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China Halts Work by Team on Gene-Edited Babies (apnews.com)
China's government ordered a halt Thursday to work by a medical team that claimed to have helped make the world's first gene-edited babies, as a group of leading scientists declared that it's still too soon to try to make permanent changes to DNA that can be inherited by future generations. AP reports: Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Xu Nanping told state broadcaster CCTV that his ministry is strongly opposed to the efforts that reportedly produced twin girls born earlier this month. Xu called the team's actions illegal and unacceptable and said an investigation had been ordered, but made no mention of specific actions taken. Researcher He Jiankui claims to have altered the DNA of the twins to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus. Mainstream scientists have condemned the experiment, and universities and government groups are investigating. His experiment "crossed the line of morality and ethics adhered to by the academic community and was shocking and unacceptable," Xu said. A group of leading scientists gathered in Hong Kong this week for an international conference on gene editing, the ability to rewrite the code of life to try to correct or prevent diseases.
Take your time.
I thought the lure of research in China was lack of oversight. If you can't conduct an ethically questionable scientific study there, what's the point?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
That's good to hear. I'm as concerned as anyone about the eugenics/GATTACA angle of this, but on a more immediate note, I think the potential off target effects are of ethical concern as well. If you're making a gene edited plant and you accidentally change something else that has a deleterious effect, who cares? Toss that plant and try again. In an animal model, if that happens and is causing undue problems, euthanizing the animal is an option.
But in humans? You get one shot, and it better work exactly right the first time. I'm all for gene editing, but even without the wide arching societal concerns, I don't think the technology is even close to using on humans at this time. Gene editing gets hyped up a lot, but there are still problems to be worked out when it comes to the actual practical application of the technology.
Yes China is just one person.
Fake science is everywhere, false claims are made everywhere* - but only the one Chinese (only one of those remember) is relevant for our brave AC.
(* Favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... )
Even Soviet Russiaâ(TM) didn't have 100% control of different internal development, China isn't even close to that in the first place. Think capitalism under the watchful eyes of dear leader Xi Jinping.
You're only useful to the Glory of the Leader until you aren't.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Looks like China is going to have one less scientist in the near future.
Did your social credit score go up defending China's face?
Fake science is everywhere, false claims are made everywhere*
Yes, fake science occurs everywhere, but not at the same levels. I have lived in China, and I am married to a Chinese woman, and I can tell you that lying and deception is far more tolerated in their culture than it is in America.
(* Favorite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... )
Poor example. This was a Japanese researcher who's fraud was exposed by Japan's own scientific community. Their internal system fixed the problem.
That happens less frequently in China, where fraud is often only exposed when the claims are big enough to draw international scrutiny. And even then, China will make a show of punishing the one offender, often harshly, rather than reforming the system.
Chinese gov, like most gov, has little to no ethics. They made this announcement but have no doubt allowed this to continue.
This is no different than China's gov claiming that they were stopping large numbers of new coal plants and once their bad economy turned, they restarted the projects.
THis group will go underground. literally and figuratively, to continue this work. They are learning how to make a body resist HiV. Later on, it will be other virus, such as a synthetic smallpox. Welcome to the solution for getting the world to drop CO2.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Lying is fine, _everywhere_.
Lying badly and getting caught has a social cost, everywhere.
Peer review is supposed to catch liars, but when nobody reads 75% of papers...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Is that a bun in the oven, or a salad in the crispr?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Lying badly and getting caught has a social cost, everywhere.
Not really. China is a low trust society. Chinese people don't trust each other, they expect others to try to cheat them, and if they think they can get away with cheating others, they are often willing to try.
But this also means that dishonesty is so widespread that they have no choice but to tolerate it. If an employee is fired every time they are caught lying/cheating/stealing, the company will soon have no workers and be out of business. So instead, they use one of two solutions: 1) Hire only your own family. This is common in China, and is a reason why they have many many tiny companies, a few gigantic SOEs, and almost nothing in between. 2) Have excessive cross checks and controls. In many Chinese department stores, a checker totals up your items and bags them, then gives you a receipt, and then you go to a separate cashier desk to actually pay. This way the owner has to trust or monitor only the one cashier, and not the six checkers.
I don't trust my fellow Americans or Germans (dual citizen).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I don't trust my fellow Americans or Germans (dual citizen).
Do you buy products without opening the box first to see if it is full of sawdust?
Do you wear a knapsack on your back in a crowd, rather than shifting it around to your chest so no one slices the bottom with a razor?
Do you share information with your co-workers, even when you are not required to do so?
Do you feed your baby domestically produced baby formula?
If you do any of these things, then you trust your fellow citizens more than Chinese do.
Not really. China is a low trust society.
That is a piece of information I have never heard of before. I clicked the link and found a very short Wikipedia article. None of the sources were websites. All of the information came from these things called "books". I guess I will have to go visit the keeper of the books at that place we used to go to before the internet. I forget what it's called.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The main cause of low trust in a society is that competition is high. China has 1.4 billion people and many are still poor. There are over 7 million college graduates every year.
You can compare their trust level to that of the Americans before the 1930's.
One more to add to your list:
Have you ever been sold fake eggs before?
In many Chinese department stores, a checker totals up your items and bags them, then gives you a receipt, and then you go to a separate cashier desk to actually pay. This way the owner has to trust or monitor only the one cashier, and not the six checkers. ...
In Thailand is it the opposite way around, you pay and get the stuff bagged and get a recipe.
In the exit area your bags are checked versus the recipe
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That's nothing, I was given fake water once. The label clearly said 'water' but it obviously tasted, looked and smelled exactly like urine.
Last time I grab a bottle of water on a roadtrip after being told to "use this".
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Legend has it that amazon.com used to sell books, aeons ago.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
they may say one thing, and do another.
as if china isn't massivly interested in developing this (well, probably not only china).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.