5 ms·
Yes, I read the article. I also don't live in Silicon Valley. I don't think it's "being reported as though a cure for Down syndrome has been found". That's the
by tree_of_item 9y ago
Yes, I read the article. I also don't live in Silicon Valley.
I don't think it's "being reported as though a cure for Down syndrome has been found". That's the spin the National Review article puts on it. Here are the first two paragraphs of the quoted CBS article:
> With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.
> Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
It's pretty clear that they're not talking about a cure. How is this a bad thing at all? How is this "eugenics"? Down syndrome is a serious, debilitating genetic disorder with no benefits in any sense. Why do we want it to exist? I'm not really seeing an argument against this besides the usual pro-life positions.
- wbl 9y agoPeople with Down syndrome have high life satisfaction.
- thriftwy 9y agoThat's the problem with humans where life satisfaction seems to be inversely correlated with IQ.
- gwern 9y agoI believe it tends to either be constant or slightly positive, actually. Of course, if all you want is happy people, happiness is heritable and so you can do embryo selection on it or genetically correlated traits like personality factors (for Extraversion & against Neuroticism: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-human-genetics/article/personality-polygenes-positive-affect-and-life-satisfaction/4DB2BE673BF122FB9A0AF2147EED80C0/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-hu... )
- pas 9y agoCould you elaborate on the iq happiness correlation? Possible mechanisms, data, ways to test it, etc?
- nsxwolf 9y agoWhat other argument against it would their be besides the usual pro-life ones? I don't know who would be against some kind of treatment to disable or delete the extra chromosome.