the goal to change a person or embryo is forbidden if not allowed explicitly in the following sections.
b) All allowed procedures must be available to all humans regardless their income. No extras for rich people.
c) Modification which cure a specific illness or degeneration listed below are allowed.
List of allowed treatments:
- Detection and correction of chromosome errors, like trisomy 21.
- Mucoviscidosis
- Dysfunctional organs
On a side node: Small boobs, hair and eye color, knobbly noses, cognitive functions, etc. are no sickness at all. It would be stupid to reduce through genetic engineering the general genetic diversity.
We can't design wings that work, and physically we couldn't lift off anyway. Birds are shaped as birds because that shape works. Ditto nightvision, all the other stuff. Can't do it.
We could get rid of acne, arthritis, bad teeth alignment, breast cancer tendencies, baldness (that's not hard), all the diseases that are transmitted by parents who dearly wish they didn't and pretend hard they don't.
Cosmetically, tall beautiful men with sharp jaws do have better lives on the whole than those who don't. Women who are smart, athletic, shapely, and have faces which sculptors long to carve do better in life as well. It would be a sad thing indeed if people used GM to edit out the stuff that doesn't help you socially and include things which do. But...
We do that anyway. Successful men, of whatever appearance, tend to have children with beautiful intelligent successful women. Beautiful intelligent successful women overwhelmingly mate and produce offspring with beautiful men who match their capabilities; let's not bother arguing it doesn't happen that way all the time. It does, and it shows in the makeup of wealthy corporations, wealthy suburbs, and top-flight universities and political life as well. Beautiful people marry beautiful people, make beautiful babies, and those babies go on to mate with people mostly like themselves. Those people are segregating into their own communities, both physically and virtually. It IS genetic engineering - we're not selecting for the best hunter or the best baby-maker, but for social success and physical appearance. CEOs don't marry homely janitors, etc. It's so intrinsic we've developed adaptive language to cover up what we're doing- dorks and poor losers versus cool, pretty and almost inevitably successful. Eh maybe letting people choose their kid's appearance is yet another selection process - the intelligent not-purty people will use the opportunity to prettify their kids vs just letting nature take its course, and so their kids will become more wealthy and powerful, and the cycle goes on, as it always has.
I couldn't agree more, giving people a choice always ends badly.
In particular, people should be prevented from saying no just because they find their partner "undesirable".
Perhaps we can institute a lottery to force people to have sex with "ugly" people.
I remember seeing a two-parter Outer Limits episode some time ago where a group of people were sent up in a space ship sent presumably by aliens. I remember specifically that when they landed, they discovered a human skeleton with wings. As it turned out, the ship was sent by future humanity that had messed around with their genome so much that they left themselves vulnerable to disease and died out. The ship's occupants were meant to repopulate the earth with unmodified humans. It's supposed to be a cautionary tale but I think it failed on me because my only thought on seeing the ending was that it would be really cool to have wings. I still think that.
If it's banned in official channels, it will be available in alleys and basements.
I would like a son whose life expectancy isn't 40 years (which is 40 years longer than it was in the 1950s).
We can already mitigate genetic issues chemically, why not genetically? What is the difference?
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
With Genetically Modified Humans, poverty and iniquity will be eliminated! Just think of the diseases of the mind and body that we can guarantee that the next step in human evolution will not have to endure. It may take a few decades for the practice to reach widespread use and acceptance, but won't those who survive the oncoming plague be grateful for their immunity, longevity, intelligence, a world free of poverty, and a world free from strife due to "racial" and societal differences? It is a necessary thing that must be done to ensure the survival of the species. If one is to make an omelette, one must be prepared to break a few eggs.
My threshhold for a open entry technology is when I see it in a science fair project. A high school student interning in a relatives college or industrial lab could very well do such a project.
still havent worked out all the kinks, hence all the "1"s
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So if a couple down the road is genetically engineering their children without eyes or asking for changes just to see what happens we should be okay with this and enable them? There is a strong case to correct genetic based disorders. However I think a moment to talk about the ramifications of the wrong, intentional or otherwise, that can be done with this technology would be worthwhile.
Evolution is a random search algorithm in a random search space. Trying to interfere it leads to dying out of populations that would have been optimal for the new conditions as the search space collapses.
Friday was trained to be a secret agent and courier.
Step one: Insert genes in the US population that give a natural immunity to a genetically engineered highly virulent and deadly disease.
Step two: Infect the world.
Step three: Inherit a zombie apocalypse.
Actually, IMHO, if you willfully engineer your own kids to make them worse, then I have no problem with you + yours leaving the gene pool completely.
Do you really think this is a possibility that really merits talking about? People LIKE their own kids, they aren't going to nerf them.
I believe these scientists can keep their "Ethics" focused on their own back yards and stay the hell out of mine!"
These idiots forget that progress is achieved by taking risks.
All I have to say about that.
It is all an appeal to ignorance.
"You don't know what tampering around with those gene thing will do! Ive seen science fiction movies about that and don't want that a happening in myah back yard! "
Those idiots that are too dumb to have paid attention in debate class , should not be allowed to stand in the way of scientific progress that will heal diseases that have plagued mankind for aeons.
All it is going to take is the cure for male pattern baldness or obesity and these arguments will go away overnight.
1- Some countries will allow experiments on improving the race, some will outlaw it. The ones that will allow experimentation will have very ugly, stupid people produced, but they will find ways to improve the race, very smart and beautiful people, very few diseases, people will essentially live forever, since we know aging is just a genetic ill.
2. Once they get smarter and more beautiful every one will want to move there. I mean, what if country concentrate all the money, the good high paying jobs and the most beautiful women, who are 50 but look 15? They will have to close the gates to avoid the kinetic pool to go back 2,000 years. And once the population is isolated from the rest, they will evolve faster.
3. Having children among siblings is currently outlawed. But that's because people are ugly and stupid, so in order to avoid involution of the species, you can't marry siblings. Once the race is improved dramatically through genetic engineering, you will have a duty to improve the human race by banging your own sister. In the roman empire it was normal for emperors to marry their own sisters. So don't frown upon it.
4. Eventually beautiful people will have even more beautiful people. No laws will be required to protect the population, they will simply never even imagine to have sex with people from other countries. Too ugly, too stupid.
5. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. People will realize how to avoid work and let machines do all the work, while at the same time not to ruin the economy because no one works. The result will be that people will have a lot of time to bang. Resources will be almost free. The government will pay you if you have even more beautiful and more intelligent kids, so basically the government will pay you for banging. And it will be a very good business for the government, because they will get even more attractive and smarter people.
6. Beautiful women tend to make a lot of money using a web cam. As you can guess our descendants will be millionaires just by using a webcam at home and having sex in front of it.
7. Imagine a country with no short people, no fat people, no stupid people, just tall, thin, smart and good looking people. No diseases whatsoever, No gay people, because no pair of fathers would want that for their offspring. And yes, there is a gay gene. It has been found several times, but the information has been suppressed. Only gay people will want gay offspring. And they will probably go ahead and do it. But their shrinking numbers will mean their offspring will be less successful at finding mates. This already happens, they complain they can't find proper mates and maybe it is because most gays don't want to have children, they frown upon it. So eventually there will be no gay people wanting to produce more gays. It will naturally die out, even some countries will outlaw gay genes.
8. The crazy things: http://www.salon.com /2015/02/17/ genetic_sexual_attraction_ is_normal_and_very_real_ a_woman_describes_ the_reality_of_parent_child_incest/
this means that people will clone themselves, exchanging XY by XX and XX by XY, in order to have sex with themselves, or with their offspring, whatever you wanna call it. This will allow for even faster evolution of the species.
The somatic-editing tool, is not as simple as rocket science :). I'm assuming 99% of physics involved in rocket-launching, and chemistry parameters of propulsion fuel can be modeled with reliable accuracy.
Not the case with somatic editing and its consequences.
What if the CRISPER tool edits in different positions, someones cystic fibrosis gene was edited to proper, however that same genome missing a heart-valve? Won't their child say "I wish I was not edited for Cystic fibrosis - without my consent (now that I'm missing a heart/valve)" ?.
To quote from the article "It would be difficult to control exactly how many cells are modified. Increasing the dose of nuclease used would increase the likelihood that the mutated gene will be corrected, but also raise the risk of cuts being made elsewhere in the genome."
Eye sensitivity can be boosted by about 10x - reflective layer and wider pupil - at the cost of acuity. Cyborg eyes will someday allow the replacement of rods & cones with silicon, good for maybe a 6x improvement. Neither sounds like a particularly good choice, although a silicon replacement for a blind eye could be very good.
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We can't design wings that work - on Earth. In a closed dome on the moon at 1 atm, why not?
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