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Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

nytimes.com

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Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#21

Post by quotemstr »

aaronmck wrote: post #16
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

So what? How are we going to learn unless we experiment? I detest the precautionary principle. If we'd followed it in prehistory, we'd have never left the trees: who knows what might be down there?

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#22

Post by thriftwy »

aaronmck wrote: post #16
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would.

So it happens that genetics doesn't have to catch up - we can have this knowledge without knowing it.

And also. People will question genetists' judgement. Some of the changes they're proposing have never passed statistically significant testing. But nobody ever questions neural network.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#23

Post by komali2 »

jcadam wrote: post #13
komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

I don't like it, but I have to admit you're most certainly correct that it's only a matter of time before human genetic-enhancement is commonplace. Best case, we'll be living in a Gattaca -esque world before the end of the century.

I don't see why that has to be best case. My best case scenario is that humankind has overcome tribal instincts, united around common causes, overcome arbitrary prejudices, and... well basically Star Trek.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#24

Post by komali2 »

thriftwy wrote: post #22
aaronmck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

I'm pretty sure that if we threw a lot of genomes, healthy and defective, to a neural network, and then showed it a genome and told "make it healthy", it would. So it happens that genetics doesn't have to catch up - we can have this knowledge without knowing it. And also. People will question genetists' judgement. Some of the changes they're proposing have never passed statistically significant testing. But nobody ev…

That's an interesting idea, but with my limited knowledge of neural networks and deep learning, don't these things usually need to know when they are "successful?" (i.e. the distance gone right in a mario game or something). How do they not only suss out various options for genomes, then test the effects?

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#25

Post by komali2 »

quotemstr wrote: post #21
aaronmck wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you'll have to wait for the genetics to catch up -- we know nearly nothing about the effects of variation on complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Even in known 'cancer genes' like BRCA1, we know what only a few of the thousands of single-base changes do. Without this information, things are going to be limited to known disease variants (a good thing)

So what? How are we going to learn unless we experiment? I detest the precautionary principle. If we'd followed it in prehistory, we'd have never left the trees: who knows what might be down there?

It is fair that caution is needed - otherwise we're just a bunch of Qyburns, right?

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#26

Post by JumpCrisscross »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #11

> They injected a synthetic healthy DNA sequence into the fertilized egg, expecting that the male genome would copy that sequence into the cut portion ... Instead, the male gene copied the healthy sequence from the female gene. The authors don’t know why it happened. This seems like the most remarkable part of this entire article. It sounds like a huge discovery. There's a lot of ethical concerns that can be laid asi…

It almost sounds like there's an anti-tampering (i.e. counter-mutagenic) system in place we don't understand. Makes sense. Not only is meiosis more error-prone than mitosis, there's also a wide difference in error rates between the sexes (40 to 60% for women and 3% for men) [1].

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=I1ACBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA9&lpg=PA...

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#27

Post by maxerickson »

adrianN wrote: post #18
gjtorikian wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize Gattaca was a dystopia right? That Ethan Hawke's entire character arc was proving that an unmodified human is just as capable as a modified one? That best case is still a horrible future.

Gattaca was a supremely unrealistic plot because Ethan Hawke's character had any chance to compete with enhanced humans.

They filled that hole by only using screening; they didn't enhance anyone, they just picked the best embryos. You could claim that it is unrealistic that they would be able to do advanced screening but not able to do any changes.

And then the next thing to debate is whether he really had a heart condition or not. People come down on both sides.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#28

Post by lallysingh »

quotemstr wrote: post #14

Good! For too long, we've been hampered by the limitations of a human nature evolved millions of years ago for a very different environment. All previous attempts at changing human nature have failed. Activism does not work. Grand social movements do not work. Policing language does not work. We now have a chance to succeed in improving ourselves using tools that actually work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaver_(Firefly)#Origin

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#29

Post by perseusprime11 »

komali2 wrote: post #6

>and is sure to renew ethical concerns that some might try to design babies with certain traits, like greater intelligence or athleticism. If America doesn't do it, China will, and in a generation will be swollen with a population so much more fit as to make the question of the US standing toe-to-toe laughable. If China doesn't, Russia will. I want genetic engineering because it's logical that as humans learn to exer…

+1. There are unlimited possibilities. This may even allow us to survive on Mars or any other places if we actually know how to edit the gene. Like anything, technology can also be used in the wrong way and we must guard against.
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