The way our current culture is operating - ie on a global scale - a decrease in the overall genetic diversity of the population is impossible to avoid. The more 'random mating' that takes place, the more homogenous a species' genes become is a nice little Genetic rule that our species is merrily putting into action.
In response to your second point, the definition of a species is a group of organisms that can mate with each other creating viable offspring (viable being the operative word). If we made something that couldn't produce offspring with us, it would no longer be a member of the good old Homo Sapiens species.
As to your statement about making 'modifications' to your childrens somatic genes being akin to your choice of a mate, I can only say "no". When two people get together and have kids, they are intermingling their own genes, which quite obviously have worked out well, and are passing them along to their children. These genes have worked out pretty well throughout our species' lifetime, and the odds are they'll work for our kids. I don't believe that at our current state of knowledge about our genes, or even quite honestly 50 years down the road, we will know enough to be able to say that through mucking about with genes we can assure healthier offspring past that first generation that is modified. I for one do not have the convictions to sentence my grandchild to the n-th degree to some horrible genetic disease caused by our wanting to weed out freckles or male pattern baldness from our gene line or some other frivoulous thing. The unfortunate thing is that our species is quite long lived, and the means that any genetic manipulation done to our DNA may seem stable at first, but it could be potentially deadly when puberty begins.
I would, however, probably do someting along the akin to the article that spawned this discussion if it became available for my children. No genetic manipulation was undertaken in it, only genetic screening for a known genetically related disease that ran in the family. Of course, twenty years down the line a virus might come along that kills people carrying that gene, but that's what happens when you subject yourself to nature.
The majority of the flies put through this process will be sterilized, and the remainder most likely will be mutated, however this doesn't necessarily mean that the mutation will be viable. Most people seem to think that if something 'mutates' it automatically lives. This is not true - the majority of mutations are quite deadly, if not to the fly that is being zapped then to it's progeny. DNA is VERY unforgiving to changes, folks - one incorrect Amino Acid in a sequence means a proteinis formed that could be horrendiously different from the original, so much so that the organism cannot continue to function normally.
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The way our current culture is operating - ie on a global scale - a decrease in the overall genetic diversity of the population is impossible to avoid. The more 'random mating' that takes place, the more homogenous a species' genes become is a nice little Genetic rule that our species is merrily putting into action.
In response to your second point, the definition of a species is a group of organisms that can mate with each other creating viable offspring (viable being the operative word). If we made something that couldn't produce offspring with us, it would no longer be a member of the good old Homo Sapiens species.
As to your statement about making 'modifications' to your childrens somatic genes being akin to your choice of a mate, I can only say "no". When two people get together and have kids, they are intermingling their own genes, which quite obviously have worked out well, and are passing them along to their children. These genes have worked out pretty well throughout our species' lifetime, and the odds are they'll work for our kids. I don't believe that at our current state of knowledge about our genes, or even quite honestly 50 years down the road, we will know enough to be able to say that through mucking about with genes we can assure healthier offspring past that first generation that is modified. I for one do not have the convictions to sentence my grandchild to the n-th degree to some horrible genetic disease caused by our wanting to weed out freckles or male pattern baldness from our gene line or some other frivoulous thing. The unfortunate thing is that our species is quite long lived, and the means that any genetic manipulation done to our DNA may seem stable at first, but it could be potentially deadly when puberty begins.
I would, however, probably do someting along the akin to the article that spawned this discussion if it became available for my children. No genetic manipulation was undertaken in it, only genetic screening for a known genetically related disease that ran in the family. Of course, twenty years down the line a virus might come along that kills people carrying that gene, but that's what happens when you subject yourself to nature.
The majority of the flies put through this process will be sterilized, and the remainder most likely will be mutated, however this doesn't necessarily mean that the mutation will be viable. Most people seem to think that if something 'mutates' it automatically lives. This is not true - the majority of mutations are quite deadly, if not to the fly that is being zapped then to it's progeny. DNA is VERY unforgiving to changes, folks - one incorrect Amino Acid in a sequence means a proteinis formed that could be horrendiously different from the original, so much so that the organism cannot continue to function normally.