6 ms·

You have to wonder how far people are willing to go to declare things defects. At first it's just serious diseases. But then people will want their children to

• jacquesm 12y ago
  There are other, less nice implications too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics Is a good read, also the movie Gattaca (obviously fiction, but raises some interesting questions).
  • netcan 12y ago
    Eugenics is one of those words steeped in 20th century baggage. I think there is a parallel to geo-engineering. It sounds like it'll lead someplace troublesome. people can't be trusted with it. OTOH, we have international conferences where they're trying to reach some sort of decisions about how much carbon there should be in the atmosphere. Maybe they'll be deciding how warm it should be, or how much rain europe should be getting. Once we have the ability to influence these things we are geo-engineers, eugenicists, etc. It's not a choice. Not any more than we chose to take horses, ship rats and house cats to every part of the world.
    • jacquesm 12y ago
      Most words that were not invented in the last 15 years are steeped in historical baggage. That doesn't mean that we should not learn from that history. In fact, if people start inventing words for things that we already have words for it's a good time to start paying attention, likely you're being sold on something.
      • netcan 12y ago
        I think its more than just the words, it's the concepts themselves. Eugenics is scary, morally complicated, exciting and possibly inevitable. It has some historical associations with fascism and 20th century modernism in general. The whole thing make people uncomfortable. It's hard to criticize when people just get creeped out by the idea. Perhaps this is best left to our grandchildren.
      • pbhjpbhj 12y ago
        So because Hitler wanted to wipe out Jewish people we shouldn't suggest that those with hereditary genetic diseases don't have children, or for example make genetic tests available to those who are [hoping to get] pregnant? All of these are called eugenics (though the first is not really focussed on genetic traits); pretending that "eugenics" doesn't carry any baggage because of it's association with Nazi Germany seems pretty disingenuous.
  • arethuza 12y ago
    Any mention of eugenics makes me distinctly queasy as I learned from my mother in my mid 20s that I was almost aborted as an embryo on the recommendation of doctors as two of my older siblings are (mildy) physically disabled and they judged there was a risk I could suffer the same problem. Fortunately for me, my mother's GP discussed the matter with her and actually argued against the recommendations of specialists and I turned out perfectly healthy. This matter only came up in conversation when she mentioned that the GP in question had died and I said I had never liked him as a kid and she pointed out how ironic that was as he saved my life.....
    • jacquesm 12y ago
      Lucky you. Lots of kids were not that lucky. The problem with any kind of structural attempt at removing undesirable traits/children with defects from the population before they are born is the false positive rates are very high. Fortunately for you you're here and healthy. The flip side is that you might not have been healthy and then there would be a significant burden on those around you and society. These are very difficult problems and the harshness and ease with which people talk about them and pass judgement are in stark contrast with what a more informed person would probably conclude. The wikipedia article is particularly precise when it comes to articulating the problems stemming from slippery slope arguments around this subject. In the end, Eugenics is a tool that can be used for good and bad, just like every other tool. But it needs very good oversight and the use cases displayed so far are not all positive in my opinion.
• tiatia 12y ago
  Do you know what a disease is?
  • tiatia 12y ago
    I don't get it why I am always getting voted done. And the parent poster of my comment obviously does not understand anything about what a disease is (feel free to give a definition without googleing it), why genetic variance exists and pleiotropic genes. But thanks for voting me down. Hint: What a disease is and what not, depends a lot on the environment.
    • geographomics 12y ago
      I suspect it was because your comment was quite unconstructive, and comes across as a mildly sarcastic taunt rather than a genuine question. If instead you had explained why you disagree with the parent poster and offered some information on how best to define a disease, you most likely would not have been downvoted.
• tomp 12y ago
  > this could actually be a good direction to move in. We can not only eliminate genetic diseases, but also genes that predispose us to other common diseases like cancer. But where does this stop? Replace a gene -> replace mitochondria -> replace a whole chromosome -> replace the sperm/egg -> replace the whole child. We've come back to the real world, i.e. adoption.
  • guard-of-terra 12y ago
    However, adoption is not quality controlled, and with the "whole child", we are presumed to control the outcome. However if this becomes widespread, we should be fighting to preserve diversity of benign genes.
  • baddox 12y ago
    I'm not sure why you think adoption is at this end of the continuum. I would say that complete genetic engineering of a zygote "from scratch" would be at this end of the continuum. Somewhere in between would be selecting exactly which of your and your partner's genes go into the zygote.
    • jebus989 12y ago
      Most uses of "gene" in this thread should be replaced by allele.
• emilsedgh 12y ago
  As a third party observer, I think I agree with you here. However, when I put myself in place of people actually being harmed by this, I think it totally makes sense. And this process you (and I) are afraid of...This is not the beginning. It has begun since we started to vaccinate people.
• blueskin_ 12y ago
  >At first it's just serious diseases. But then people will want their children to have correct color vision and other nice things. ...and they should. Nobody deserves a suboptimal quality of life due to genetics.
  • jychang 12y ago
    But then we go full GATTACA.
    • blueskin_ 12y ago
      AKA Affirmative Action Is Good: The Movie. We already bar people with heart defects from participating in space programs.
      • maxerickson 12y ago
        I thought the whole point was that the main character got into space on merit, even though all the fancy genetic screening predicted that he wouldn't be able to. The human spirit of an individual triumphs over a short sighted and capricious society. You mention the heart defect. In the movie, the heart defect is only genetically potential, it is implied that if the character had it they would be dead before the events of the film.
        • adrianN 12y ago
          He does cheat on both the medical and the physical exams.
          • maxerickson 12y ago
            Sure, I guess I would refine it and say that he made it into space based on some standard of merit that I was defining, not based on the one the short sighted and capricious society defined.
    • Filligree 12y ago
• exratione 12y ago
  Everyone should have the option of upgrading to better, damage resistant mitochondria, or the option to purchase effective maintenance of mitochondrial function. Some haplotypes are objectively better than others, allowing greater athletic ability or resistance to age-related disease, but we can go beyond even just picking haplotype. Progressive damage to mitochondrial DNA is an important contribution to degenerative aging. Wholesale replacement of either mitochondria or mitochondrial DNA (via any one of four or five different approaches) is a very viable near term goal. All of the necessary component of such a treatment have been demonstrated in animals and human cells in the laboratory over the past decade, leaving just the painfully slow regulatory and development process.