Genetic Engineering

[InnerBrat]

And once again, I get to be Devil's Advocate.

The problem with GM crops, is they are all genetically identical and form monocultueres, which are extremely susceptible to viruses and other pests, and so would be hit very hard by any new pest, and cause famine.
Also, GM crops are not used to help starving people in Africa but to make money - one of the main ways benig to breed sterile plants, so farmers have to buy seeds off the American (OK, Western) superfarms every year. This system is already in place with the old fashioned GM (artificial selection) - all commercial strains are heterozygous, so cannot be profitably bred from.

As for human GM, there's the same problem of loss of variation - the human geen pool is still recovering from a severe bottleneck about 100kya, plus I don't think that selecting for sex is ethical. Sorry, Spanky, but except where the mother is a carrier for an X-related genetic disorder, I see too many problems. Selective infanticide and abortion already exists, and I think that being able to choose your child's gender might make the problem even worse.
I understand the desire to eleminate genetic disease, but I enivsion a situation where what defines a genetic disorder would get more and more fuzzy - colour blindnesss, for example, doesn't really affect your quality of life, does it? Once a genetic inclination to obesity is removed, will the definition of obese change? The same for the supposed 'inherent intelligence'.

Basically, I'm opposed to eugenics in all its shapes, including genetic engineering.

However, I see nothing wrong with parents who want to conceive a child to e a bone marrow donor for an older sibling. I can just see Brave New World looming a bit too clearly...

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Well, this might sound rather odd, but I do kinda hate men in general.

It's not really sexist in nature: not like how femi-nazi's hate men, but for my personal reasons.

Basically, I see males (particularly American ones) as more prone to violence, cruelty, and becoming hateful, sex-obsessed bastards that do nothing but spread their cruelty and hurt others.

I cannot see myself bringing in something like that into the world as my children.

But it's not at the personal level, to let you know. I don't hold anything against any of you.

As for the tail: well, that's just because it's cool.

Isn't the solution here to parent your kids correctly? You don't HAVE to have a daughter. You could just teach your son to be a gentleman.

[Crown]

Okay back on topic; a part of me (the science nerd/dreamer) is like; cool! Imagine the possabilities. And another part of me is like; remember Gatica! And that's the rub. Would we decend to a society that values genetic traits above humanity?

[Darth Servo]

And another part of me is like; remember Gatica! And that's the rub. Would we decend to a society that values genetic traits above humanity?

Never trust Hollywood. Invoking Gataca is both an appeal to authority fallacy and thinking that genetic engineering would lead to such a society is a slippery slope fallacy.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

But who exactly would have this technology? What would happen if it fell into the wrong hands? Couldn't the technology be used by sick people to make mutant freaks?? You should use it to perfect humans, but you have to live with the fact that there are going to be assholes using it for their warped purposes. NTM the fact that those who cannot afford this wonder will be left behind in the dust. Maybe it should be a government service instead of a private service.

[The Yosemite Bear]

*Grins* They already HAVE an Genetic Cure for my condition! *Grins*

THere won't be too many more generations of Diabetics left at this rate.

[Master of Ossus]

But who exactly would have this technology? What would happen if it fell into the wrong hands? Couldn't the technology be used by sick people to make mutant freaks?? You should use it to perfect humans, but you have to live with the fact that there are going to be assholes using it for their warped purposes. NTM the fact that those who cannot afford this wonder will be left behind in the dust. Maybe it should be a government service instead of a private service.

That's not genetic engineering, it's genetic alteration. Genetic alteration, for organisms as complex as humans, is virtually impossible with our given technology. What happened in "James Bond: Die Another Day" would not be possible in real life. What we're talking about is taking an organism and then designing it while it's still an embryo, so that it can better serve humanity. This cannot be done for a larger organism that is already mature.

[jaeger115]

its like in Dark Angel: Max was born in a test tube

[IRG CommandoJoe]

But who exactly would have this technology? What would happen if it fell into the wrong hands? Couldn't the technology be used by sick people to make mutant freaks?? You should use it to perfect humans, but you have to live with the fact that there are going to be assholes using it for their warped purposes. NTM the fact that those who cannot afford this wonder will be left behind in the dust. Maybe it should be a government service instead of a private service.

That's not genetic engineering, it's genetic alteration. Genetic alteration, for organisms as complex as humans, is virtually impossible with our given technology. What happened in "James Bond: Die Another Day" would not be possible in real life. What we're talking about is taking an organism and then designing it while it's still an embryo, so that it can better serve humanity. This cannot be done for a larger organism that is already mature.

I realize this. The "mutant freaks" would be made when they still are embryos. Like, screwing up the human's brain and making it a psychopath that only kills things. Or ensuring that he or she is born retarded. Or if they are just plain cruel, make he or she blind, deaf, have no senses at all, etc. There are sick people out there. This is the kind of stuff that went on in the Holocaust. They weren't genetically manipulating people, but what I mean is that they tortured people in ways you couldn't imagine just for "experiments." I guarantee there are nuts that would do this.

[IRG CommandoJoe]

Now I realize the phrase, "mutant freak" is wrong. They aren't mutants, they are just...freaks....

[Shadow]

What's your guys position on Genetic Engineering? How do you guys feel about the creation of 'Genetic Supermen', etc.

I agree with genetic engineering if it used improve humans, and it is done properly.

[tharkûn]

I'm all for responsible GE, hell that is how I pay the bills. Key word RESPONSIBLE.

For instance some of the biotech companies have been irresponsible over the years. GM crops are good things, I can kick up the yeild, the vitamin content, etc. The problem comes with monoculturing and improper methods to avoid genetic contamination. For anything terribly dangerous (i.e. anything infectious) it should be grown in the lab in a contained environment and with multiple negative pressure seals if its really nasty, some of the CDC facilities come to mind here as good examples. For most crops you want your GM to not pollute the wild type. This should be done with gamete specificity or multiple knock-out kill switchs (mutant kill switches are NOT sufficient).

More GE is not needed to feed the world. Currently the western world overproduces and it is just a matter of distribution to feed the world. People like Mugabe are the biggest deterrant. What GE is good for is to lace staple crops (predominantly grains) with vitamin genes to fight malnourishment.

Now GE on humans is a whole other ball of wax. First off human GE must proceed much more slowly than anything animal, bacteria, or plant based. Most GE is a matter of probability ... you prepair your gene vector, salt your targets and hope 1 in 1000 takes up the genes of interest. You then grow the lot of them up and kill off the ones that don't take. This is an extremely bad idea if you egineer for say secondary sex characteristics growing 1000 kids to get the one that finally exhibits the trait at age 16 and then killing the rest ... well I kinda view that as bad.

Further GE becomes a royal bitch if you do anything beyond say 5 gene systems. The more genes you dick with the greater the chance you dick with something important. Potentially any gene can interact with any other, this is further complicated by interactions at all the various levels of expression: DNA, RNA, protein, signal transductors, cellular, systematic, organismal, population. Right now we have the genome, that is the DNA bp sequence only. It is analogous to having a parts list for a new Mercedes-Benz, and nothing else to tell you how to put it togethor (acutally the Mercedes is far easier). So let's take something simple ... increased muscle mass. This can be fairly easily done by just putting a stronger promotor upstream of some of the androgen proteins ... the problem is yes you get more muscles - you just exhibit symptoms of continious steroid use (like shrunken genitals).

So what does that mean? It means that when you try to engineer cool things most often you risk hideous failure. If you want results there is no subsitute for human en vivo trials. Unfortunately this will undoubtedly produce thousands of retarded or otherwise impaired individuals. Is society willing to create individuals for testing and then discard them? What do you do with your GE failures?

Finally once our knowledge base is sufficient that we can successfully GE on demand (long after I'm dead unless I miss my guess) do we create the genetic divide? Do we want to divide the world into those who were GE'd before birth (and hence have perfect bodies, no acne, long lives, etc.) and those who weren't? GE'd humans are going to be EXPENSIVE so at the beginning it will only be the rich ... do we really want this?

GE is like every other form of egineering in that it can do great good or great harm. Unlike other forms of engineering your starting materials are hideously complex, dynamic, and ludicriously hard to calculate with. The possible reprocussions of one fatal error (i.e. introducing a prion disease into food supply) are huge and excessively hard to find/predict. This is why I support responsible GE. Do it slow, do it right. Anybody whose view of GE is defined from pop science fiction should be disregarded. The benifits are huge (like with SCIDS patients), but so are the potential dangers.

[SWPIGWANG]

It is okay as long as I'm not alive to see it....

To think everyone born is smarter, more beautiful, and more healthy then me .....