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Are you trying to justify innocent human experiments by saying nature is doing it anyway ? Nature is a mad scientist, unfair and horrible so let's be like it ?

Are you trying to justify innocent human experiments by saying nature is doing it anyway ? Nature is a mad scientist, unfair and horrible so let's be like it ? Maybe if you were seriously ill because of a genetic experiment we did on you (and that you did not need) as you were an embryo, then you would not hold the same view. I don't think you get where the morality problem is... It's not about being Amish that say "we shouldn't temper with God's perfect creation". It's about a country doing human experimentation on innocent people that do not need it, it's not to cure them from an heridetary problem but to breed a stronger race. China will only show the success of their experiments and will hide from the eyes of the world all the failures, handicapped babies, secondary effects of their human experiments. They'll make experiments on babies with lots of failure (it's science, you never get it right at the first experiment) and once in a while they'll put a video on YouTube like they just did saying "Aw look how healthy they are". But behind there going to be a lot of guinea pig children with serious secondary effects. And the worth part is how they'll make sure the rest of the world never see those "failed" children. This might be Nazi-level stuff that's going to happen and this is what people with a glimpse of ethics left are concerned about, it's not about "not tempering with God's perfect creation"

nathan_f77 8y ago
I think you're mainly talking about the worst case situation, which is obviously terrible: Unethical scientists performing unethical experiments for an unethical government. I'm not arguing for that, and I don't think it's the only possible situation. > "it's science, you never get it right at the first experiment" > "there is going to be a lot of guinea pig children with serious secondary effects" I don't think so. If this does happen then it would be extremely sad, but I don't think it's very likely. Scientists are far more careful than that. A new drug has to go through many stages before it is ever tested in clinical trials, and these human trials are generally very safe. So I'm just trying to say that if this is done properly and with a lot of safeguards, then gene-editing is not inherently unethical. But you're probably right about China. They have a horrible history of human-rights abuses, and I think they are much more likely to get this wrong. Even if it's not a government program, Chinese companies don't have a great track record [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already performing some reckless experiments, and all of these people should locked up. [1] https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains/ https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced...

nathan_f77 8y ago

I think you're mainly talking about the worst case situation, which is obviously terrible: Unethical scientists performing unethical experiments for an unethical government. I'm not arguing for that, and I don't think it's the only possible situation. > "it's science, you never get it right at the first experiment" > "there is going to be a lot of guinea pig children with serious secondary effects" I don't think so. If this does happen then it would be extremely sad, but I don't think it's very likely. Scientists are far more careful than that. A new drug has to go through many stages before it is ever tested in clinical trials, and these human trials are generally very safe. So I'm just trying to say that if this is done properly and with a lot of safeguards, then gene-editing is not inherently unethical. But you're probably right about China. They have a horrible history of human-rights abuses, and I think they are much more likely to get this wrong. Even if it's not a government program, Chinese companies don't have a great track record [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if they were already performing some reckless experiments, and all of these people should locked up. [1] https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains/ https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced...