5 ms·

I find these reports both exciting and deeply reassuring. As research in the west becomes more politicised and regulated (the biosciences especially), having s

by biofox 10y ago

I find these reports both exciting and deeply reassuring. As research in the west becomes more politicised and regulated (the biosciences especially), having serious Chinese investments in science, with aspirations to become world leaders, is precisely what we need to promote competition and drive progress. Another example is the use of CRISPR gene editing in human embryos. While we are dragging our feet ruminating over the ethical implications (largely ignoring the prospect of curing countless diseases), the Chinese have used the opportunity to get a head start. As China continues to progress, it won't be long until we have another "Sputnik moment". If we won't fund and regulate science rationally, hopefully fear and national pride will motivate us instead.

digi_owl 10y ago
Well one reason for us dragging our feet is our collective memory of eugenics.
- biofox 10y ago
  I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.
  - zepto 10y ago
    How do you know that enabling people who happen to have resources in one of the current political regimes to edit their embryos will reduce suffering? It could just as easily increase it.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      Do you know what Tay-Sachs is?
      - zepto 10y ago
        How is that relevant?
        Kalium 10y ago
        It's a source of suffering that can be solved through genetic engineering of embryos that some group of people with resources will be inclined to address. It is relevant because it precisely fits your criteria.
        zepto 10y ago
        Sure but my point is that technology that empowers a small group of powerful people to reduce their suffering may end up increasing suffering overall.
        Kalium 10y ago
        Yes. This is possible. You are completely correct. Of course, this is in fact true for all values of $TOOL in "Given $TOOL, a bad thing may happen".
        zepto 10y ago
        Sure - but the risks vary from tool. Rich people editing their babies seems like it's more risky for society than most tools.
        Kalium 10y ago
        It's also a tool that can literally save real, countable lives otherwise factually known to be doomed to horrific suffering and very early death. If I understand it correctly, your objection is that it may be possible for some group of people to use this to increase suffering in an abstract way.
        10y ago
    - simonh 10y ago
      It's not a matter of enabling this at the regime level. Regimes get to make their own laws. We in the west may not be able to stop clearly unethical embry editing, so whether we can do that or not is completely orthogonal to whether we should consider some uses of the technique to be ethical and allowable.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    If we prevent certain kinds of people from even being born in the first place, how is that not as bad as murder or sterilisation?
    - oldmanjay 10y ago
      can you answer the converse? It's not at all clear to me how excising genetic dead ends is anything even remotely related to murder or sterilization, so I feel like the burden is on you to actually put something forth.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
        You're still erasing people from the gene pool.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Gene pool is not made of sentient beings. It has no inherent moral value in itself.
        Nadya 10y ago
        Under that argument - choosing not to mate is erasing people from the gene pool. Choosing who you mate with is also erasing people from the gene pool and denying people the possibility of mating with you at all is also erasing people from the gene pool. With the safe assumption that sperm and eggs have variations from one another - masturbating erases thousands if not millions of potential people from the gene pool and every period a female has without fertilization is another person missing from the gene pool. Given the number of people on the planet - resulting in trillions (and trillions) of DNA combinations between mating pairs - millions of possible people are erased from the gene pool on the grounds of "not everyone can mate with everyone in a given lifetime, even if we wanted to". Not to mention all the potential genes that die each day. I'm not sure I see your point.
        semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        When a couple uses gene therapy to ensure their children don't get stuff like mitochondrial myopathy, how is that bad? Do you really think it's better for that couple (and society) that they do it the "natural way" and only have children who won't live to see their eighteenth birthday?
  - internaut 10y ago
    Thank God for the Chinese. They must think we're insane. Bioethicists I've watched debate are seemingly unconcerned with the present day. I've never seen it emphasized (as it used to be once) that the potential for mental and physical handicaps goes up very dramatically as a woman ages. There exists a fairly narrow window to produce children optimally. I am confident no school children are aware of this through sex education. It is sort of brushed under the carpet in favour of 'right to choose'. You would not believe the rate of deformed children that exist. In my small town there are six or seven special centers for children with mental and physical handicaps. I am convinced this is because the parents got to the idea of having children late. This is a failing of society. "http://www.ivfne.com/content/editor/Fertility http://www.ivfne.com/content/editor/Fertility Age Graph.jpg" http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1331118/disability_chart_1.0.png http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1331118/di... http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/images/prevalence-chart.jpg http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/images/p...
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      It may depend heavily on the country. In Poland, which is arguably a western nation, we were taught about the "optimal childbearing age" in biology classes, and the women I know are acutely aware of the concept. Maybe what you're describing is a US thing?
      - internaut 10y ago
        Poland, along with the eastern European countries doesn't have this hangup about human biology. I believe what I was saying mostly applies to the US and western European countries. For all their faults, communist countries at least took science education seriously. The idea that a woman and man have a finite amount of time to produce healthy offspring is a 'bad culture fit' for the kind of egalitarian orthodoxy that is not taken seriously in ex-communist countries. If you're in the US or western Europe, try asking random average people what the age limits are before the natural fertility rate is 1% per month (it is age 45). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/age-female-fertility-declines_n_4817609.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/age-female-fertilit... Ironic that it advises education. Most IVF clinics don't accept eggs after 42 because the probability of an IVF cycle working is less than 5%. Here's a study showing the contradiction between what women/men have the impression of being true, with the facts. http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1375.abstract http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1375.abstract "Even though participants generally perceived themselves as being educated about fertility issues, both men and women vastly overestimated the ages at which female fertility shows a slight and a marked decline. The discrepancy between their perceived knowledge and what is known regarding the science of reproduction is alarming and could lead to involuntary childlessness if men and women's reproductive decisions are based on inaccurate perceptions." I don't find it alarming that people make mistakes. I do find it alarming that this was well known in the past, even when people couldn't read and now university students are less educated than their grandparents. Come to think of it, maybe the canard about education reducing the reproduction rate in developing countries is correct after all...
melling 10y ago
Really? I've been waiting for over a decade for China and India to step onto the world stage. We should encourage and help more. These two countries with a combined 2.6 billion people should be able to easily outpace the research in the west. Does it matter if basic research is done in the US, India, or China? Imagine if China and India could each double the amount of research done by the US.
- Pica_soO 10y ago
  Four bully's instead of two surely make for a nicer school yard.

by biofox 10y ago

digi_owl 10y ago

Well one reason for us dragging our feet is our collective memory of eugenics.

biofox 10y ago
I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.
- zepto 10y ago
  How do you know that enabling people who happen to have resources in one of the current political regimes to edit their embryos will reduce suffering? It could just as easily increase it.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    Do you know what Tay-Sachs is?
    - zepto 10y ago
      How is that relevant?
      - Kalium 10y ago
        It's a source of suffering that can be solved through genetic engineering of embryos that some group of people with resources will be inclined to address. It is relevant because it precisely fits your criteria.
        zepto 10y ago
        Sure but my point is that technology that empowers a small group of powerful people to reduce their suffering may end up increasing suffering overall.
        Kalium 10y ago
        Yes. This is possible. You are completely correct. Of course, this is in fact true for all values of $TOOL in "Given $TOOL, a bad thing may happen".
        zepto 10y ago
        Sure - but the risks vary from tool. Rich people editing their babies seems like it's more risky for society than most tools.
        Kalium 10y ago
        It's also a tool that can literally save real, countable lives otherwise factually known to be doomed to horrific suffering and very early death. If I understand it correctly, your objection is that it may be possible for some group of people to use this to increase suffering in an abstract way.
        10y ago
  - simonh 10y ago
    It's not a matter of enabling this at the regime level. Regimes get to make their own laws. We in the west may not be able to stop clearly unethical embry editing, so whether we can do that or not is completely orthogonal to whether we should consider some uses of the technique to be ethical and allowable.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  If we prevent certain kinds of people from even being born in the first place, how is that not as bad as murder or sterilisation?
  - oldmanjay 10y ago
    can you answer the converse? It's not at all clear to me how excising genetic dead ends is anything even remotely related to murder or sterilization, so I feel like the burden is on you to actually put something forth.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      You're still erasing people from the gene pool.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Gene pool is not made of sentient beings. It has no inherent moral value in itself.
      - Nadya 10y ago
        Under that argument - choosing not to mate is erasing people from the gene pool. Choosing who you mate with is also erasing people from the gene pool and denying people the possibility of mating with you at all is also erasing people from the gene pool. With the safe assumption that sperm and eggs have variations from one another - masturbating erases thousands if not millions of potential people from the gene pool and every period a female has without fertilization is another person missing from the gene pool. Given the number of people on the planet - resulting in trillions (and trillions) of DNA combinations between mating pairs - millions of possible people are erased from the gene pool on the grounds of "not everyone can mate with everyone in a given lifetime, even if we wanted to". Not to mention all the potential genes that die each day. I'm not sure I see your point.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        When a couple uses gene therapy to ensure their children don't get stuff like mitochondrial myopathy, how is that bad? Do you really think it's better for that couple (and society) that they do it the "natural way" and only have children who won't live to see their eighteenth birthday?
- internaut 10y ago
  Thank God for the Chinese. They must think we're insane. Bioethicists I've watched debate are seemingly unconcerned with the present day. I've never seen it emphasized (as it used to be once) that the potential for mental and physical handicaps goes up very dramatically as a woman ages. There exists a fairly narrow window to produce children optimally. I am confident no school children are aware of this through sex education. It is sort of brushed under the carpet in favour of 'right to choose'. You would not believe the rate of deformed children that exist. In my small town there are six or seven special centers for children with mental and physical handicaps. I am convinced this is because the parents got to the idea of having children late. This is a failing of society. "http://www.ivfne.com/content/editor/Fertility http://www.ivfne.com/content/editor/Fertility Age Graph.jpg" http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1331118/disability_chart_1.0.png http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1331118/di... http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/images/prevalence-chart.jpg http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/images/p...
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    It may depend heavily on the country. In Poland, which is arguably a western nation, we were taught about the "optimal childbearing age" in biology classes, and the women I know are acutely aware of the concept. Maybe what you're describing is a US thing?
    - internaut 10y ago
      Poland, along with the eastern European countries doesn't have this hangup about human biology. I believe what I was saying mostly applies to the US and western European countries. For all their faults, communist countries at least took science education seriously. The idea that a woman and man have a finite amount of time to produce healthy offspring is a 'bad culture fit' for the kind of egalitarian orthodoxy that is not taken seriously in ex-communist countries. If you're in the US or western Europe, try asking random average people what the age limits are before the natural fertility rate is 1% per month (it is age 45). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/age-female-fertility-declines_n_4817609.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/age-female-fertilit... Ironic that it advises education. Most IVF clinics don't accept eggs after 42 because the probability of an IVF cycle working is less than 5%. Here's a study showing the contradiction between what women/men have the impression of being true, with the facts. http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1375.abstract http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/5/1375.abstract "Even though participants generally perceived themselves as being educated about fertility issues, both men and women vastly overestimated the ages at which female fertility shows a slight and a marked decline. The discrepancy between their perceived knowledge and what is known regarding the science of reproduction is alarming and could lead to involuntary childlessness if men and women's reproductive decisions are based on inaccurate perceptions." I don't find it alarming that people make mistakes. I do find it alarming that this was well known in the past, even when people couldn't read and now university students are less educated than their grandparents. Come to think of it, maybe the canard about education reducing the reproduction rate in developing countries is correct after all...

melling 10y ago

Really? I've been waiting for over a decade for China and India to step onto the world stage. We should encourage and help more. These two countries with a combined 2.6 billion people should be able to easily outpace the research in the west. Does it matter if basic research is done in the US, India, or China? Imagine if China and India could each double the amount of research done by the US.

Pica_soO 10y ago
Four bully's instead of two surely make for a nicer school yard.