5 ms·

Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks

by wycs 8y ago

Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. We would be fools to outlaw it here, for we would become as children compared to future citizens of nations that do not share our taboos.

carbocation 8y ago
> Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. We would be fools to outlaw it here, for we would become as children compared to future citizens of Asian nations. What is the relevance of "Asian nations?" to this conversation? Also, we're talking about a specific experiment that was allegedly conducted in human beings with (good but error-prone) genome editing mechanisms, outside of the purview of peer review or, from what I can tell, an IRB.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dqpb 8y ago
  "good but error prone" describes all of medical care right now. Hell, pharmaceuticals aren't even good in many cases.
  - carbocation 8y ago
    That's absolutely not the standard for deciding to conduct an experiment on humans.
    - modzu 8y ago
      remember also its an unborn child -- its not an experiment on the living, consenting adult. child grows up, experiences whatever unknown consequences of the genetic experiment. thanks dad!
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Only true if your country and culture cares about IRBs. China doesn’t, it’s a quarter of the human population and it won’t be long until it’s that of global GDP at least. What a bunch of post Christians with delusions about the universality of their ethical code think does not bother them at all.
      - goatlover 8y ago
        Yeah, but then maybe India will counter-balance that. From what I've heard, their ethical code will be against any such modifications.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    "Good but error prone" seems to aptly describe our current method of producing offspring. Gene editing is mandatory, if only because we've managed to turn many previously lethal mutations into livable, and reproducible, ones.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  "What is the relevance of "Asian nations?" to this conversation?" I would assume it's because the article describes genetically-engineered babies in China, so obviously it's not outlawed there (or if it is, the law is not enforced). Grandparent poster is pointing out that if genetic engineering gives survival or competitive benefits to those who do it, it doesn't matter what your personal ethical, moral, and legal standards are, because your whole society will be outcompeted by societies without those strictures.
  - anvandare 8y ago
    The purists need not be worried. There's always the hope the descendants of those humans who do take the path of editing their own genetic code will, a few centuries from now, give those purists' descendants a nice small patch of land as a reservation. Or maybe a cozy cage in a zoo, with a little sign next to the bars which reads: "homo sapiens inferior".
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Or, you know, the purists will be spared untold suffering that those others will have to go through because of "magician's apprentice" style editing...
      - anvandare 8y ago
        Of course the first period of experimentation and discovery will lead to unexpected and unpleasant results. All new technology takes time to mature, for the users to get an understanding of its tricky implementation bits and long-term impact. It's not wise to immediately put all your eggs in a brand new basket. But the ones who experiment and adapt will always eventually outperform those who refuse to change and stick to tried-and-tested. That's the very nature of evolution.
        coldtea 8y ago
        >That's the very nature of evolution. Evolution is blind to such concerns. Those who "experiment" might be wiped out because of their experiments gone wrong, and evolution wont care at all. A creature inventing tools might have an evolutionary advantage over others. A creature inventing e.g. biological warfare and nuclear weapons might have less an advantage, it can easily wipe most of its own kind and even collapse its civilization (losing even more advantages).
nradov 8y ago
Genetic engineering might be able to prevent certain inherited diseases, but otherwise major net improvements are unlikely. A boost in one area tends to cause problems in other areas. That's why evolution through natural selection hasn't significantly increased average human intelligence over the past few thousand years. The average human genome appears to be close to a local maximum.
- wycs 8y ago
  This is not true. Intelligence is polygenic. The average human is no Von Neumann. At the very least genetic engineering could raise average IQ to Von Neumann’s level. We know that phenotype is possible with no ill effects. It will likely take us much further.
  - nradov 8y ago
    You haven't addressed my point. No one disputes that intelligence is partly genetic. However if it was possible to raise intelligence through genetic engineering with no ill effects then why hasn't evolution increased the incidence of that phenotype already?
    - wycs 8y ago
      Most likely because it seems to be a phenotype that does not reproduce itself. None of Von Neumann’s children had kids if I recall correctly. This environment does not select for IQ past a certain point; this does not imply we cannot engineer people to be more intelligent any more than it implies we cannot engineer people to be dwarfs.
    - ganz 8y ago
      Not my area of expertise, but I think the intuition for why evolution didn't make us all Einstein's comes in two parts: (1) IQ is very polygenetic - a big IQ gene might be 0.1 IQ, and there aren't a lot even that large, if I recall the large genome wide association studies done on this. As GWAS studies get larger we find more, but they're all super small effects. (2) Having an extra 0.1 IQ point is easy to lose in the noise of other effects on having offspring. So even if we assumed IQ was perfectly correlated with more surviving offspring in modern societies, it might take an extremely long time (even longer than a whole planet and a thousand years) to make a detectable difference.
skosuri 8y ago
"Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations"... Where in the world are you getting this from? This is unlikely to be true for a long time. Intelligence, as far as genetics controls it, is a complex trait... with few if any large effect (especially positive) mutations.
- wycs 8y ago
  Though thousands of alleles contribute to intelligence, we would only need to edit a few hundred to get extremely large increases in IQ, especially if you perform a round of embryo selection (or even iterated embryo selection) before editing. Editing hundreds of alleles may sound incredible to you now, but I don’t think it will sound so incredible for long. Even ignoring GM, embryo selection can get us pretty far with current technology: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection
  - krastanov 8y ago
    Just checking: you do know that there is a difference between change of "5 standard deviations" and change of "5 IQ points". 5 standard deviations is equal to "1 in 3.5 million", which makes your claim fairly farfetched with the tech of today or of the future decade or two, especially given how IQ is much more function of nurture than of nature.
    - wycs 8y ago
      I am aware of this. Genetic engineering implies far more power than Gwern mentions for one round of embryo selection. 5 standard deviations may sound a lot for you, but in animal breeding we have changed the distribution of various traits by far more than 5 standard deviations. Into the dozens.
  - skosuri 8y ago
    What you are saying is just not supported by evidence. For example, polygenic analysis of the latest meta-analysis from >250K individuals seems to say that the top several hundred variants explain in aggregrate only 5.2% of the variation in intelligence. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0152-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0152-6 (Supplement section 2.3.3 if you don't have access).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
linkmotif 8y ago
So be it. Let them have it, if it means not being human.
coldtea 8y ago
>Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. This looks totally unlikely. Not to mention generally undesirable (people with IQ over 150 or so often have severe problems in their social life, and a lot of them don't ever even create or discover much, not to mention the insufferable part whose main accomplishment is to be members of MENSA).
- shubb 8y ago
  They didn't actually specify positive. It would be pretty easy to reduce IQ by 5+ standard deviations. Plenty of monogenic disorders cause learning disabilities, just gotta knock out those genes...
- nugget 8y ago
  150+ IQ is a lonely place to be because there aren’t many other people to connect with, especially for kids born in more rural areas without resources. It’s easy for these kids to self destruct. Turning a kid that smart into a happy, stable, productive member of society is an intensive 18+ year process that usually involves curated peers and experts with specific domain expertise. Check out Davidson Academy in Reno to read more.
yters 8y ago
"It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!" - Jesus

by wycs 8y ago

carbocation 8y ago

> Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. We would be fools to outlaw it here, for we would become as children compared to future citizens of Asian nations. What is the relevance of "Asian nations?" to this conversation? Also, we're talking about a specific experiment that was allegedly conducted in human beings with (good but error-prone) genome editing mechanisms, outside of the purview of peer review or, from what I can tell, an IRB.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dqpb 8y ago
"good but error prone" describes all of medical care right now. Hell, pharmaceuticals aren't even good in many cases.
- carbocation 8y ago
  That's absolutely not the standard for deciding to conduct an experiment on humans.
  - modzu 8y ago
    remember also its an unborn child -- its not an experiment on the living, consenting adult. child grows up, experiences whatever unknown consequences of the genetic experiment. thanks dad!
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Only true if your country and culture cares about IRBs. China doesn’t, it’s a quarter of the human population and it won’t be long until it’s that of global GDP at least. What a bunch of post Christians with delusions about the universality of their ethical code think does not bother them at all.
    - goatlover 8y ago
      Yeah, but then maybe India will counter-balance that. From what I've heard, their ethical code will be against any such modifications.
- ethbro 8y ago
  "Good but error prone" seems to aptly describe our current method of producing offspring. Gene editing is mandatory, if only because we've managed to turn many previously lethal mutations into livable, and reproducible, ones.
nostrademons 8y ago
"What is the relevance of "Asian nations?" to this conversation?" I would assume it's because the article describes genetically-engineered babies in China, so obviously it's not outlawed there (or if it is, the law is not enforced). Grandparent poster is pointing out that if genetic engineering gives survival or competitive benefits to those who do it, it doesn't matter what your personal ethical, moral, and legal standards are, because your whole society will be outcompeted by societies without those strictures.
- anvandare 8y ago
  The purists need not be worried. There's always the hope the descendants of those humans who do take the path of editing their own genetic code will, a few centuries from now, give those purists' descendants a nice small patch of land as a reservation. Or maybe a cozy cage in a zoo, with a little sign next to the bars which reads: "homo sapiens inferior".
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Or, you know, the purists will be spared untold suffering that those others will have to go through because of "magician's apprentice" style editing...
    - anvandare 8y ago
      Of course the first period of experimentation and discovery will lead to unexpected and unpleasant results. All new technology takes time to mature, for the users to get an understanding of its tricky implementation bits and long-term impact. It's not wise to immediately put all your eggs in a brand new basket. But the ones who experiment and adapt will always eventually outperform those who refuse to change and stick to tried-and-tested. That's the very nature of evolution.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >That's the very nature of evolution. Evolution is blind to such concerns. Those who "experiment" might be wiped out because of their experiments gone wrong, and evolution wont care at all. A creature inventing tools might have an evolutionary advantage over others. A creature inventing e.g. biological warfare and nuclear weapons might have less an advantage, it can easily wipe most of its own kind and even collapse its civilization (losing even more advantages).

nradov 8y ago

Genetic engineering might be able to prevent certain inherited diseases, but otherwise major net improvements are unlikely. A boost in one area tends to cause problems in other areas. That's why evolution through natural selection hasn't significantly increased average human intelligence over the past few thousand years. The average human genome appears to be close to a local maximum.

wycs 8y ago
This is not true. Intelligence is polygenic. The average human is no Von Neumann. At the very least genetic engineering could raise average IQ to Von Neumann’s level. We know that phenotype is possible with no ill effects. It will likely take us much further.
- nradov 8y ago
  You haven't addressed my point. No one disputes that intelligence is partly genetic. However if it was possible to raise intelligence through genetic engineering with no ill effects then why hasn't evolution increased the incidence of that phenotype already?
  - wycs 8y ago
    Most likely because it seems to be a phenotype that does not reproduce itself. None of Von Neumann’s children had kids if I recall correctly. This environment does not select for IQ past a certain point; this does not imply we cannot engineer people to be more intelligent any more than it implies we cannot engineer people to be dwarfs.
  - ganz 8y ago
    Not my area of expertise, but I think the intuition for why evolution didn't make us all Einstein's comes in two parts: (1) IQ is very polygenetic - a big IQ gene might be 0.1 IQ, and there aren't a lot even that large, if I recall the large genome wide association studies done on this. As GWAS studies get larger we find more, but they're all super small effects. (2) Having an extra 0.1 IQ point is easy to lose in the noise of other effects on having offspring. So even if we assumed IQ was perfectly correlated with more surviving offspring in modern societies, it might take an extremely long time (even longer than a whole planet and a thousand years) to make a detectable difference.

skosuri 8y ago

"Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations"... Where in the world are you getting this from? This is unlikely to be true for a long time. Intelligence, as far as genetics controls it, is a complex trait... with few if any large effect (especially positive) mutations.

wycs 8y ago
Though thousands of alleles contribute to intelligence, we would only need to edit a few hundred to get extremely large increases in IQ, especially if you perform a round of embryo selection (or even iterated embryo selection) before editing. Editing hundreds of alleles may sound incredible to you now, but I don’t think it will sound so incredible for long. Even ignoring GM, embryo selection can get us pretty far with current technology: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection
- krastanov 8y ago
  Just checking: you do know that there is a difference between change of "5 standard deviations" and change of "5 IQ points". 5 standard deviations is equal to "1 in 3.5 million", which makes your claim fairly farfetched with the tech of today or of the future decade or two, especially given how IQ is much more function of nurture than of nature.
  - wycs 8y ago
    I am aware of this. Genetic engineering implies far more power than Gwern mentions for one round of embryo selection. 5 standard deviations may sound a lot for you, but in animal breeding we have changed the distribution of various traits by far more than 5 standard deviations. Into the dozens.
- skosuri 8y ago
  What you are saying is just not supported by evidence. For example, polygenic analysis of the latest meta-analysis from >250K individuals seems to say that the top several hundred variants explain in aggregrate only 5.2% of the variation in intelligence. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0152-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0152-6 (Supplement section 2.3.3 if you don't have access).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

linkmotif 8y ago

So be it. Let them have it, if it means not being human.

coldtea 8y ago

>Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. This looks totally unlikely. Not to mention generally undesirable (people with IQ over 150 or so often have severe problems in their social life, and a lot of them don't ever even create or discover much, not to mention the insufferable part whose main accomplishment is to be members of MENSA).

shubb 8y ago
They didn't actually specify positive. It would be pretty easy to reduce IQ by 5+ standard deviations. Plenty of monogenic disorders cause learning disabilities, just gotta knock out those genes...
nugget 8y ago
150+ IQ is a lonely place to be because there aren’t many other people to connect with, especially for kids born in more rural areas without resources. It’s easy for these kids to self destruct. Turning a kid that smart into a happy, stable, productive member of society is an intensive 18+ year process that usually involves curated peers and experts with specific domain expertise. Check out Davidson Academy in Reno to read more.

yters 8y ago

"It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!" - Jesus