Designer Babies, Version 1.0 639
Stickerboy writes: "A 30 year-old woman in Chicago gave birth to a pre-pregnancy genetically screened and selected baby 17 months ago, which is being reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association today. Doctors at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago took 23 eggs from her, screened the eggs for a gene that causes an early form of Alzheimer's, and then fertilized and implanted the eggs back in her womb. Shades of the movie Gattaca - this is a good specific development, but the start of a very controversial trend. Read more about it in the Washington Post or read the abstract in JAMA."
Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Babies free from disease == Good
Babies who look like Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver == Bad
-Sean
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Funny)
You're right, they should pick one person to look like and leave it at that.
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2)
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2)
most people consider ugliness a disease
Exactly.
I was going to suggest the same thing. You could probably add to the list of diseases the tragic syndromes of being too short, athletically less than Olympian, or having a metabolism that modern diets wreck with type II diabetes.
Other "diseases" include lack of intelligence, lack of creativity, and lack of obeying authority.
It'll be interesting to see how this facet of eugenics plays out. I'm not sure that most parents really want Baby to inherit DNA from other sources than themselves - there's a matter of ego and pride involved.
Already, you can see in various cultures like China the effects of screening for "femaleness", another "tragic disease". There are some profound repercussions that have already been set in motion from that kind of mentality. I would not be surprised to see females more valued in the future as they become scarcer.
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2, Informative)
The problem I can see right now is that we don't know how the presence or absence of a gene can effect other things in a given pathway. For example, the gene in mice that's responsible for aging also resonsible for cancer resistance. [slashdot.org] This is a well known problem that is only now being able to be explored in prokaryotes. [ucla.edu]
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, yes. Many of the world's greatest artists, writers, and musicians had genetic "defects" of some kind. For these people, their problems are what drove them to greatness.
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
But there's a solution: how about you butt out of the personal business of parents choosing to have children in whatever fashion they think is best, and we'll allow you to have children purely through the 'crapshoot' method. Then you can be content in the knowledge that at least you're doing your part to spur on creativity.
Max
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus it require a LOT of government control and intervention to prevent such discrimination, reducing individual privacy and rights.
But we won't be around long enough to see it, so how about if we jump in with both feet and darn the consequences... We'll create a better class of geeks! Or at least ones with 6 fingers (better keyboarding) or a mousing hand or something.
-Adam
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
And what do we consider a disease?
Recall that not that long ago in the U.S., homosexuality was offically considered a "disease".
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Recall that not that long ago in the U.S., homosexuality was offically considered a "disease".
Well, calling something a "disease" is a loaded statement. I'm pretty convinced that there are two types of homosexuality: genetic based (where your sexual attraction mechanism is backwards), and psychologically based.
For genetic based homosexulity, there is no question that it is a genetic defect to be attracted to the wrong sex (I mean, duh). I would not do post-fertilized screening, but if it were possible to screen my sperm or my wife's egg for the defect, I would certainly do it.
On the other hand, psychologically-based homosexuality is debatable whether it's a "problem" or not. The truth is that it probably is in some cases, and not in others. For example, a severely abused woman who chooses lesbianism because of the abuse is probably a candidate for counseling. On the other hand, if you simply had a person whose personality encouraged "trying different things", and simply preferred homosexuality, then it's probably not a problem.
Once again it has to be pointed out that closed mindedness of most sorts is bad ("homosexuality is always wrong!" or "Homosexuality is always a 'lifestyle' choice and should never be called a defect!")
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2)
Note: this is NOT sarcasm. It's just so hard to agree with someone on
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:4, Interesting)
He means it's a "defect" in the evolutionary sense. That people who are sexually attracted to the same sex are likely not to reproduce.
His "duh" for gene-based homosexuality arises from the fact that an individual carrying such a trait is likely not have offspring, and that consequently, such genes render such individuals evolutionarily unfit.
His "wrong sex" was intended similarly; in most species (that is, excepting certain hermaphroditic species where androgynous individuals "become" female upon receipt of sperm excepted), the "right sex" for purposes of propagating one's genes is the opposite sex.
No judgement on moral fitness was passed. Only a judgement on evolutionary fitness. The two things are not the same.
Likewise, as a heterosexual male who Doesn't Want Children (my idea of "fun" is babysitting a newly-overclocked Athlon XP 2000+ for a few months, then upgrading it to something faster, rather than spending 18 years plugging data into a newly-fabbed homo sapiens :-).
If there's a genetic component to not having a paternal instinct, I carry it. That is, I am evolutionarily "unfit", my instincts are evolutionarily "wrong", because I have chosen to have certain bits of my anatomy snipped to ensure that (barring a serious upfuck on the part of the surgeon) I'll die without propagating my genes.
(In any case, it's a moot point now, as homosexuals and childfree heterosexuals can now pass on their genes by donating eggs or sperm and fertilizing in vitro. But evolution never anticipated primates with brains big enough to pull off stunts like that ;-)
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps homosexual couples provide a certain benefit to traditional or modern society.
It's possible, but it's hard to dismiss the historical animus towards homosexuality in almost every culture (I'm sure there are exceptions to this). If evolution truly favored homosexuality, then it would make sense that societies would tend to evolve toward accepting the benefits of it.
I'm willing to accept the possibility that there might be some subtle purpose to the attraction mechanism getting switched around, but at this point that seems more political "happy science" than real science.
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, let's not let a little thing like that stand in the way of pig-headed persistence. Once again into the breach.
Well, feel free to save toilet paper by using Kinsey.
Please post a link to an empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal which definitively refutes the numbers presented by Kinsey, and all who came after him confirming those numbers. Keep in mind the words "empirical", "accredited", and "peer-reviewed" when considering which link is best suited to support your assertion that when it comes to the ratio of bisexuals to homosexuals, the man and his team had their heads up their asses.
If this was the case, it would still be a defect.
Your definition of 'defect' goes far beyond the traditional definition used in biology and genetics. In fact, it seems to encompass anything which you, personally, don't particularly care for.
In order for a trait to be a defect - as defined by the biological sciences - it must in some fashion reduce the organisms chances of survival or probability of successfully reproducing. Bisexuality does neither; bisexuals aren't less likely to survive nor are they less likely to reproduce. There is no defect here, at least so far as the word is defined in the traditional scientific sense.
my gut feeling is that most bisexuality is psychological.
Your gut feeling and two bucks will get you a cup of coffee.
That is, most people who are bisexual override their natural inclination by wanting to try "something different".
My own experiences are purely anecdotal but rather wide-ranging, primarily because I am bisexual and I've had contact with hundreds of bisexuals over the course of my lifetime. Their accounts concerning their bisexuality directly contradict your 'gut feeling'. As you have no evidence whatsoever to support your rather whimsical claims, I'll take the word of several hundred bisexuals - people in a position to know what motivates them - over your 'gut feeling' any day of the week.
The point is that any genetic flaws that cause the attraction mechanism to not work in a way that encourages reproduction is most likely a defect.
If you're of the opinion that sex is only useful for procreation and that the development of social ties through sex is of no survival value, I suggest you educate yourself on the topic before speaking further. This is a fundamental given of the social sciences, so clearly apparent that it isn't disputed. Claims to the contrary demonstrate nothing more than base ignorance, willful or otherwise.
And once again this isn't the definition of defect used in the biological sciences.
But even if we were silly enough to adopt your definition, I could claim that bisexuality gives an individual a survival advantage in that this person not only has the same chance of reproducing as a heterosexual, but that the bisexual would also be capable of strengthening social ties through sexual contact with members of the same gender in a way that heterosexuals couldn't duplicate. Since no serious social scientist would attempt to refute the claim that members of a group with strong social ties are more likely to survive and reproduce than members with weaker ties, it's apparent that in this case the bisexual has a better chance of survival than the heterosexual as long as all other members in the group aren't just heterosexual. And we already know that heterosexuality isn't universal.
By your own definition the bisexual has a survival advantage over the heterosexual. In comparison to the bisexual, heterosexuality could actually be viewed as a defect.
Which only goes to show just how silly your claims actually are.
Max
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2, Insightful)
The issue is, If we wipe out a disease such as sickle cell from the worlds population then those people who live in malarial reigons will be far more at risk possibly causing large-scale epidemics.
Healthy babies are good but not if preventing one disease causes an outbreak of another possibly worse one. We have to be careful about our assumption that we *know* what will happen. This is what all the nonfiction opponents of genetic engineering are really on about. We simply *dont* know what all of our genes do or how they behave in specific combinations and under specific conditions. There are just so many possibilities that total prediction and total control is not possible.
Gattaca was less about genetic engineering as ego and fear. It showed a socity so wrapped in its own genetic confidence and so afraid of its own diseases that babies with a 10% chance of heart disease were treated as if they were already dead. The assumption that say the likely appearence of a gene coding for melanin in the skin meant that you were permanantly incapable of any significant task no matter how smart you actually were.
Sickle-Cell Anemia (Score:3, Informative)
AA, no expression of SCA
SS, complete expression of SCA
AS or SA, partial expression of SCA
In other words, you do not get full-blown SCA unless you inherit the S allele from both parents. However, if you inherit the S allele from only one parent, then you are affected by SCA to some extent. Generally, there are enough healthy cells in the body to prevent the partial expression from being a problem. In addition, blood cells affected by SCA are virtually immune to Malaria, thus people with a partial expression of the gene are less likely to get Malaria.
In regions where Malaria is a problem, natural selection favors a parial expression of the gene. Those born without it die of Malaria and those born with the full expression of the gene die of SCA.
In fact the gene that causes SCA is not that rare, as you state, it is quite common in Malarial regions. There are as many people born in those regions with SCA as not. It is not rare, and is not caused by an "unlikely mutation." SCA is rather uncommon in regions where Malaria is not a problem and there are few breeding people from Malarial regions (i.e. the "Western World"), but (to beat a dead horse) it is quite common in regions where Malaria is also a common problem.
However, the rest of your comment is right on.
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2)
What SHOULDN'T we screen for? If it's possible to screen for all of those things, hell, why not? They're not desirable traits, that's for sure. This isn't the same as aborting fetuses, it's *screening eggs*. So once again, why not? Where's the harm?
I think what you're getting at is that this will inspire a discrimination of people who currently have some diseases like what you list above. I can see where you're coming from on that, but I don't believe the 2 go hand in hand. We recognize that some people are born with negative traits, fine. But if we can help eliminate unnecessary hindrances like ADD, or even halitosis, why shouldn't we? Are these things that we need to protect somehow?
Re:Some things are good some are bad (Score:2)
That is what I was leaning toward, but in the world we live in now, the two things do go hand-in-hand. The other issue is, how far from screening for diseases to screening for differences?
difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"saving?" (Score:2)
Bad example to make an example out of (Score:2, Insightful)
Even St. Thomas Aquinas can't object to this. The discarded eggs were not fertilized. Of course, he might have been upset that he missed out on the fun part...
Extension of evolution? (Score:2)
Of course, anytime humanity plays God, there room for abuse and evil (breeding sex slaves, mercerary warriors, etc).
Re:Extension of evolution? (Score:5, Funny)
It is interesting how two industries that are always well-funded are the porn industry and the military. :)
Re:Extension of evolution? (Score:2)
For instance, if I was financially responsible for the care of parents who had become senile at the same time I was planning a family, then I would probably want fewer kids to help moderate the financial burdens.
Conversely if my parents were active, healthy, and available to babysit and otherwise help with caring for my children, then I might be comfortable having a larger family.
Obviously there are ways around these effects and people may not have active extended families, but I just want to illistrate that in modern interconnected society, genetic influences can have an evolutionary impact even long after childrearing age.
Natural Selection? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Without the screening, the newborn would have faced fifty-fifty odds of becoming hopelessly senile by the time she was 40."
This is a terrible thing. I am really sorry to hear that this *might* happen by the time she/he is 40.
Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life. And in this case, the weakness is basically being forced out of the child. I don't think this is a good thing, and here is why...
What happens when the governments start screening every child that is born for any inherent form of "weakness"? Will those children never receive the chance to live? Will they be branded "inferior"? This has the potential to be an extremely bad thing.
If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.
There are literally thousands of unwanted children out there that need and want a family.
What is so wrong about going this route as opposed to paying thousands for a procedure like this? You help a child already alive, and more importantly, you give that child a chance to have a better life, and that is what it's all about.
of course, this is my opinion, and I am sure I will be slammed most heartily....
*cracks open a beer and waits*
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
Doesn't any form of medicine or medical treatment disrupt natural selection? We aren't in the jungle anymore - live with it.
Jason.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:4, Interesting)
> in this case, the weakness is basically being
> forced out of the child. I don't think this is a
> good thing, and here is why...
How fair is that to the child? Is it not the parent's responsibility to give their offspring every positive chance in life they can get? The short of it is, there are innumerable diseases and afflictions that plague humanity that are passed through the genes. Most of them have no cures to date, and considering the money put into research these days, it's hard to remain optimistic that cures will ever be found.
What's so evil about weeding out these undesireable genes? It SUCKS to have to live with a hereditery disease, just try on my shoes sometimes because I gotta do it every damn day.
If my parents had had this opportunity, I would have encouraged them to take it. Because if I had never been born, I wouldn't be around to care if I didn't exist. I have no illusions about my importance to this world to try and claim that if I didn't exist, the world would be a worse place. And even if I weren't here typing this, some other child of my parents would be out there doing something, sans disease. Sounds win-win to me, because the kid I could have been was raised by the same two people and would probably end up with the same core values.
> If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.
Course, I'll agree with you on this one. I don't see myself ever having a kid, cuz I don't wanna pass on my shit-for-genes to any descendents. If I ever get that parental urge, I'll probably adopt. Adoption, for as long as there are orphaned children, is the better solution. But that doesn't make "gene screening" evil by any means.
Playing God? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is no more playing God than deciding whether to have a child or not in the first place. If Hawking's parents had not had children, then he would not have contributed to science. All our choices have consequences we cannot foresee, not just the ones that use fancy new science. Get over it, and try to make the best, most ethical choices you can.
That said, there may be other good arguments against gene screening. But this one just doesn't hold water.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't disagree more. The point of natural selection is that some organisms are more prone to survival than others, and for the most part this increase in survival is due to a genetic mutation which somehow made the organism more 'fit' to survive. By screening for 'unfit' genes, we are actually performing natural selection ourselves, instead of relying on random chance mutations which more often than not lead to 'unfit' phenotypes.
Besides, when was the last time natural selection was really evident in humans? We take care of our sick, our unhealthy, those of us who cannot survive on their own. According to natural selection, we should not give charity, should not have nursing homes, should not really do anything that does not benefit ourselves. IMO, applying natural selection to humans is wrong in any case.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Two problems with these statements. First of all, all medical technology, safety equipment, processed foods, medical procedures, etc. (ad nauseum) goes against natural selection. In the human race, natural selection doesn't exist anymore. Also, Alzheimer's Disease isn't usually something that can be filtered out via natural selection, because it usually begins affecting a person long after (s)he has passed on their genetic information to the children.
Second, nobody's forcing weaknesses out of anyone in this experiment. They are preventing a child from being born with a disease, not creating a bunch of children and killing off those with the disease, or creating one child and modifying their DNA after they're born (virtually impossible, since it must be changed in every single cell) to remove the gene.
I don't see anything wrong with this morally.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:3, Insightful)
Natural selection would mean each of her children would have a 50 percent chance of carrying the gene AND passing it on to their kids as well.
As was also pointed out, this happens BEFORE the eggs are fertilized. Unassisted (the old fashioned way) reproduction would not lend itself to this approach and would certainly leave no point of entry for your government intervention. If governments decide to get into the "species improvement" game, they don't need such a medically expensive method. Just consider the German eugenics programs of the 1930s, or the PRCs more recent "healthy birth" laws which may or may not be a eugenics program favoring the ethnic Hans.It certainly is an attempt by a government to eliminate babies with undesireable traits.
As to the adoption argument, well people are funny that way. Most people would rather have their "own" children - its that little bit of immortality they get through their kids. And so many would rather spend the money (if they have it - or good insurance). If you personally find yourself in the position that this woman was in, you and your partner may make your own decision regarding reproductive options. But please stop trying to limit the choices available to others.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think when you really consider it, our weaknesses are as much a contributing factor in who we are and who we will be as our strengths. And I believe any attempt to fiddle with that is going to be detrimental, both to individuals, and to the society they go on to live in.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
As for my case personally... I was actually never really healthy has a child... asthma... odd diet... Osgood-Schlatter's Disease (a condition causing inflammation and pain in the knee, especially while exercising) for a while. My physical failings were definately out of my hands. More then that though, I still consider getting glasses in grade 4 to be one of the biggest milestones in my life. It changed the way other children perceived me, fairly or not. Learning at that age that people are, by their nature, occasionally fickle and superficial had an immediate impact on my outlook on getting along with others. A few (not entirely enjoyable) years later and I was able to approach social situations without a serious fear of what kind of repercussions my actions would have on the rest of my life. I could take risks, and ended up with some very strong friendships that I still value today. Looking back, I can honestly say that I'm very glad my parents & the time's technology never made contact lenses or laser eye surgery an option, let alone genetic solutions.
Typical cursory opinion (Score:2)
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no problem with your opinion except this point. The reason being that by improving medicines and such, we are ALREADY going against natural selection. To put it bluntly, and it's hard not to make this sound completely immoral, we are weakening the human race as we speak. Let me take a chance to explain.
Let's take the simple example of sight. If I'm completely near-sighted I can get a pair of glasses. In the days when natural selection mattered for humans and sight, let's say 500 years ago, I might die before I can have offspring because of my poor sight. THAT is natural selection. My genes are now removed from the gene pool before I can "replicate" them into others - and because of natural selection, fewer and fewer people have poor sight.
Now let's take this to another level. Let's say a recessive gene that causes a disease is common among a population. If that population surives past sexual maturity and passes the gene along, natural selection fails and the disease's gene spreads. This is a decidedly bad thing.
I won't even get into the moral grounds of the issue, I just wanted to give another side of the coin. It's not necessarily my two cents - but probably someone's
I too, expect to be flamed.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Number one, don't start blabbering about natural selection. That wen't the way of the dinosaur years ago. The world today does everything it can to keep weakness in the gene pool. Diseases are treated so that they thrive, rather than being allowed to be filtered out. Diabetes for example. Civilization can be defined as the force that attempts to get past natural selection (on an individual basis at least) by keeping the weak alive. I'm not saying this is good or bad it's just the way it is.
Secondly, adoption is another way that society keeps potentially harmful genes in the pool. Orphaned children most likely come from parents who, for some reason or another, could not function in society, and the chances that these children will not be able to function as well.
Keep in mind I'm not expressing a stance on the subject here, only that the further civilization progresses, the more it grows away from natural selection.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
You have good points, but I have some criticisms.
What happens when the governments start screening every child that is born for any inherent form of "weakness"?
It is a long jump from "I had my offspring screened," to "the U.S. gov't now screens all children (which requires a constitutional amendment, I'm sure)." Just because the first situation happened doesn't mean the second is right around the corner. I'm sure we all agree the second is wrong, but that doesn't mean the first one is.
If you want a child so badly, lady, go ADOPT ONE.
That's easy for you and me to say. But we're not in her situation.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
his is natural selection, in fact it accelerates it. The other eggs effectively "died", while the chosen egg survived. That's natural selection jumping a generation or two.
Re: (Score:2)
White Babies (Score:2)
Try and adopt a healthy, White baby and you can expect to wait in line for years. And even then you better be a straight, financially stable, heterosexual couple, otherwise, forget it.
Now, if you want a Black or Asian child, homegrown or imported, there are plenty to be had.
But people don't seem to want those kind...
Moderators: This should be modded down as Offtopic, even though it isn't, really. Troll or Flamebait doesn't apply because what I said is completely true, and you know it.
Knunov
Re:White Babies (Score:2, Informative)
But people don't seem to want those kind...
Not exactly. In several states (that I know of/have experience with) a white family can not easily adopt a black child. The state would prefer the child stay in foster care until an adoptive parent "of their own culture" is located.
Never mind that the majority of these children don't come out of foster care until they reach age 18
Finances and legality do stand in the way for Asian and Eastern European adoptions, too. I know several people who have participated in Asian adoptions (from China) which took upwards of a year, and between $50K-$100K. Supposedly there are NFP groups that will help with finances at now (these adoptions are all several years in the past now), but you're still talking about a large financial commitment.
In many cases, medical insurance *will* pay for infertility treatments (and pregnancy), but little will help you pay for adoption.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
Well, IMO, this goes against natural selection. Weaknesses are inherent in all forms of life. And in this case, the weakness is basically being forced out of the child. I don't think this is a good thing, and here is why...
You misunderstand natural selection.
1. its survival of the fitest. In the case fitest means the ones most adaptable to a change in there enviroment. I would argue that the screening IS a change in the enviroment and those that use it are the most adaptable, or fitest.
2. It is for a disease that has a 50% chance of striking at age 40, this means they,in all likeleyhood, will already have children, and thus past on the gene. With screening you'velowered then chance of this diseas, not only for your child, but all there children as well. Thats means the HUMAN races will have a higher likelyhod of survivng.
Could there be problems with this? sure but you're arguements against it are false.
Finaly, have you ever gone through the adoption process?
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2, Insightful)
A good point. We are changing the germ line in ways we might not know. And we all have deleterious genes. Here is mine in full disclosure:
Hypercholesterolemia
Because hypercholesterolemia is dominant 50% of my children will have it (statistically). My family doesn't have a history of heart disease (the side I inherit from, which is my mother's side people tend to get heart disease
But when I have children, I plan to make sure they don't have it by screening or selectively aborting. But I also wonder-if I don't have a history of heart disease, why??? I don't know. Do we know all the ramifications of hypercholerolemia aside from the heart-disease related ones? Cholesterol is a hormone that affects several processes...including brain development.
Nonetheless, it is a choice individual parents will have to make. Society shouldn't have to pay for it-you pay out of your own pocket. But change isn't always bad. Throughout most of human history people have been on the verge of malnutrition. Now that's not the case, and the obesity "epidemic" is spreading into the Third World. I'd rather take an obesity epidemic than malnutrition.
Also, remember that not all humans will take advantage (or will be able to do to money) of the new services, so we'll have a reserver of "untouched" human genes in that population. Taking into account that throughout most of human history there were fewer than 1 million of us, I wouldn't worry about genetic uniformity.
Fear of the unknown shouldn't hold us back. We should move forward, with caution, but move nonetheless. There is a chance we might fall of the cliff's edge, but the fact is the only other choice would be to attempt to hold still indefinately, and impossible task.
By the way, would we make a big fuss if the women has simply recieved an egg donor???
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
Says who? Gene selection may ultimately see the shucking of gene's responsible for our desire to control our enviornment.
Also, our species is young, and our 'control' experiment is *extremely, extremely* young.
> Once science gets good enough at it EVERYONE will be smart and healthy
Except that while we may wish to blend in, we are also driven by a need to stand out. If everyone's 'smart', we simply offload our judgements of whats 'smart' or 'good' onto other things we have no control over. (Maybe back to racism? Oh, then we can ask our kids to have a non-hate-inviting skin tone.)
All control we execise is an illusion. We solve problems, more crop up as a result. That's the human experience, although our economy relies so heavily on ignoring that simple fact that we can't possibly conceed to it until we experience the next major shift in cultural and social values and beliefs.
Re:Natural Selection? (Score:2)
One more thing, you are 100% correct in your thinking that these people screaming for other people to adopt aren't exactly following through in their advice/stances. Bet you 90% of them would change their toon if they saw some of the conditions these children are growing up in.
Now, back to my original point, if you know a child will be born with a chance to get alzheimers, then why would you risk it? So, you can change the chance of her/him getting this tragic disease. What about the other diseases out there? Don't care about them? Why stop there? I have blues eyes, but I want my child to have brown? That is what I mean. I would be willing to bet, although I will most likely be dead by the time it happens, that this child STILL gets some other form of disease. Mom Nature don't like being cheated
thanks for the thoughtful response...now if we could just teach the rest to not slam someone's opinion but counter it, then the world would be a better place.
I vote "Good Thing" (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, this sounds like a way to bring back genetic selection and survival of the fittest "traits". No more near-sightedness, genetic cancer risks, birth defects, etc etc etc.
Re:I vote "Good Thing" (Score:2)
The greater risks of choosing Genetics of Nature (Score:2)
I think everyone will agree that all living things evolve in some way or another. We have evolved our minds over the last few thousand years and now look at what we can do.
The problem with this is, we start filtering for alzhimers and then we start adding more things to that list. (The reference to Cataga was a nice touch, for those that haven't seen it, it's worth the rental fee.) Eventually we will choose everything from hair color to athletic/academic traits for our children. We will create what we think is a perfect race of beings and send them off into the world knowing that they won't catch a cold, won't be effected by the sun's ray's, cancer won't touch them and alzhimers will be forgotten.
This may all be true untill that branch of our evolution evolves. Just as we have things that pluage us, in time so will the genetic perfections we create. The greater damage however is that us normal natural humans may still be around when that happens, and think, if it can harm something we deem as perfect, imagine what it will do to the rest of us.
I won't even get into the religious/moral debate on this subject as I think thats something that each person should deal with themselves.
Re:The greater risks of choosing Genetics of Natur (Score:2)
What makes you assume we will evolve? The coelocanth hasn't evolved in 300+million years. The silverfish? 500 million. Alligators? 100 million.
Some transitional forms are just fine the way they are and haven't changed a bit despite evolution. (And if we're descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? i know the answer to that, I'm just proving my point.)
I think too many people assume humans will evolve into bald, six-fingered, big-headed aliens.
Gattaca, here we come... (Score:3, Insightful)
How long will it before your medical insurance rates are based on the amount of pre-natal DNA splicing your parents paid for?
Shudder.
Really, you know that the insurance industry bean counters want to do this, don't you?
Gattaca (Score:2)
Shades of the movie Gattaca - this is a good specific development, but the start of a very controversial trend.
Oh, no! You mean that astronauts are going to have to start wearing neckties?
Re:Gattaca (Score:2)
I'm all for babies not getting Alzheimers. After all, if the children born today are going to die in their 40s, who's going to take care of me in my retirement?
Return Policy (Score:2)
truth is more complex than fiction (Score:2)
A real person's disposition is multifactorial. Genetics, upbringing, and environment play comparable roles in who you become. You can be damn sure that my grandchildren will be pre-screened; You can also be damn sure that their success in life will depend more on education and ambition than on their lack of astigmatism.
Re:truth is more complex than fiction (Score:2)
Filtering (Score:2, Interesting)
Filtering babies in these cases is reasonable. There are a lot of diseases where the odds of inheriting something are high (e.g. if you have a child with Autism, future children from the same parents have a 1/4 chance of also being Autistic... unfortunately they can't screen for it though). In the past people could not have kids or take a chance.
To my mind not having kids is the better choice, but its like providing condoms to teenagers - if they're going to do it anyway, help them do it safely.
Personally, I don't see any value in forcing people to play to odds, just because its "the natural way".
Modifying genes that would be expressed no matter what is a different issue, but we don't have to make a decision about that yet.
Genetics for Dummies (Score:2)
Look, somethings are relatively easy to screen for genetically.
This is not the same thing as selecting
Meaning: if you know that a specific inheritable disease is found at locus x, on chromosome n, and is a single defective gene, then you can develop a test for it.
Selecting high intelligence would be considerably more difficult as many, many, many different genes are involved.
That being said, someone, somewhere please clone my Cindy Crawford sex-slave.
Evolution vs Breeding Out Intelligence (Score:5, Interesting)
First off, with the way that human mating works nowadays, there really isn't much evolutionary motivation. You date people who you find attractive for whatever damn fool reason you have rather than for the purpose of creating healthy offspring. I, for instance, tend to prefer dating women who find fat, bearded computer geeks attractive. That's not an evolutionarily sound move on my part, but that's not going to make me dump my lovely girlfriend. So this development makes it possible for Humans to actually take control of evolution and start breeding out diseases and infirmaties.
However, the problem that immediately comes to mind is something that dog breeders have found over the years. People started breeding for certain traits such as soft coat, ears that are floppy in exactly the right way, short tails, etc. While this makes for very pretty dogs, it leads to the problem that the average Dalmation, far from rescuing its brethren from Cruella DeVille, could just barely rescue itself from a small, wet paper sack. And that's only if it had 100 other dogs helping it. And the wet paper sack also had food in it that they wanted to get to. And maybe was perforated. Which is why sheepdog owners are, last I heard (which was, admittedly, years ago), fighting tooth and nail to keep their breed out of competition. They raise sheepdogs to be
The point I'm trying to make is that genetically manipulating which kids we have to screen for diseases is fine by me, but I'd hate to live in a future where people start screening their reproductive cells so that they only have pretty babies. They'll probably be able to play games with Dalmations on the same intellectual level.
--AC
There are many other examples (Score:2, Informative)
Finally, taking steps towards evolution. (Score:2, Interesting)
I want to see athletes engineered to run 25 miles an hour for hours on end.
I want to see people with IQ's off any scale.
Hell, I want to see decathalons with supped up athletes where half the contestants explode before the end.
Bring it on, I like it and we need it. Fuck all you Naysayers in your nice comfortable existence.
this makes me a little uneasy (Score:2)
I think it's going to be a *long* time before we can screen for things like intelligence, the genetics behind such traits is too complex for the forseeable future. There is no geek gene.
As long as this stays within the realm of selecting against life-threatening genes, I don't see too much of a problem.
I'd also like to know why so much effort is spent on reproductive medicine for rich nations with near zero population growth and near zero infant mortality. couldn't our resources be better spent helping out the rest of the world control their populations, and improving the (shamefully poor) infant health services in those regions?
I know it comes down to money, but still...
Wouldn't this be, like, 0.6? (Score:3, Funny)
In other words, right around the same time Mozilla and OpenOffice hit it!
So now a healthy baby with an unhealthy mother? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not the first time (Score:2, Informative)
Many people seem to think that this is the first time preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) had been used. I will quote from the first paragraph of the JAMA article to clear this up:
According to the most recent review, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) has been applied to at least 50 different genetic conditions in more than 3000 clinical cycles. In addition to traditional indications, similar to those in prenatal diagnosis, PGD was performed for an increasing number of new indications, such as late-onset disorders with genetic predisposition and HLA testing combined with PGD for preexisting single-gene disorders. These conditions have never been an indication for prenatal diagnosis because of potential pregnancy termination, which is highly controversial if performed for genetic predisposition alone. With the introduction of PGD, it has become possible to avoid the transfer of the embryos carrying the genes that predispose a person to common disorders, thereby establishing only potentially healthy pregnancies and overcoming important ethical issues in connection with selective abortions.
Basically, it says that PGD has been used for predispositions to diseases that come later in life before. This is just the first time it is being used for this particular disease.
The thing that possibly makes it more controversial is that not all of the people with the genetic mutation they "weeded out" go on to develop Alzheimer's, for reasons that are unclear. So maybe they trashed some perfectly OK embryos?
Terminology beats thought (Score:5, Insightful)
"are you in favor of designer babies" - no
"should potential parents with inheritable diseases have the right to pre-screen their embryos for those diseases" - yes
Then we get the "look at all the wonderful cripples like Hawkins etc...." argument. Well, the foetuses you discard have at least as much chance of turning out well as the ones you keep. There are plenty of great humans who have nasty genetic diseases, but we have no way of telling what geniuses we've missed because the lack of screening meant some doomed half-wit runt got born instead.
And while I'm ranting... Gattaca wasn't that scary. I'm in favor of a world where more people look like Uma Thurman.
Anyway, I better quit before I start proposing full scale eugenics and saying "just because Hitler gave it a bad name doesn't mean it's wrong, after all, if his policies had been implemented Hitler would never have been born in the first place..." that would ruin any credibility I have. Oh shit, too late, just kidding, but I do have a gut reaction against the "this is what nazi's wanted = bad". Decent roads and punctual transport would get discarded too with those arguments.
Personally, I have more faith in nature combining things in the right way than a bunch of fuckwit genetic engineers. But, I don't think it's fair to tell people "it's illegal for you to try and avoid having a child who dies early - I'm not comfortable with that". You know what - nobody asked you to be comfortable with it, it's none of your business.
Oh dear. (Score:2)
Slashdot is now dead.
Re:Terminology beats thought (Score:4, Funny)
"are you in favor of designer babies - no"
"should potential parents with inheritable diseases have the right to pre-screen their embryos for those diseases- yes"
Don't forget option #3:
"Not sure - just as long as it doesn't look like CowboyNeal"
A few reality checks (Score:2)
Yeah, yeah, the gentic superclass of the wealthy. Big deal, they're already a superclass in terms of quality of life and survival due to simple wealth. And remember, they're still confined to the leash of their personal genetics.
We don't know nearly as much about genetic impact on traits and development as we sometimes like to pretend. It's highly likely that more devlopment occurs in the womb than many people acknowledge - pure environment, and the kind that is hard to account for in the kinds of population studies that end up defining our assumptions about what traits are genetic.
"It's against evolution and/or natural selection!" It's amazing, I've heard it a million times and it still makes me laugh. No baby, it is Evolution AND natural selection if anything is. Evolution occurs on a time scale that, whatever we may say, defies our attempts to truly understand the consequences of our present actions. There's no such thing as a bad or good adaptation in it: some individuals pass on their genetics and some don't: end ah' fuckin' story.
In the Gattaca world I probably wouldn't exist, what with the bad eyesight and predisposition for substance abuse and all the rest. I'll be passing on my genes anyway if I have anything to say about it, the old-fashioned way, thank you very much, and another fucked up kid will come into this world. I'll put mine up against a superbaby any day.
A pretty good thing on average (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Decrease the overall genetic diversity of the population. ie. Mass produced specific genes are probably a bad idea.
2) Create people that can't mate with "normal" humans.
As long as (2) applies we are adding to the gene pool, and it think there are enough people having kids the natural way out there that (1) will be very difficult to make happen (gene-implanting virus epidemics aside).
The possibility exists that a modification could be made that ends up having bad consequences for the recipient decades later. This is the nature of reality. The risk means that people will think twice before doing it, which should provide some handy negative feedback. You have to consider the probabilities.
Would I be willing to make this choice for my offspring? Yes. I indirectly make this choice by picking a mate anyway. I won't make a choice carelessly, and I would only do it if I saw real benefit for my kids. Many choices you make in your lifetime have a significant impact on those around you. It's the nature of life, rather than the nature of this particular problem.
For those that would point out that my children would bear the lifelong burden of my choices, I agree and say "So what?". It would be one of many such choices, and I feel no moral qualms about making them. It is my responsibility to do so.
Just to be clear, I know we are currently in the "remove things we know to be bad" stage rather than the "designer water-breathing" gene stage. I'm just looking ahead a bit.
I find most of the complaints against this sort of thing to be in the gut-feeling-looking-for-a-pseudo-logical-argument category. The remainder have so far made points that haven't convinced me.
screened "weakness" may contain necessity (Score:2)
Recap, 2nd class citizens. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Insurance companies not insuring norms. (I hate the term, but it fits)
2. Low-income families cannot afford screenings, genetic divide.
3. Normal People replaced in the workforce, 2-3 generations from implementation.
4. Screenings will filter out "Genius" and "Artists"
5. Unseen effects after multiple generations of "Altered" humans.
6. Altered humans breed for specific tasks.
7. Rights for Altered and Normal humans.
8. Social interactions between enhanced/altered humans.
9. Economic benefits for enhanced/altered humans.
I think if we could have 3 rules/laws, there would be no worries.
1. DNA Privacy laws.
2. DNA Discrimination laws.
3. Free screening and genetic altering.
Would really be a bitch that my kids cannot get into college, or find work because I could not afford these screenings. They are denied life/health insurance, or any other things we become accustomed to in our daily life. While there are some DAMN good uses for this, this is a very fundamental change to our existance. We need to have basic protections put in place.
Or maybe, we are all over-reacting?
-
Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)
Speaking as a parent (Score:3, Informative)
We have it within our power now to take a preventative stance towards genetically transmitted diseases. Undoubtedly this system will be abused, as any system can and is abused, but are not the gains worth it? Early last year I lost both grandparents, both of which suffered long bouts of Alzheimer's. It was horrific to watch as the people who I knew and loved forgot who I was, who they were, and regressed to an infantile state. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. If I can prevent my great grandchildren from one day viewing my children in a similar manner, I'm all for it.
Are we playing God? That depends on how radical you want to be about this. I firmly believe that we've been given cognitive abilities that have lead to the discovery of genetics. If God didn't want us tinkering with ourselves, why does he allow us to do so? I'd also love for someone to find some good biblical references that say we shouldn't be doing this.
And, yes, I've seen Gattaca. I know what the consequences of genetic "super babies" might be, but that's just it -- what it MIGHT be. Here's a solution: if you want it, you should be able to have it. If you don't, don't. Your choice. That is what freedom is about, after all? Choice?
Re:Speaking as a parent (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to respond by restating my earlier comment: any system can be abused, and any system WILL eventually be abused. That does not make the system a problem, it makes the abuser a problem. Blaming geneticists for the idiocy of the above-mentioned French "mother" would be like blaming Ford because some idiot got drunk and decided to mow down some school children.
People with ridiculously poor decision making skills DO exist, as do people with highly developed decision making skills. You should not penalize the latter because of the former. While I abhor what was mentioned above, she's done it, it's apparently legal where she lives, and I have no say-so in the matter. Neither do you, other than your opinion which you have stated.
I won't get into the abortion angle because that wasn't the point of my post. I was not advocating the aborting of babies with genetic "defects", I was advocating the total opposite: using genetic screening to prevent such defects from ever becoming reality in the first place.
Beyond this Horizon (Score:3, Insightful)
There were "control naturals", people whose ancestors had never used this genetic filtering. They received a governmental stipend to compensate for their disadvantage. Heinlein never really discussed _why_ they existed, perhaps he thought it was too obvious. Sometimes those genes you would normally filter out might turn out to be strongly advantageous in different circumstances -- heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia are virtually immune to malaria, for instance.
Finally, note that this book is the most utopian of all Heinlein's work, and the most boring. A perfect society is one where "interesting" things don't happen to people, so getting a story out of an almost perfect society is difficult... 8-)
Re:all they did was screen for alzheimers? (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps they could screen for the 'first post' gene as well...
Sigh...
Re:all they did was screen for alzheimers? (Score:4, Funny)
They were going to, but they forgot. If only the early Alzheimer's detection had been available a generation sooner...
Shaun
Re:all they did was screen for alzheimers? (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article - her family had a history of very early alzheimers, where they would be in the full stages of it by age 40. This was an attempt to prevent the 50% likelihood of the offspring having alzheimers by age 40 as well.
Screening != GM (Score:5, Insightful)
Some doctors encourage people who are at risk of genetically transmitted diseases to have their unborn fetuses screened for those same diseases so that they have the option of aborting early in the pregnancy.
This merely takes that practice a step further, while eliminating the controversy of abortion.
Re:Screening != GM (Score:2, Insightful)
To me, that doesn't seem to have many implications (if any) for the abortion debate, since not even the most conservative pro-life advocates argue that unfertilized eggs should be counted as human beings. On the other hand, if they fertilized a number of eggs, selected from the resulting embryos, and destroyed the rest, then there would be a legitimate concern.
This does raise questions of "playing God", though, along with all the classic arguments about using this to select for or against desired features.
Abortion still involved... (Score:3, Informative)
"He used molecular tests to identify which eggs were free of the genetic mutation, fertilized them with her husband's sperm and transferred four of the resulting embryos to her uterus."
the JAMA abstract (which is likely correct) states:
"Analysis undertaken in 1999-2000 of DNA for the V717L mutation (valine to leucine substitution at codon 717) in the APP gene in the first and second polar bodies, obtained by sequential sampling of oocytes following in vitro fertilization, to preselect and transfer back to the patient only the embryos that resulted from mutation-free oocytes."
This means that fertilized eggs were destroyed, which meets most definitions of abortion.
Re:all they did was screen for alzheimers? (Score:2)
Look, I don't want to be the last generation of dumb humans, ok?
Re:This is great news (Score:2)
-Sean
Re:This is great news (Score:2)
I couldn't quite tell by the tone of your post if you were really serious, or just being sarcastic. I hope it was the latter.
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2)
Who are we to say the one discarded wouldn't have been the next Beethoven, and the one kept won't grow up to be a drug dealer? I'd rather see such decisions left to nature and chance.
Why not focus our genetic engineering efforts on something much less controversial and useful to those imperfect humans already born and find a cure for cancer, aids, etc?
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:4, Insightful)
You're letter her *not* have sex? How dare you waste such potentially valuable genetic material? The second she gets gives birth to her first baby, make sure her boyfriend starts going for number 2. One of her fifteen kids might be the next Beethoven, after all.
I realize I'm being inflammatory, but I'm making a serious point. Every menstrual cycle wastes an egg. Every ejaculation wastes billions of sperm. I don't see a whole lot of difference between wasting them a few seconds before conception and wasting them a few seconds later.
(Yes, yes, I know that some people believe that a single cell can somehow possess an invisible, incorporeal, supernatural entity which they term a 'soul', but that theory is every bit as plausible as saying that the zygote possesses an invisible super-powerful wombat. They might, but considering there's absolutely no evidence in favor of it...)
And we *are* focusing our efforts on curing AIDs and cancer. Solving these problems does not require every single human on the planet to devote 100% of his or her effort to their solutions. That's a pretty inefficient way to operate. For that matter, what are you doing here on Slashdot? Why aren't you working on something more important?
The human race multitasks. Nobody complained about Linus Torvalds writing the Linux kernel instead of working on a cure for cancer. Why are you complaining about fertility doctors working on this rather than a cure for cancer?
I'm sure a lot of people will be pissed off by my opinions, but at least we can all agree on one thing. Super-powerful wombats would be *damned* cool.
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2)
That's not a meaningful argument unless you include reasons why genetically selected or modified offspring won't make at least the same contributions as the people they are displacing. Just because mankind starts selecting against disease or for intellect and atheleticism, doesn't mean that these children would be less capable of making great contributions to humanity. In fact, many advocates of GM would argue that they would be more likely to make great contributions than their randomly created counterparts.
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2)
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously, there are those who will abuse the technology, since that's true for anything that's great, it's really a mute point.
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2)
Think of all the famous people who will make great contributions to humanity who wouldn't have even been born if we don't use this in the future!
Maybe the reason that if there is intelligent life out there among the stars that they haven't found us is because they didn't genetically engineer themselves?
Its a hard issue, what if this allows you to be sure a child won't have the same genetic heart problem his father has.
Re:The best application of science ever! (Score:2)
Re:What else can be found (Score:5, Insightful)
Very simply, you can't screen for most human traits. Period. Sorry, go to the back of the line.
Besides the fact that most traits are caused not by one gene, but by the interaction of dozens of genes and the proteins they create, you have to consider that almost all human traits develop in accordance to someone's environment.
Thusly, if Albert Einstein had been raised in an environment where he wasn't exposed to mathematics or the written word until he was 30 years old, he probably wouldn't come across quite as bright as he was. If he had been raised in an environment where he was not exposed to speech-- The so called 'Forbidden Expirement'-- he probably would come across as being pretty retarded.
If Michael Jordan had not had the opportunity to work hard in his youth and become athletic, he probably wouldn't be the sports superstar he is today. He couldn't just 'develop' those traits and skills later in life.
Say you're an intelligent but pudgy software engineer/couch potato type and you actually manage to get the doctors to screen embryos and sperm most likely to create an athletic individual. If the child created may have a better chance of becoming atheltic, but if he follows his parents example, he will probably be just as pudgy.
Now the one trait that you *can* screen for is gender, mostly because the relationship between X and Y chromosomes has been fairly well observed even if the science behind all the related protein interactions has not been fully plumbed yet.
This raises some scary possibilities, especially in parts of the world where reproduction is controlled by government (China) or families are encouraged to have male children. (Quite a bit of the world, actually.) Having a gender imbalance will do a number on women's rights.
Give it time. (Score:4, Insightful)
The real difficulty you're going to have is that the number of usable gametes you're going to get falls exponentially with the number of chromosomes you're trying to select for. After you get to four or five traits you've got a choice: either you're going to have to be able to pick individual chromosomes and build custom nuclei, or you're going to have to select a "best-of-N" instead of a pure optimum. The "best-of-N" preserves large elements of chance.
This is still not bad. If it gives parents a shot at having a child who'll do best in their environment, or allows parents the knowledge that their child will do best if they provide a certain environment, it's all for the better. The same tests which show what environmental influences are best will help children who aren't specifically selected for certain traits to get the best out of what they've got. This is coming whether you want it or not; the technology is essential to tell what drugs will benefit individuals and what side effects they might have, and the other knowledge will follow behind it. Soon we are going to have the knowledge once reserved to deities, whether we want it or not; we had better be prepared to act on it humanely.Re:So far, not so bad (Score:2)
Re:I'm no genetics/evolution expert, but... (Score:2, Funny)
No, but after a few generations of tinkering, they will!
Re:designer babies (Score:2)
I think that designer babies are ok as far as eliminating disease but could hurt genetic diversity and cause genetic elitism if used to try to get the perfect baby.
Tread softly, you're walking down a dangerous path. If genetic diversity is considered an absolute "good" the next logical step is to be against inter-racial reproduction. It causes the same result, though it decreases genetic elitism.
That being said, I should point out that genetic diversity is a good thing health wise. It's what stops diseases from running rampant through the whole of humanity.
Re:Family Ethics (Score:2)
Kintanon
Re:My sick and twisted belief.. (Score:2)
Kintanon