Designer Babies, Yea or Nay?

[Ender]

I'm all for superhumans, even if I don't get to be one.
Maybe a supersmart kid designed today will find the cure for cancer, or other such, that will affect us when we get older.

Trying to hold back the tide of humanity is a crime in itself.

[Ideologue]

Meh.  I'm hanging my hopes for immortality on brute force computational resurrection, not some snotnosed Alpha in a gray jumpsuit all hopped up on soma.  GO MACHINES!

[jimmy olsen]

Those instances of deleterious reproduction are limited in number and restricted to those with money and can not possibly keep up with the rate of natural selection on the whole population, which has increased 100 fold in the last 10,000 years and is likely accelerating even faster given the changes wrought by the industrial revolution in the last two centuries.

[Ideologue]

Those instances of deleterious reproduction are limited in number and restricted to those with money and can not possibly keep up with the rate of natural selection on the whole population, which has increased 100 fold in the last 10,000 years and is likely accelerating even faster given the changes wrought by the industrial revolution in the last two centuries.

The absolute number of mutations have increased.  I see few classically selective pressures upon individuals other than disease throughout history, particularly modern history.  Even if the reproduction of deleterious traits is restricted to those with money, that means basically everyone with access to the amenities of modern civilization.  I mean, dude, you lived through leukemia.  Regardless of whether it was a heritable kind, that's serious shit that if natural selection worked strongly on people, you'd be dead.  But here you are, and you don't even need your cum popsicles.

There are tons of deleterious traits that kept up just fine with the selective pressures, such as there are, that have been applied to the human species.  Alcoholism.  Depression.  Fat-fuckery.  They're just as successful from an evolutionary standpoint as beneficial mutations, like being able to see a little into the ultraviolet or being immune to HIV.  Because of human civilization none of these really matter that much.  The CCR5 Delta 32 guys are simply not going to have significantly more evolutionary success than the depressed alcoholic fat fucks within this well-cushioned environment.

I'm sorry, there will be no gill men.

[frunk]

How do you make genes not inheritable? 

It wouldn't be difficult to tweak the genetic code to make you shoot blanks.

[jimmy olsen]

How about this Ide, human brains have shrunk in size substantially in the last ten thousand years. There has obvious been positive selection on mutations that allow the brain to function at a high level more efficiently.

http://johnhawks.net/research/hawks-2011-brain-size-selection-holocene

Selection for smaller brains in Holocene human evolution
Mon, 2011-08-22 18:32 -- John Hawks
Research authors:
John Hawks

...
Background

An increase in brain size was one of the major trends of human evolution [1][2]. At the beginning of the Pleistocene, the average endocranial volume of fossil Homo specimens was approximately 750 ml [3]. By 30,000 years ago, this average value had increased to nearly 1500 ml [1][2]. Much of this increase occurred within the period following 800,000 years ago [1][2], during which mean endocranial volume in \emph{Homo} increased by approximately 70 ml per 100,000 years. This trend occurred in all regions of the Old World [2], which may have included either a single [4][2] or multiple species of archaic Homo [5][3].

Less well known is that the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene (ca. 30,000 years ago to present) witnessed a substantial decline in endocranial volume [6][7][1]. This decrease occurred within modern \emph{Homo sapiens}, and has been observed in many parts of the world [6][7][8]. The scope of this decrease is remarkable: for example, within the past 10,000 years the average endocranial volume in European females reduced from a mean of 1502 ml to a recent value of 1241 ml [7]. This decrease of approximately 240 ml in 10,000 years is nearly 36 times the rate of increase during the previous 800,000 years.

[Razgovory]

Who is John Hawks?

[Ideologue]

OK, I'm not really arguing that humans didn't undergo changes.  I'm only saying that I suspect that systemic changes to whole populations due to highly successful traits has ended, because few traits can be termed highly successful, relative to any other, in modern times.

[jimmy olsen]

Who is John Hawks?

Professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He's published some papers on the topic we're discussing.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/hawks/hawks.html

[jimmy olsen]

There are tons of deleterious traits that kept up just fine with the selective pressures, such as there are, that have been applied to the human species.  Alcoholism.  Depression.  Fat-fuckery.  They're just as successful from an evolutionary standpoint as beneficial mutations, like being able to see a little into the ultraviolet or being immune to HIV.  Because of human civilization none of these really matter that much.  The CCR5 Delta 32 guys are simply not going to have significantly more evolutionary success than the depressed alcoholic fat fucks within this well-cushioned environment.

Over the period of ten thousands years (a long time by our standards, but a short time by evolutionary standards) you will be proved wrong as what one would consider relatively weak selective pressures can work over that period of time to fix a beneficial mutation in the population.

[Ideologue]

Well, maybe you're right.  But by that time the machines will decide what is beneficial.

[Josquius]

The Gattica issue is a concern but for simple stuff like hair and eye colour...should totally be allowed.

[Ideologue]

The Gattica issue is a concern but for simple stuff like hair and eye colour...should totally be allowed.

You racist.

[garbon]

The Gattica issue is a concern but for simple stuff like hair and eye colour...should totally be allowed.

You racist.

Well many people already go for hair straighteners and perms.

[jimmy olsen]

The Gattica issue is a concern but for simple stuff like hair and eye colour...should totally be allowed.

You racist.

How is it racist?

Japanese would love that being able to tinker with hair and eye colors.