I hope not. Eugenics has been tried in the past, and is generally believed to be a bad idea.
Well, Eugenics as practiced in the past is a bad idea. But is it really that wrong to select pre birth that your offspring is more intelligent? Or more resistant to disease, or stronger. Or even changing rhis in yourself, so that your offspring will inherit it?
My understanding of past eugenic movements centers around the notion of preventing "undesirables" from breeding--often, of course, these were racial or ethnic minorities.
As long as the individual remains in charge--choosing to modify their offspring or not, choosing with whom they will mate--it seems a bit unfair to characterize it as eugenics. Deciding which fertilized eggs to bring to birth seems more like a high-powered sexual selection process.
Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?! -Gogol Bordello
Huntard writes: But is it really that wrong to select pre birth that your offspring is more intelligent? Or more resistant to disease, or stronger. Or even changing rhis in yourself, so that your offspring will inherit it?
It is not so much wrong, as it is dangerous.
If this happens on a small scale, then it is probably no big deal. If this happens on a large scale, then we would in essence be replacing evolution in practice, with intelligent design in practice, and appointing ourselves as the intelligent designers. The most likely outcome will be an earlier extinction of the species than would have happened without such intervention.
Intelligent design is less robust and adaptable than evolution by mutation and natural selection.
That said, I'd like to start accelerated human evolution by upregulating PEPCK-C. If you're curious what this does to a mammal, you should watch this video (and turn the volume down so you don't have to hear Creed):
These mice eat 60% more than the average mouse, but never get fat, are fucking ripped, have triple the equivalent endurance of an Olympic athlete, live up to five times as long, stay fertile throughout their lifespan, and don't suffer any of the traditional effects of a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet.
Why don't we have this mutation already? Likely, because of the 60% larger diet thing; human evolution has been a process driven primarily by starvation, it seems.
It is likely that such large scale intervention will reduce the amount of variation in the gene pool, and that reduces the probability that there will be gene combinations available that can adequately resist the next major scourge.
Please keep those mighty mice securely in the lab.
My cats live in a peaceable kingdom, and they'd probably tuck their tails between bluegene's legs and run.
I read recently that GM rapeseed (source of canola oil, modified to be "Round Up Ready") has escaped its purported distance barriers and is outcompeting the wild variety except where it has shared its genes.
The mighty mouse did seem a bit obsessive; maybe the wild mouse just had enough sense to drop out of the rat race.
Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?! -Gogol Bordello
Huntard writes: Well, yes. But since we are "masters of the genome" then anyway, wouldn' t we just adapt the genome to whatever was necessary when that time comes?
I see that jar has already answered this in Message 25. I agree with his answer.
Over the last few days, Blockbuster Video has been in the news around here. They adapted their movie rental business so that they would be the best ever. But then, as the world changed, along came Netflix to give a better alternative for many people, and Red Box with their automated kiosks, to give a better alternative to others. And Blockbuster is filing for bankruptcy. They tried to adapt to the new competition, but it was too little too late. That's the risk of following the intelligent design way of change. Nature's evolutionary way seems to be more robust.
That's the risk of following the intelligent design way of change. Nature's evolutionary way seems to be more robust.
I certainly agree with that but we also are products of nature and risk is inherent to life.
I think the technology will come way faster than we can handle it. This isnt unusual but genetic engineering seems to be on another level.
I see all kinds of pit falls but I also see it as inevitable. Can anyone disagree that we are well under way? Some rich dude is probably already growing himself a new heart somewhere inside somebody else's body.
This video describes children being born with the genes of one father and 2 mothers.
Given that evolution is the name for change, surely we will deliberately make changes. Initially to eliminate or provide fixes for diseases but also to 'improve' our offspring in various ways. But will such improvements be subject to patents and possibly not able to be passed on without the correct chemical activation code to prevent unauthorised use of proprietry genes? We could end up with all our usual genetics, able to work as normal but if you want those longevity genes to be passed on you'll have to pay your license fee. Even to have them keep on working beyond a limited time. Still, the patenting of Genes is currently under scrutiny; I doubt the patents for existing human genes will survive the legal battles within those limited jurisdictions that actually recognise their validity - being discoveries not inventions - but genuinely new ones could become the proprietry property of medical genetics companies.
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