Jump to content

Prescient


Painted Lady

Recommended Posts

Has anyone else read the New York Times article today (03/20/15) about gene-editing techniques that can alter future generations? I was struck by how prescient Jeff's entire Geneforge series is in relation to that debate. When I think about the Shapers and the Serviles I can totally see that the potential for that situation is developing under our very noses. It provides some real-life food for thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The idea of genetically modifying humans has been an idea around for a while. The problem was implementing it and we're finally making some headway.

A few years ago I was against the idea of modifying humans; but now I see there are helpful things we can do such as treat heritable diseases. The problem might be (like in Geneforge) the power would only be available to a small portion of society.

Is this the new pressure that the human race will evolve towards? Very interesting, yet scary at the same time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Genetics and genomics have been fertile providers of fear-mongering. In this case, as in pretty much all the prior cases, real-world technology doesn't provide much reason to fear for the things that are getting the hype. The real downside is accidentally causing genetic damage in the process; if we're editing germ-line genes, we'd pass that damage on to children. That's bad, of course, but it's worth weighing that against the harm of passing on unedited genes known to be harmful.

 

None of this really resembles Geneforge. All we're really capable of, at the moment, is recognizing (some) harmful mutations and what the non-harmful genetic sequence would be. Being able to replace the former with the latter is a major goal of medicine right now. But all the enhancements to make better people in the future? We're not there yet.

 

 

—Alorael, who can see a little bit more concernw with so-called designer babies, where someone wants to engineer, say, blue eyes. Or height, but height is already complicated enough that that's probably not in the immediate future. That's worth raising concerns over, but it's not along the lines of making novel modifications to humans to make them anything even slightly non-human.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm actually concerned with the supposed arguments against designer babies; the strike me as consisting mostly of an arbitrary line being drawn in the sand stopping the slippery-slope extension of the "prevention of genetic diseases" argument, which, in my experience, most would tend to agree with.

 

If we agree that genetic modification of germ cells in order to prevent such diseases as Tay sachs or Huntingtons or whatever else in willing, consenting adults is acceptable (and, indeed, better than the alternative) and that the benefits outweigh the risks in the mind of the people involved, then we can make the same case about diseases that have some genetic component but are not themselves direct results of genetic mutations, ie have some genetic causal link, - or even diseases which have a genetic correlation, that is, one is statistically more likely to get some disease than others given some specific genetic makeup. Once this is granted, who's to say what benefits and what risks are taken into account? One can always draw a line, but I think it's important to stress that that line will always be arbitrary (pursuant to other beliefs and standards held by the person drawing the line, not inherent in the argument being made).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why is it more acceptable to modify genes to remove diseases than to choose the color of your kids eyes?

Or rather why is it less acceptable to choose your kids eye color?

Once you have the ability and start making changes, why do we draw the line by cosmetic changes? Or even basketball skills? Or anything that isn't damaging but doesn't have any health utility?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a large body of bioethical literature about it. Some of it is about discomfort with making cosmetic choices. If blond hair and blue eyes are perceived as attractive and money can buy them... what does that say about us? Some is about the tradeoffs: if I can give a child greatly enhanced mathematical and computational ability at the cost of a very high likelihood of depression and increased risk of serious infection, is that a fair thing to choose for someone else? Still more is about distributional justice: if the rich can make their children smarter, stronger, healthier, and so on, and the poor cannot, does this lead to a more unjust society, or even potential subspeciation of humanity? And what does it mean if I can decide to give a child the genetic potential to be, say, a virtuoso pianist or gymnast. That sets the child up for expectations that would not otherwise exist.

 

—Alorael, who isn't sure genetic enhancement is wrong. He does think that it's a complex and fraught issue and cavalier dismissal is a good way to end up, many years down the line, with ethical crises and regulatory scrambling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...