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"There is no way we can predict the outcome", he said, writing from his climate controlled room surrounded by concrete for miles in any direction. Don't worry,

"There is no way we can predict the outcome", he said, writing from his climate controlled room surrounded by concrete for miles in any direction. Don't worry, evolutionary systems are continuous and highly robust. Remember, nature is out there rolling dices and so far, no killer moths have been spotted, despite getting in 190 million years of moth gene dice rolls.

sorokod 7y ago
Evolution stopping is not a concern, it's direction is.
close04 7y ago
> no killer moths have been spotted, despite getting in 190 million years of moth gene dice rolls Nature works much slower than humans and with different "targets". There's a reason we shun engineering of deadly pathogens that could wipe out the entire population, and the assumption that "it can't be done otherwise nature would have done it already" doesn't hold.
- red75prime 7y ago
  Unintended consequences are unintended because they weren't actively searched for. Why do you think that they will be more dangerous than random search performed in nature?
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    It is the unknown unknown you worry about when change like this. I wonder the China part as well. Not sure still about the military lab on virus in wuhan. What is the governance and ethic model here?
aspyct 7y ago
> writing from his climate controlled room surrounded by concrete for miles in any direction. What does this have to do with genetic engineering? I'm not worried about killer moths, obviously. But as we've seen in the past, eradicating a species can have surprising effects on the whole ecosystem. Take the extermination of wolves in the Yellowstone park for example: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc... Getting rid of the moths is only a patch on a deeper problem. Like every patch, it's only going to move the problem, and possibly create others. The issue with GE is that we're not merely talking about concrete. Concrete doesn't move, doesn't reproduce. Living beings do so, and sometimes a lot faster than we expect. There's already so many changes going on at the moment with climate change. Insect populations are changing, birds migrate, crustaceans' shells dissolve in the ocean. There's no telling the consequences of GE for anything. And once it starts to be a mess, there's very little we can do to control it.
pvaldes 7y ago
> remember no killer moths have been spotted We probably should know better and stop underestimating the capability of evolution and the planet to knit complicated nets and put nasty surprises in our path. Nature has filled that checkbox long time ago. Of course there are killer moths and they are very efficient. There are reports of more than 500 humans killed by moths in recent times (plus another 2000 people sent to the hospital with a massive bleeding syndrome). Family Saturniidae.

sorokod 7y ago

Evolution stopping is not a concern, it's direction is.

close04 7y ago

> no killer moths have been spotted, despite getting in 190 million years of moth gene dice rolls Nature works much slower than humans and with different "targets". There's a reason we shun engineering of deadly pathogens that could wipe out the entire population, and the assumption that "it can't be done otherwise nature would have done it already" doesn't hold.

red75prime 7y ago
Unintended consequences are unintended because they weren't actively searched for. Why do you think that they will be more dangerous than random search performed in nature?
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  It is the unknown unknown you worry about when change like this. I wonder the China part as well. Not sure still about the military lab on virus in wuhan. What is the governance and ethic model here?

aspyct 7y ago

> writing from his climate controlled room surrounded by concrete for miles in any direction. What does this have to do with genetic engineering? I'm not worried about killer moths, obviously. But as we've seen in the past, eradicating a species can have surprising effects on the whole ecosystem. Take the extermination of wolves in the Yellowstone park for example: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc... Getting rid of the moths is only a patch on a deeper problem. Like every patch, it's only going to move the problem, and possibly create others. The issue with GE is that we're not merely talking about concrete. Concrete doesn't move, doesn't reproduce. Living beings do so, and sometimes a lot faster than we expect. There's already so many changes going on at the moment with climate change. Insect populations are changing, birds migrate, crustaceans' shells dissolve in the ocean. There's no telling the consequences of GE for anything. And once it starts to be a mess, there's very little we can do to control it.

pvaldes 7y ago

> remember no killer moths have been spotted We probably should know better and stop underestimating the capability of evolution and the planet to knit complicated nets and put nasty surprises in our path. Nature has filled that checkbox long time ago. Of course there are killer moths and they are very efficient. There are reports of more than 500 humans killed by moths in recent times (plus another 2000 people sent to the hospital with a massive bleeding syndrome). Family Saturniidae.