Screening embryos for breast cancer makes you a NAZI!

[Caffiend]

And to me, that's the big thing. If I had to pick between a completely normal child and a dyslexic or Asperger's genius, would I be wrong to pick the latter?

I HAD to comment on this..

This is only my second post on the board, however, please trust me when I say that the chances are you REALLY wouldn't want to parent a child with Asperger's..

Seriously...

[Broomstick]

Something as simple, destructive, and beneficial as the sickle cell gene demonstrates why we should be cautious. Without question, elimination of the sickle cell trait would relieve great suffering and early death by eliminating sickle cell anemia. However, it would also increase the suffering and death created by malaria. As long as there is still malaria in the world, as long as it is still a major killer and creator of pain, can we morally justify eliminating the sickle cell trait? (If we could eliminate malaria for all time the question would not exist, of course).

Some genes are beneficial when you get one, but not when you get two. Some genes may interact in complex ways with other genes, so in one combination they benefit the owner and in another they cause problems (this may be the case with the Asperger's-Autism spectrum and account for why families with this disorder also tend to have high intelligence, the genes involved may improve intellect, but too many of them causes a disorder - obviously a hypothesis and not a proven theory but it provides food for thought)

There are traits that can reduce your fitness in minor ways such as baldness and colorblindness, yet are so persistent in populations that you wonder if there isn't some compensation that keeps them around. The colorblind tend to be superior at pattern recognition and distinguishing color camouflaged items from a background - did this have use at one time in hunting in low light, avoiding predators, or locating plants mixed in with other plants? (Add in that some women who carry a particular colorblind gene actually see MORE colors than normal and that might also apply to plant gathering) Are there cultures where women find bald men attractive enough to provide sexual selection?

There are some situations where a gene is just bad - FOP (pdf file) for example, or genetic retinoblastoma. We can elminate those without a great moral dilemma. But where do you draw the line? How about ectrodactyly? Many might consider it cosmetically distasteful but it seldom if ever impairs a person's ability to function in daily life, even in very primitive conditions (does sorta rule out a career as a concert pianist, though). I couldn't approve of giving a child this condition but honestly, I couldn't approve of aborting a fetus with this condition either (pre-implanted embryo is a different story, at least for me, I expect your mileage may vary). Male pattern baldness? Live with it. Until we have a lot more experience with genetic engineering we should hesitate to start eliminating large numbers of traits. We don't always know how various traits interact, and humans aren't particularly genetically diverse as a species despite our huge numbers. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I'm not opposed to improving the gene pool, I just don't want to add so much chlorine that you elminate everything - the good and the neutral along with the bad.

[Darth Wong]

And to me, that's the big thing. If I had to pick between a completely normal child and a dyslexic or Asperger's genius, would I be wrong to pick the latter?

I HAD to comment on this..

This is only my second post on the board, however, please trust me when I say that the chances are you REALLY wouldn't want to parent a child with Asperger's..

Seriously...

There is a spectrum for that particular disorder. My eldest son has it and he's not suffering for it, and neither are we. He can function normally. Teachers were reluctant to believe he even had a problem, and believed that he was just easily distracted until we had him professionally diagnosed. It's not necessarily as debilitating a condition as you seem to think it is.

[sketerpot]

Something as simple, destructive, and beneficial as the sickle cell gene demonstrates why we should be cautious. Without question, elimination of the sickle cell trait would relieve great suffering and early death by eliminating sickle cell anemia. However, it would also increase the suffering and death created by malaria. As long as there is still malaria in the world, as long as it is still a major killer and creator of pain, can we morally justify eliminating the sickle cell trait? (If we could eliminate malaria for all time the question would not exist, of course).

I think the ideal solution here would be to make as many people as possible heterozygous for that trait -- that way you get protection but no anemia, and the trait stays in the population.

The same may apply to some of the other examples you gave. If the phenotypic traits are produced by a combination of genes, then your embryo selection procedure can consider it desirable for some of the necessary genotypic traits to appear, but not all of them together. The selection effect would necessarily be mild -- there are bigger fish to fry, like incurable diseases -- but I think it could work.

[Broomstick]

I think the ideal solution here would be to make as many people as possible heterozygous for that trait -- that way you get protection but no anemia, and the trait stays in the population.

The only problem with that is then you are obligating everyone in succeeding generations to keep going back for gene fixing or else risk that 25% of their children will have a painful, potentially lethal disease and 25% will entirely lack this protection. But other than an on-going need for intervention, no problem, right?

[Darth Ruinus]

Something as simple, destructive, and beneficial as the sickle cell gene demonstrates why we should be cautious. Without question, elimination of the sickle cell trait would relieve great suffering and early death by eliminating sickle cell anemia. However, it would also increase the suffering and death created by malaria.

Wait hold, on. I'm not getting this. Malaria mainly occurs in the sub-saharan Africa, so unless you live in that area why would it be a bad thing to remove sickle cell trait? Of course, if you live in an area where malaria is common then you would want the sickle cell trait, as it combats the malaria, but in any other situation you could remove it and not have to worry.

[Eulogy]

On a slight tangent, could we use something like this to say, exterminate vermin (locusts, botflies, etc.) ?

[Alyrium Denryle]

On a slight tangent, could we use something like this to say, exterminate vermin (locusts, botflies, etc.) ?

You wouldnt want to. As inconvenient as they are for us, they fullfil vital functions in the ecosystems upon which we indirectly depend. Locusts form a major part of a LOT of foodwebs across the range of the clade.

Same with most "vermin" Frankly, every time throughout history we have exterminated a non-pathogen "pest" species, whole ecosystems have suffered. Fuck that.

[Broomstick]

Something as simple, destructive, and beneficial as the sickle cell gene demonstrates why we should be cautious. Without question, elimination of the sickle cell trait would relieve great suffering and early death by eliminating sickle cell anemia. However, it would also increase the suffering and death created by malaria.

Wait hold, on. I'm not getting this. Malaria mainly occurs in the sub-saharan Africa, so unless you live in that area why would it be a bad thing to remove sickle cell trait?

Not true - malaria occurs in the entire Medditerrean area, India, south-east Asia, and the tropical Americas. It also used to be endemic in the US south - one reason the US Congress used to recess during the summer was to avoid the mosquito season in DC (now they do it largely from tradition). Anti-mosquito measures from pesticides to window screens significantly reduced the incidence in many parts of the world, even eradicated it in some areas, but the idea that only Africa needs to worry about it is in error. Europeans also have have blood mutations where 1 gene provides protection and 2 cause illness, but in that instance the disease is thalassemia, not sickle cell anemia. Well, there are several types of thalessemia, one which has four genes involved and babies that get all four die before or at birth, it's a fatal condition. The point being, I guess, that malaria has exerted so much selection pressure on the human race that multiple defenses have evolved, all of which can cause increased infant/child death so the advantage conferred must be significant for them to be so widespread (thalessemia is also found as far east as Cambodia - strictly speaking, it's not a Caucasian disease, it's just that the Greeks and Italians have some of the highest rates of it). Clearly, if you live in St. Petersburg or Hudson Bay you don't need this trait at all, but a significant slice of humanity apparently still has need of it so despite the suffering caused eliminating it from the gene pool at this point is probably not a good idea. Given how people move around these days, such that people born on one continent may well move to another for their adult lives, there might be a rationale for, say, Caucasians bearing and raising children in, say, the north of Africa to bestow the trait on their children. Or for Africans moving to Siberia to have it removed from their children before birth. But wholesale elimination of the trait? No, not yet, not while we have 500 million cases of malaria a year world-wide. Without genetic protection the death rates would be even higher than they are now (that's a million or two people a year). Eradication is theoretically possible (it has, after all, been eradicated from some locales, such as the US) but it takes money, effort, and a lot of work. Until we're ready to make the attempt giving up genetic protection against the disease is not wise.

Of course, if you live in an area where malaria is common then you would want the sickle cell trait, as it combats the malaria, but in any other situation you could remove it and not have to worry.

Unless, of course, you vacation or move to one of those areas or your children do or someone from one of those areas brings malaria to where you live.... Reintroduction to areas where malaria has been eliminated does keep some public health people up at night, it's unlikely, but if it occurs (and it can) it would be a major pain in the ass.

[Kanastrous]

A warming climate supports the spread of malaria-carrying vectors.

Keep those genes handy.

[Vultur]

Warming could make things worse, definitely.

As could a collapse in public health standards: it once existed as far north as Pennsylvania in the US.

[JointStrikeFighter]

And to me, that's the big thing. If I had to pick between a completely normal child and a dyslexic or Asperger's genius, would I be wrong to pick the latter?

I HAD to comment on this..

This is only my second post on the board, however, please trust me when I say that the chances are you REALLY wouldn't want to parent a child with Asperger's..

Seriously...

There is a spectrum for that particular disorder. My eldest son has it and he's not suffering for it, and neither are we. He can function normally. Teachers were reluctant to believe he even had a problem, and believed that he was just easily distracted until we had him professionally diagnosed. It's not necessarily as debilitating a condition as you seem to think it is.

It's similar for me Mike, I was always quite high functioning in my Aspergers. I would say that I got worse in high school but eventually I was able to outgrow it if you will and enter the world of normal social interaction.

There are quite a few other High functiong aspergers on the board who have no real issues in society but they would probably prefer I didnt mention their names.

[Garlak]

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how the ability to better distinguish colors at the cost of being color-blind, because it might have helped identify plants, is very beneficial to us.

My understanding of evolution is this; particular traits that improve the chances of somebody to survive and reproduce, in their environment, are good. When the environment changes such that that trait is no longer necessary, or even detrimental, then that trait no longer provides an advantage and doesn't spread as fast/easily. For... pretty much forever, the circumstances of nature have "guided" the evolution of creatures; except it's not so much a process, force, or guide, as it is a never-ending game of Survivor.

Right now, we're beginning to get the knowledge and capacity to "guide" our own evolution; we're gaining the ability to control how we change and develop. I don't see anything wrong with that. So long as it is done carefully and with consideration, it's good. It's one thing to not want to cut down on genetic diversity too much, but it's another to do the genetic equivalent of making sure everybody can survive another ice age and live in the wild starting off completely nude.

[Broomstick]

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how the ability to better distinguish colors at the cost of being color-blind, because it might have helped identify plants, is very beneficial to us.

During WWI and WWII it was discovered that red-green colorblind individuals are not deceived by the camoflauge patterns that easily decieve those of normal vision. Thus, what was entirely conceled to most stood out in a very obvious manner to the colorblind, so much so that many were trained specifically to spot such installations and sent to help aim bombs deployed to destroy them. So maybe that wasn't beneficial to the Germans getting bombed but was helpful to the English doing bombing.

Which is an illustration that sometimes these "defective" traits turn out to be useful in ways that aren't foreseen. The women carriers with "extra colors" are probably an unintended side effect of the original trait which, while not hugely common, is still not harmful enough to be elminated through natural selection (the red/green colorblindness is about 10% of the men and 0.01% of women if I recall correctly. There are other forms of colorblindness as well, but not as common)

While the trait is not typically beneficial, neither is it harmful enough to eliminate. In fact, the biggest obstacle the colorblind typically face is not their colorblindness but other people's assumptions and attitudes about colorblindness.

Right now, we're beginning to get the knowledge and capacity to "guide" our own evolution; we're gaining the ability to control how we change and develop. I don't see anything wrong with that. So long as it is done carefully and with consideration, it's good. It's one thing to not want to cut down on genetic diversity too much, but it's another to do the genetic equivalent of making sure everybody can survive another ice age and live in the wild starting off completely nude.

If we don't do unnecessary tinkering we won't have "everyone" being "able to survive andnother ice age and live in the wild starting off completely nude". First flaw in your thinking is the idea that all humans would be equally capable of anything - churning out clones would be a bad idea, and identical twins show us that even clones won't be the same in aptitude or accomplishments anyhow. Second, long before we became H. sapiens we weren't capable of "living in the wild starting off completely nude". Hominds have been dependent on technology for survival for millions of years, long before the current species of hominid first showed up.

The occassional usefulness of a trait like colorblindness demonstrates that sometimes "flaws" actually are assets in the right context. Other potenial "flaws" with benefits might be left-handedness, homosexuality, male pattern baldness, various mutations in chemical processing of toxins, and so on. I don't think we should be too quite to eliminate minor flaws in the human gene pool precisely because they are the sort of thing that evolution works with. Even now the human race is not static, we are still under environmental and sexual pressures. While our technology, in one sense, eliminates threats from predators, weather, and starvation it also increases pressures due to things like pollution