I ran across a science tv show this week on genetics. A quote by Professor Watson caught my ear.
Quote...
People always ask me... 'Don't you think it is wrong to play god?', and I have to reply... No. If God can't or won't do it, then someone must. If correcting horrible genetic 'accidents' is playing god, then so be it.
Unquote.
What do you think of our genetically perfected future?
My view is that we will be carried forward kicking and screaming all the way, and that in the end we [as a race of beings] will be better for it. If you can improve the AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE of a being by thirty percent, simply by increasing the maningual blood flow to the brain, why not do it? The adverse argument might be that intelligence isn't important. I guess the next millenium will tell. Interesting to see if money can buy you happiness. It will be expensive to be beautiful and smart in the future. Unless you are lucky.
Originally posted by StarValleyWy
I ran across a science tv show this week on genetics. A quote by Professor Watson caught my ear.
Quote...
People always ask me... 'Don't you think it is wrong to play god?', and I have to reply... No. If God can't or won't do it, then someone must. If correcting horrible genetic 'accidents' is playing god, then so be it.
Unquote.
What ...[text shortened]... ppiness. It will be expensive to be beautiful and smart in the future. Unless you are lucky.
The professor was talking about "correcting horrible genetic accidents". That means diseases and disabilities.
No problem there. It's curing a human being.
Originally posted by StarValleyWyI think you can divide human intervention into its own genome into four categories:
I ran across a science tv show this week on genetics. A quote by Professor Watson caught my ear.
Quote...
People always ask me... 'Don't you think it is wrong to play god?', and I have to reply... No. If God can't or won't do it, then someone must. If correcting horrible genetic 'accidents' is playing god, then so be it.
Unquote.
What ...[text shortened]... ppiness. It will be expensive to be beautiful and smart in the future. Unless you are lucky.
1. Artificial selection, eg sex selection, weeding out defective genes etc.
2. Modification to affect the expression of existing genes, or substitute defective copies of genes with the healthy equivalents.
3. Artificial transfer: taking desirable traits from other life-forms, finding what genes cause them, and putting them in people.
4. Genetic engineering: thinking of desirable traits that aren't present or are very difficult to identify in nature, designing genes to do the job, and putting them in people.
With the last three, there's also the question of whether the intervention is germ-line (passed on to offspring) or not.
Artifical selection is already happening. The specific problem I see with this kind of intervention is that it can only REDUCE genetic diversity, which is something Homo sapiens doesn't have in abundance as it is. We may lose genes this way, only to find that they have unexpected benefits, or would do in a slightly modified form. It's also rather limited, as it can't actually save any individual from genetic diseases, just cut embryos which have the defective genes out of the system - like natural selection, only faster. In fact, if you believe life begins at conception, it's almost completely useless (unless you use it in conjunction with artificial implantation or cloning).
Gene therapy is also already happening with people, though only at the experimental stage. This has the advantage that it can be applied to existing sufferers of eg cystic fibrosis, so they can give consent; also, there's a choice of whether you make it germ-line or not. On the other hand, many genetic defects have already done the damage by the time the sufferer reaches adulthood (if they do at all), so the consent issue isn't quite as simple as we'd like.
Gene transfer is what has given rise to the GM foods which some say will solve lots of problems, but at the same time most of the world is indifferent to them and large numbers of people are downright hostile (especially in Europe). I can't see this becoming acceptable in people until it is firstly extremely reliable (we're miles off this at the moment), and secondly seen as the natural way of things in agriculture (like the way 'organic' fans think of their form of farming as 'natural'😉. Nevertheless, the potential is enormous: want to see in the dark? Have this gene from a cat! Want to have an in-built sense of the Earth's magnetic field? Take some genes from this fish!
Full-blown genetic engineering is likely to be the preserve of science fiction for a very long time; at the moment, it's difficult even to imagine a use for it, given the abundance of different traits present in nature; one use might be adaptions to living outside Earth, eg to microgravity, alien atmospheres. Who knows?
As for the implications to society and humanity, it's clear that if these treatments were far more available to the rich than to the poor, inequalities in society would start to entrench themselves in the genome (rather than the other way around, as arguably happens already). With the more radical treatments we could even reach the point where a group of rich people, soldiers and/or cultists became so different from the rest of humanity that they were unable to interbreed. How would our society be able to hold itself together in the face of such a divide?
Originally posted by flexmore😀 This is the truth! It reminds me of a famous old saying I just invented. "I woke up this morning with my mind filled with bright thoughts and high expectations;glorious ideas reverberated through my mind. Then I realized I had slipped on the soap again and the tile walls were mocking me."
i find my intelligence makes my life less easy at times, especially when i want to be oblivious to the truth; it is sometimes a disease.
but i don't need genetic engineering to solve this problem - a glass of wine will do :-)
Originally posted by AcolyteThe answer of course is that our society could not hold itself together, but society would have changed and adapted to accommodate the changing circumstances as it always has done. You make the mistake of imagining future events in today's environment.
I think you can divide human intervention into its own genome into four categories:
1. Artificial selection, eg sex selection, weeding out defective genes etc.
2. Modification to affect the expression of existing genes, or substitute defective copies of genes with the healthy equivalents.
3. Artificial transfer: taking desirable traits from other li ...[text shortened]... interbreed. How would our society be able to hold itself together in the face of such a divide?
For those in the UK, did you see Horizon on tv the other night about organic computers and nanobots? Now that is scary.
Originally posted by StarValleyWyAcolyte,
😀 This is the truth! It reminds me of a famous old saying I just invented. "I woke up this morning with my mind filled with bright thoughts and high expectations;glorious ideas reverberated through my mind. Then I realized I had slipped on the soap again and the tile walls were mocking me."
Thank you for a most thoughtful post. I have gone over it a couple of times and appreciate your ideas.
Concerning artificial selection, I think that this will be viewed as a "third world issue", in as much as the bias against girl babies is already prevelent in that portion of our global village. The reasons are, as you know, economic. Some [Third World] families have developed the "wolf" model of familial support. Encourage the males to stay in the pack and support the larger unit. In the developed nations, I see artificial selection as a good way of reducing the overall birth rate. The main reason people have five or more children is usually to "get a boy" or to "get a girl". If we can have two children and fill that basic "desire", then we will see the overall birth rate approach the zero growth rate.
The reason my original post was directed at the "next thousand years" is because after all the many "gradualistic" changes or increments that are going to be associated with this [genetic] science, I think there will come a day in the far future where people will do "genetic makeovers" as easily as they now do tatoo's and haircuts.
I think it will be the age of "Designer Genes". Anything you want to be, you will be able to be. Then back to anything else you desire. I can see a society where seeing a "Retro" human will actually be a big deal. This will inevitably strain societal and religious values no end.
Of course through the entire argument is "economics". Being a good "Hayekian" I see nothing to prevent all humans from partaking. It is a matter of time. There will be much discrimination at first, until technology allows all to participate. Just as only the rich owned vest pocket watches in the 1400's and now all can log into an atomic clock at will on the internet.
Speaking of "genes from a cat"... can you imagine what that would do to world philanthropy?! But then there would be a lot more people enjoying laying about grooming each other. That can't be all bad.
😉
Originally posted by collemanTrue, true. But then you have to ask what such a society would be like. Besides, there have been cases where a society has torn itself apart, or at least beaten itself up, eg the French Revolution. Change doesn't always come in a nice or gradual way.
The answer of course is that our society could not hold itself together, but society would have changed and adapted to accommodate the changing circumstances as it always has done. You make the mistake of imagining future events in today's environment.
For those in the UK, did you see Horizon on tv the other night about organic computers and nanobots? Now that is scary.
I didn't see Horizon, but let me guess: grey goo? Horizon often tries to put an apocalyptic spin on things, probably in a bid to boost ratings.
we wouldn't chose what we were (not in the early stages of genetic selection anyway), our parents would. We'd get fassions in people (height, skin colour, hair...) that would come and go just as clothing fassions do, and as with cloths most of us would be out of date.
As with most things we chose, we'd probably chose that which we wanted rather than what we needed. 30% intelegence boost would probably cause everyone to be rather depressed, and leave a chronic shortage of people to do the boring jobs in the world.
Which 'futuristic' 1960's film was it that has people genetically bred for their role in the society? They had very intelegent 'alphas' as the leaders and stupid 'gammas' as the menial workers. Horrible on the surface, but then you realise that the gammas were happy in their work and their lot in life...
Originally posted by belgianfreakbrave new world by aldous huxley, you are thinking of?
Which 'futuristic' 1960's film was it that has people genetically bred for their role in the society? They had very intelegent 'alphas' as the leaders and stupid 'gammas' as the menial workers..
the menials were epsilons, i recall.
in friendship,
prad
Originally posted by AcolyteUm, I have to take issue with your terminology here. I don't think there's any sense that 'genetic engineering' means introducing genes of human design and creation. We'd have to be infinitely better at predicting the 3-D structure and biological properties of extremely long strings of nucleotides before we even had the vaguest clue how genes of human design would work. We can create our own genes in the lab, but they are always based on Nature's template and will be for the forseeable future.
I think you can divide human intervention into its own genome into four categories:
1. Artificial selection, eg sex selection, weeding out defective genes etc.
2. Modification to affect the expression of existing genes, or substitute ...[text shortened]... iety be able to hold itself together in the face of such a divide?
Rich.
Originally posted by StarValleyWyYou want to fix something which isn't broken. The Earth is one giant body consisting of various organisms all playing their part. Man is like a cell in the human body, one of millions and millions all playing their part in the system.
I ran across a science tv show this week on genetics. A quote by Professor Watson caught my ear.
...
My view is that we will be carried forward kicking and screaming all the way, and that in the end we [as a race of beings] will be better for it. If you can improve the AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE of a being by thirty percent, simply by increasing the man ...[text shortened]... ppiness. It will be expensive to be beautiful and smart in the future. Unless you are lucky.
The system is FINE, with exception of one species trying to take control. We dont even understand precisely the complexity of DNA, yet lets set everything alight until something goes 'boom'.
Billions of years of evolution worked just fine... yet lets not let nature determine who is fittest to survive, lets change the system...
I think agent Smith was right when he drew parallels between man and virus.
Juat a thought - athletes are prepared to risk sterility and death by using drugs in order to win. Some countries have selected athletes from promising toddlers to get medals and no matter what line is drawn, someone wants to cross it.
I read somwhere a chimpanzee, although genetically similar, is much stronger than humans. Could genetic engineering be used to win Olympic Gold medals? Could a gene be used to increase muscle bulk or response time? Could we get a 30% increase in the shot put or marathon?
Will we need a test for human genes in athletics? With a fifteen or twenty year lead time before competetion, how soon before they are out there?
Originally posted by belgianfreakI think this is quite a clever idea.
we wouldn't chose what we were (not in the early stages of genetic selection anyway), our parents would. We'd get fassions in people (height, skin colour, hair...) that would come and go just as clothing fassions do, and as with cloths most of us would be out of date.
I remember a science fiction book (possibly Michael Moorcock, Dancers at the End of Time?) when it was possible to change your appearance at will (during your lifetime) and since everyone was immortal, fashions, trends and personal whims decided appearance and even personality to some extent.
Did you ever meet a little snob on a playground who thought he was better than everyone?
Jack: Sometimes you sound like a snob. Do you think you are better than other people?
Eugene: I don't think I'm better; I know I'm better.
Jack: Oh? What makes you think that?
Eugene: I'm smarter.
Jack: That makes you better than other people? Are you also stronger, faster, wiser, more loving?
Eugene: Look, you asked me a question, and I answered. I'm smarter. It's all objective and scientific; my IQ is higher than yours, a lot higher. That's just the way life works; I was born smarter than you. I'm better.
Well, the little snob is back, all grown up. He still thinks he is better than you, and now he takes it all very seriously. His ideas are called eugenics.
Eugenics is pretty simple, in some ways. Eugene, the snobby kid with the bow tie, really believes that a high IQ makes him a better human being. For him, what matters most about people is how smart they are, and he believes that:
intelligence is the key human quality
intelligence is measurable
intelligence is inherited
the world would be a better place if more people were smart like Eugene
There is more to the theories of eugenics than Eugene's snobbery, but not much more. If you ever met Eugene or anyone like him, you already understand the dark heart of eugenics, the "ideology of arrogance."