5 ms·

Isn't Flowers for Algernon required 7th-grade reading anymore? This isn't going to end well, people.

M_Grey 10y ago
That was the first thing that leaped to mind for me as well, specifically the line, "P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard." Kidding aside though, anytime the question of, "Does this thing in mice do this other thing in humans?" the answer is always, "Who the hell knows until after the study is complete?!"
SamBam 10y ago
I was thinking Understand in Ted Chaing's Stories of Your Life and Others. Just the same set-up: new drug that can heal a person's damaged brain, turns him into a super-intelligent psycho.
- asab 10y ago
  I'll just leave this here: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-science-fiction http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... Although it's important to point out that he wasn't psycho, and his preferences don't seem directly shaped by the treatment..
ambientdarkness 10y ago
I'm curious what you mean by "isn't going to end well." I don't want to spoil the book. Anyone who hasn't read it really should as it's an excellent read. But, at any rate, the Charlie character starts off as mentally very simple and enjoys life, then after attaining intelligence quickly achieves many things most people wont in their whole lifetimes, though isn't super happy while doing these and insults those he feels are less intelligent, though eventually grows emotionally through them, then he returns to being simple and happy. Really this is just everyones' life, starting as a baby and returning to dementia as an adult, for Charlie it's just flat and then a sudden spike rather than a gradual curve. Curious why you think it wont end well. I mean in the end everyone dies so it's true if you're very much against that, nothing ends well. The real point of the book I thought was we shouldn't view the super intelligent or super simple as better or worse because we are all both better and worse cosmically. So ultimately everyone should stop being condescending generally.
hinkley 10y ago
At some distant point in the future we will understand biology so well that we can see the ways in which evolution produced local maxima for certain processes, and we will be able to see alternate versions that are more optimal but would (almost) never evolve on their own. At that point, we will indeed be able to create artificial molecules or genes that make brains more efficient at using oxygen and sugar to produce rational organized thoughts. But I have no illusions that anything groundshaking will happen in my lifetime. Unfortunately, the fastest way we have to advance is to tinker and learn from our mistakes. I will leave it to other people to volunteer for that process.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  The human brain uses up 20% of our energy. There may be easy ways to increase intelligence, that evolution avoided because it costs more energy. But in the modern world constraints like that don't matter.
- phkahler 10y ago
  ...ways in which evolution produced local maxima... There is a compelling argument against any simple way to enhance people. It's that if a simple change even the addition of a single molecule could make people significantly better, evolution would have found that change already. With nature we are stuck with much more incremental change. So I agree that science may eventually find some nice enhancements but they will require more than a single molecule or gene change.
  - greendragon 10y ago
    This isn't exactly true, since the human meaning of "enhance" is quite different from the evolutionary meaning. For example, iodine (an element, not even as big as a molecule) supplementation at the fetus and early childhood stages can, among other benefits, result in as much as a 13 point IQ increase from a previously deficient region's average. This is a huge enhancement by human standards. Why hasn't evolution found a way to have our bodies produce iodine automatically (perhaps by producing iodomethane like some algae?) at that stage of life, or maybe only by the mother when the child is in the womb or perhaps produced and distributed only with breast milk? Then even if you lack natural sources of iodine you'll still benefit. It should be easy, it's just a single element! Well even for "simple" things like the addition of a single new element, or a single new molecule, or a single new protein, the details are complicated, and any mutation that depends on a prior mutation to be beneficial has to wait until the prior mutation is close to fixation and is common among the species. Evolution is slow and only cares about reproductive fitness, and can easily get trapped in local maxima and a species can even evolve to extinction. Because of that, it can miss obvious (to human intelligence) low hanging fruit. So I don't think that "evolution would have found it already" argument is very compelling. Evolution is dumb, it's amazing it works at all.
bertiewhykovich 10y ago
What's troubling to me about this drug is that broad-spectrum improvement of memory formation /does not/ seem to be a clear positive in many cases. It's certainly great for, say, studying for medicine, but it strikes me as an enormous liability in the event of trauma, or with respect to the many psychological difficulties that are associated with bad memories. As I recall (and it's been years, so please forgive me if I'm mistaken), Charlie's increased intelligence lead directly to increased unhappiness. While literature obviously does not constitute any sort of conclusive evidence, I think that the point is well-taken: for all the merits of human intelligence, it also fucks us up pretty good.
philipkglass 10y ago
I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. But it's also worth remembering that the trope in fiction of $REALLY_GOOD_THING turning out to be $BAD_THING in disguise is just that, dramatically convenient fiction. There's no natural "game balance" to the universe. Yet popular entertainment is very small-c conservative about human improvement; if vaccines were still the stuff of fiction rather than daily life, a TV drama would show that universal prevention of smallpox has some terrible side effect that turns out to be worse than just letting people get infected and die. Fortunately we know that to be false but it won't stop dramatists and those shaped by them for immediately looking at newer biomedical advances with the most crushing cynicism. (Not really directed at you, since I take it you're joking a bit, but this was the comment that prompted my thoughts...)
- beambot 10y ago
  > I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. What about the contrapositive... How many substances fail in mouse studies (and are discarded), yet would have been viable in humans? Any known examples of this?
  - philipkglass 10y ago
    I don't know off the top of my head of any drugs that work in humans but have intolerable problems in mice. I do know that some substances are much more toxic to other mammals than to us. For example, acetaminophen is very toxic to cats. Theobromine is much more toxic to dogs and cats than to humans. 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is rapidly lethal to guinea pigs at a level that might only cause skin problems and/or reproductive defects in humans.
    - wyager 10y ago
      Permethrine is highly lethal to cold-blooded animals and cats.
    - luminiferous 10y ago
Dylan16807 10y ago
That's like using the titanic as an argument against cruise ships. It's one very specific scenario.

That was the first thing that leaped to mind for me as well, specifically the line, "P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard." Kidding aside though, anytime the question of, "Does this thing in mice do this other thing in humans?" the answer is always, "Who the hell knows until after the study is complete?!"

SamBam 10y ago

I was thinking Understand in Ted Chaing's Stories of Your Life and Others. Just the same set-up: new drug that can heal a person's damaged brain, turns him into a super-intelligent psycho.

asab 10y ago
I'll just leave this here: http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-science-fiction http://www.metafilter.com/98974/This-isnt-your-grandfathers-... Although it's important to point out that he wasn't psycho, and his preferences don't seem directly shaped by the treatment..

ambientdarkness 10y ago

I'm curious what you mean by "isn't going to end well." I don't want to spoil the book. Anyone who hasn't read it really should as it's an excellent read. But, at any rate, the Charlie character starts off as mentally very simple and enjoys life, then after attaining intelligence quickly achieves many things most people wont in their whole lifetimes, though isn't super happy while doing these and insults those he feels are less intelligent, though eventually grows emotionally through them, then he returns to being simple and happy. Really this is just everyones' life, starting as a baby and returning to dementia as an adult, for Charlie it's just flat and then a sudden spike rather than a gradual curve. Curious why you think it wont end well. I mean in the end everyone dies so it's true if you're very much against that, nothing ends well. The real point of the book I thought was we shouldn't view the super intelligent or super simple as better or worse because we are all both better and worse cosmically. So ultimately everyone should stop being condescending generally.

hinkley 10y ago

At some distant point in the future we will understand biology so well that we can see the ways in which evolution produced local maxima for certain processes, and we will be able to see alternate versions that are more optimal but would (almost) never evolve on their own. At that point, we will indeed be able to create artificial molecules or genes that make brains more efficient at using oxygen and sugar to produce rational organized thoughts. But I have no illusions that anything groundshaking will happen in my lifetime. Unfortunately, the fastest way we have to advance is to tinker and learn from our mistakes. I will leave it to other people to volunteer for that process.

Houshalter 10y ago
The human brain uses up 20% of our energy. There may be easy ways to increase intelligence, that evolution avoided because it costs more energy. But in the modern world constraints like that don't matter.
phkahler 10y ago
...ways in which evolution produced local maxima... There is a compelling argument against any simple way to enhance people. It's that if a simple change even the addition of a single molecule could make people significantly better, evolution would have found that change already. With nature we are stuck with much more incremental change. So I agree that science may eventually find some nice enhancements but they will require more than a single molecule or gene change.
- greendragon 10y ago
  This isn't exactly true, since the human meaning of "enhance" is quite different from the evolutionary meaning. For example, iodine (an element, not even as big as a molecule) supplementation at the fetus and early childhood stages can, among other benefits, result in as much as a 13 point IQ increase from a previously deficient region's average. This is a huge enhancement by human standards. Why hasn't evolution found a way to have our bodies produce iodine automatically (perhaps by producing iodomethane like some algae?) at that stage of life, or maybe only by the mother when the child is in the womb or perhaps produced and distributed only with breast milk? Then even if you lack natural sources of iodine you'll still benefit. It should be easy, it's just a single element! Well even for "simple" things like the addition of a single new element, or a single new molecule, or a single new protein, the details are complicated, and any mutation that depends on a prior mutation to be beneficial has to wait until the prior mutation is close to fixation and is common among the species. Evolution is slow and only cares about reproductive fitness, and can easily get trapped in local maxima and a species can even evolve to extinction. Because of that, it can miss obvious (to human intelligence) low hanging fruit. So I don't think that "evolution would have found it already" argument is very compelling. Evolution is dumb, it's amazing it works at all.

bertiewhykovich 10y ago

What's troubling to me about this drug is that broad-spectrum improvement of memory formation /does not/ seem to be a clear positive in many cases. It's certainly great for, say, studying for medicine, but it strikes me as an enormous liability in the event of trauma, or with respect to the many psychological difficulties that are associated with bad memories. As I recall (and it's been years, so please forgive me if I'm mistaken), Charlie's increased intelligence lead directly to increased unhappiness. While literature obviously does not constitute any sort of conclusive evidence, I think that the point is well-taken: for all the merits of human intelligence, it also fucks us up pretty good.

philipkglass 10y ago

I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. But it's also worth remembering that the trope in fiction of $REALLY_GOOD_THING turning out to be $BAD_THING in disguise is just that, dramatically convenient fiction. There's no natural "game balance" to the universe. Yet popular entertainment is very small-c conservative about human improvement; if vaccines were still the stuff of fiction rather than daily life, a TV drama would show that universal prevention of smallpox has some terrible side effect that turns out to be worse than just letting people get infected and die. Fortunately we know that to be false but it won't stop dramatists and those shaped by them for immediately looking at newer biomedical advances with the most crushing cynicism. (Not really directed at you, since I take it you're joking a bit, but this was the comment that prompted my thoughts...)

beambot 10y ago
> I would guess that you are right simply because most drugs that initially show promise in mice fail during clinical trials in humans. What about the contrapositive... How many substances fail in mouse studies (and are discarded), yet would have been viable in humans? Any known examples of this?
- philipkglass 10y ago
  I don't know off the top of my head of any drugs that work in humans but have intolerable problems in mice. I do know that some substances are much more toxic to other mammals than to us. For example, acetaminophen is very toxic to cats. Theobromine is much more toxic to dogs and cats than to humans. 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is rapidly lethal to guinea pigs at a level that might only cause skin problems and/or reproductive defects in humans.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Permethrine is highly lethal to cold-blooded animals and cats.
  - luminiferous 10y ago

Dylan16807 10y ago

That's like using the titanic as an argument against cruise ships. It's one very specific scenario.