UK scientists apply for licence to edit genes in human embryos

[Ideologue]

Assuming the research/application progresses in a regulated, transparent environment, what really is the downside to genetic engineering?  Humans will become "too good"?  Genetic diseases being eliminated is a bad thing?

If, say, we could eliminate every future occurrence of down syndrome, how is that bad?  Sure it would be bad if we used that capability to argue that we should eliminate living people with DS as well...but no one (sane) is arguing for that.

Because it's difficult to determine what is a "disease" that should be fixed.

The classic case is sickle cell anemia.  It is caused by having both parents being carriers of a single recessive gene, and the child inheriting the gene from both parents.  The problem is that being a carrier of only the single gene actually has some health benefits - carriers have greater resistance to malaria.

So?

Or take downs syndrome (which now that I have twin DS nephews I'm learning more about).  It's a genetic disease, but it's quite different from something like sickle cell.  Sickle cell is caused by a specific defective gene.  Downs syndrome however is caused by having a duplicate chromosone.  It's not an inheritable gene - rather it's an error in early cell division.  As such there's no way to cure downs syndrome, either by today's or any readily forseeable future technology.  Instead the only way to "prevent" downs syndrome is to abort any pregnancy that tests positive for downs.

Yeah, and it "prevents" the hell out of it.  Anyway, my position on this is known.

Honestly, most humans probably ought to have been aborted.  Hopefully, in the future, most of them will, and be replaced by better versions of themselves.

And finally, we would probably agree that dwarfism is a genetic disorder.  But what about someone who has the genes to be really, really short?  Where do you draw the line?

The line is where the parents ask for something that harms the child based on a rationally-arrived at set of criteria.  There's a very good case that individuals should not be allowed to make gene editing decisions.  That doesn't mean that once the technology's arrived, its incredible benefits should be ignored.

(Height is a category that would probably need to be heavily regulated to prevent a feedback loop.  Humans value height, but this is something civilization's moved beyond even if our primate instincts haven't, since smaller people would consume fewer resources and larger people are no longer needed in war.  The best practice would be to establish a narrow range of acceptable heights for all people.  This probably wouldn't be feasible for a long time, but we're assuming godlike powers here.)

[Barrister]

Assuming the research/application progresses in a regulated, transparent environment, what really is the downside to genetic engineering?  Humans will become "too good"?  Genetic diseases being eliminated is a bad thing?

If, say, we could eliminate every future occurrence of down syndrome, how is that bad?  Sure it would be bad if we used that capability to argue that we should eliminate living people with DS as well...but no one (sane) is arguing for that.

Because it's difficult to determine what is a "disease" that should be fixed.

The classic case is sickle cell anemia.  It is caused by having both parents being carriers of a single recessive gene, and the child inheriting the gene from both parents.  The problem is that being a carrier of only the single gene actually has some health benefits - carriers have greater resistance to malaria.

So?

Or take downs syndrome (which now that I have twin DS nephews I'm learning more about).  It's a genetic disease, but it's quite different from something like sickle cell.  Sickle cell is caused by a specific defective gene.  Downs syndrome however is caused by having a duplicate chromosone.  It's not an inheritable gene - rather it's an error in early cell division.  As such there's no way to cure downs syndrome, either by today's or any readily forseeable future technology.  Instead the only way to "prevent" downs syndrome is to abort any pregnancy that tests positive for downs.

Yeah, and it "prevents" the hell out of it.  Anyway, my position on this is known.

Yes - and your willingness to murder my nephews Isaac and Eli (who are both cute as hell at 3 months old) is noted.

[Ideologue]

Don't make it personal, Beeb.  You know it ain't personal.

For the record, I don't want to kill your nephews and, since the relevant decision have already been made, your family has my sympathies and I wish the two absolutely nothing but the best.

On the plus side, you live in Canada, which doesn't exist in the same hell dimension Americans do.

[Ideologue]

Anyway, as a proponent of liberal democracy, being based on the preposterous fiction that all people are created equal, you should welcome the possibility that we could make that a reality.

[Barrister]

Don't make it personal, Beeb.  You know it ain't personal.

For the record, I don't want to kill your nephews and, since the relevant decision have already been made, your family has my sympathies and I wish the two absolutely nothing but the best.

On the plus side, you live in Canada, which doesn't exist in the same hell dimension Americans do.

Ideo, but it is personal.

Isaac and Eli and real, live human beings.  They're tiny, to be sure.  But they're real.  You have made it quite clear you don't think they deserve to live.  That's a real hard position to just accept when you've held them in your arms.

Your good wishes are hereby noted for them.

[Ideologue]

That mischaracterizes my argument.  It has nothing to do with deserving--every homo sapiens born on this planet has the moral right to live and to some degree thrive, which ought to be guaranteed by the State through both protection (which we inadequately provide) and subsidization (which we don't even try to provide) unless they do something to forfeit that right.

My concern for children with serious disabilities is just that, a concern for children with serious disabilities.  In a competitive, cruel society--such as our society--they will face severe disadvantages which sometimes even the most loving parents--and I don't doubt for a minute your family is a loving one--cannot overcome.  Will they be able to get good jobs?  Find love?  Experience happiness, or even contentment?  I hope so.

But plenty of people we describe as "abled"--a misnomer, I suppose, since "abled" means purely "able to do menial labor"--can't do those things.  Everyone born deserves to live, but most people do not get much of a chance to.  The more of us there are, the less there is to spread around to our weakest and most vulnerable, while we ravage a finite planet.  Making new humans is certainly not a moral imperative, and human life involves far too much potential for suffering to take its creation lightly.

[lustindarkness]

This thread has made me want to watch Gattaca again.

In the doping athletes topic: I would love to see the dopehead olympics; allow athletes to pump themselves full of any and all drugs. You know how awesome it would be to watch a bunch of meth heads sprint across the finish line and at least half the field drop dead instantly when their hearts blow up? (the other half of the field drop dead before the finish line).

[crazy canuck]

Don't make it personal, Beeb.  You know it ain't personal.

For the record, I don't want to kill your nephews and, since the relevant decision have already been made, your family has my sympathies and I wish the two absolutely nothing but the best.

On the plus side, you live in Canada, which doesn't exist in the same hell dimension Americans do.

Ideo, but it is personal.

Isaac and Eli and real, live human beings.  They're tiny, to be sure.  But they're real.  You have made it quite clear you don't think they deserve to live.  That's a real hard position to just accept when you've held them in your arms.

Your good wishes are hereby noted for them.

Yes they have not been born.  You appear to be objecting to abortions rather than the topic at hand.

[crazy canuck]

This thread has made me want to watch Gattaca again.

In the doping athletes topic: I would love to see the dopehead olympics;

The next one will be in Rio

[The Brain]

This thread has made me want to watch Gattaca again.

In the doping athletes topic: I would love to see the dopehead olympics; allow athletes to pump themselves full of any and all drugs. You know how awesome it would be to watch a bunch of meth heads sprint across the finish line and at least half the field drop dead instantly when their hearts blow up? (the other half of the field drop dead before the finish line).

Bicycle! Biiicycle!

[lustindarkness]

I mean, allow and encourage performance enhancing drugs. I want to see some carnage. And make sure we have a meth head division, for those not sponsored by the drug companies.

[crazy canuck]

I mean, allow and encourage performance enhancing drugs. I want to see some carnage. And make sure we have a meth head division, for those not sponsored by the drug companies.

There was some debate in the IOC to allow performance enhancing drugs to be out in the open so as to increase the safety of the athletes*.  But instead they wish to continue to believe that the games are clean and that current drug testing protocols are working.

*No discussions about meth as far as I recall.

[The Brain]

They are still amateurs, right?

[crazy canuck]

They are still amateurs, right?

Not since at least the 92 Olympics.

[jimmy olsen]

Absolutely incredible and indepth articles on this topic in the New Yorker and the New York Times. It makes me feel like we're finally living in the future.

These are far too long to post here, but here's just two examples, one positive and one negative.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-gene-hackers

The promise of CRISPR research becomes more evident almost every month. Recently, Church reported that he had edited sixty-two genes simultaneously in a pig cell. The technique, if it proves accurate and easy to repeat, could help alleviate the constant shortage of organ donors in the U.S. For years, scientists have tried to find a way to use pig organs for transplants, but a pig's DNA is filled with retroviruses that have been shown in labs to infect human cells. Church and his colleagues discovered that those viruses share a common genetic sequence. He deployed CRISPR to their exact locations and snipped them out of the genome. In the most successful of the experiments, the CRISPR system deleted all sixty-two of the retroviruses embedded in the pig's DNA. Church then mixed those edited cells with human cells in the laboratory, and none became infected.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-crispr-quandary.html?_r=0

That morning, Doudna was just back from testifying before a Senate committee that had been convened to grapple with Crispr's implications — as well as its potential for misuse. A postdoctoral student described a process for making mice that had a mutation associated with human lung cancer, by using Crisprs packed into a virus that could be inhaled. Highly accurate mouse models of lung cancer could be made much faster, radically accelerating the pace of research. This was exciting but also alarming. As Doudna has said, a minor mistake in the design of the guide RNA could result in a virus that introduced the same cancer-causing mutations into human lungs. ''It seemed incredibly scary that you might have students who were working with such a thing,'' Doudna said in an interview with the journal Nature. ''It's important for people to appreciate what this technology can do.'' While Crispr has opened the door to a huge number of experiments that were previously impossible, it has also enabled almost anyone to try them.