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> We've just rolled the genetic dice repeatedly and selected the outcomes we preferred. And? That's just a particular choice of tool. I do the same thing when

by saulrh 7y ago

> We've just rolled the genetic dice repeatedly and selected the outcomes we preferred. And? That's just a particular choice of tool. I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs. > lots of traits we have selected for [...] have come with real trade-offs That's engineering.

vosper 7y ago
> And? That's just a particular choice of tool. It wasn't a choice, it was literally the only method we had available. > I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs. But I bet you don't do it by a process of natural selection, setting criteria and evolving solutions through an at-best semi-guided generally-black-box process that you don't really understand, and where you're only able to understand a portion of the full complexity of the results. > That's engineering. No, that's outcomes. Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. Not only do we not understand the tradeoffs in advance, we're also not able select them reliably. If we have that ability now via breeding (not that I'm aware of, but I'm no expert on breeding technology) then we've only had it for a very short time relative to how long we've been doing this.
- saulrh 7y ago
  > Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. You're not giving enough credit to the people that designed domestic animal breeds. Modern working dog breeds were absolutely engineered for particular tasks; target characteristics were selected up-front, size and hair and temperament and so on, and dogs and breeds were chosen to start from and bred in predictable ways to increase the likelihood of obtaining the desired characteristics. Animal husbandry is only "random" in the same way that sports is: There's absolutely some variation in outcome in each individual game, but if you put a professional NFL team against even a college team there's not much doubt about the outcome of a best of five. Or it's random in the same way a loaded die is: individual trials may be random, but if you consistently use it for the important rolls you'll clean up. Also, I'd just like to say that software engineers would be ecstatic if they had a reliable way to accurately predict the tradeoffs involved in many architectural choices.
deogeo 7y ago
By this logic, you should have no concerns with parents genetically modifying their children at conception, since it's something they've been doing already by their choice of mate. It's just a choice of tool.
- saulrh 7y ago
  I'm not sure why you say that like it's some kind of insult. Norman Borlaug and Ken Alibek used the same tools. Fertility clinics use the same tools you see in GATTACA and the same tools that will hopefully be used in the future to reduce the occurrence of cystic fibrosis and Huntington's to zero. So, yeah, it's not about the tools. It's about the goals.

by saulrh 7y ago

vosper 7y ago

> And? That's just a particular choice of tool. It wasn't a choice, it was literally the only method we had available. > I do the same thing when I'm working on a particularly tough problem; I might try five or ten different approaches before finding one with the right combination of advantages and trade-offs. But I bet you don't do it by a process of natural selection, setting criteria and evolving solutions through an at-best semi-guided generally-black-box process that you don't really understand, and where you're only able to understand a portion of the full complexity of the results. > That's engineering. No, that's outcomes. Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. Not only do we not understand the tradeoffs in advance, we're also not able select them reliably. If we have that ability now via breeding (not that I'm aware of, but I'm no expert on breeding technology) then we've only had it for a very short time relative to how long we've been doing this.

saulrh 7y ago
> Engineering would be understanding the tradeoffs in advance and choosing them with consideration of the outcomes. You're not giving enough credit to the people that designed domestic animal breeds. Modern working dog breeds were absolutely engineered for particular tasks; target characteristics were selected up-front, size and hair and temperament and so on, and dogs and breeds were chosen to start from and bred in predictable ways to increase the likelihood of obtaining the desired characteristics. Animal husbandry is only "random" in the same way that sports is: There's absolutely some variation in outcome in each individual game, but if you put a professional NFL team against even a college team there's not much doubt about the outcome of a best of five. Or it's random in the same way a loaded die is: individual trials may be random, but if you consistently use it for the important rolls you'll clean up. Also, I'd just like to say that software engineers would be ecstatic if they had a reliable way to accurately predict the tradeoffs involved in many architectural choices.

deogeo 7y ago

By this logic, you should have no concerns with parents genetically modifying their children at conception, since it's something they've been doing already by their choice of mate. It's just a choice of tool.

saulrh 7y ago
I'm not sure why you say that like it's some kind of insult. Norman Borlaug and Ken Alibek used the same tools. Fertility clinics use the same tools you see in GATTACA and the same tools that will hopefully be used in the future to reduce the occurrence of cystic fibrosis and Huntington's to zero. So, yeah, it's not about the tools. It's about the goals.