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> If children like the twins who have been reportedly modified are born and live healthy, normal lives, then scientific worries about off-target effects will be
by platz 8y ago
> If children like the twins who have been reportedly modified are born and live healthy, normal lives, then scientific worries about off-target effects will begin to recede.
Unless the change is one that produces greater fitness in individuals but lowers fitness for the species as a whole. e.g. the environment changes (it happens) and all the folks that would've been naturally adapted (via this diversity) to the new environment were edited out.
Humans are great at thinking about individual risks, but not so great at thinking about systemic or ecological risks (climate change, economics)
- emmanueloga_ 8y agoShould we apply A/B testing?
- tomrod 8y agoEthically, I think not.
- ekianjo 8y agoNothing prevents humanity from experimenting. Its not like everyone, everywhere will start gene editing at the same time. Let people experiment and see where the chips fall. As for economical risks and the like, we may be poor at dealing with it in the short term but with time humanity can progress and solve most problems.
- majewsky 8y agoTwo claims without any arguments to support them: > Its not like everyone, everywhere will start gene editing at the same time. When gene editing technology becomes available, it most likely becomes available across the world at the same time. Sure, poor people might not have access to it, but the upper classes in all countries will. > but with time humanity can progress and solve most problems. Wishful thinking. We're about 100 years into the era of human development where we can annihilate ourselves through our own action, and plenty of evidence points to our continued survival being caused by sheer luck (just look up Stanislav Petrov) or because the cause-and-effect changes take longer than 100 years (as in climate change). And the possible avenues for self-annihilation are only expanding. It used to be "only" nuclear war and climate change, soon it's also gene editing, and the robot uprising is already on the horizon for the next 100 years or so.
- ekianjo 8y ago> Sure, poor people might not have access to it, but the upper classes in all countries will. Who cares about the 1%? It means the majority will not have access to it at first.
- Fjolsvith 8y agoYour point about Stanislav Petrov being sheer luck is questionable. I maintained USAF radar mainframe computers during my time in the service, and we knew our equipment inside and out, and had a pretty good idea when things didn't look right. I'm sure the Soviets did the same with their systems.