Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 178 posts

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#121

Post by defen »

scierama wrote: post #110
seanp2k2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you outlaw genetic engineering, only outlaws will be genetically engineered. Then they'll take over the world.

That's a paradox since a genetically improved species would abhor violence. They would have no ability to take over the world. They would become subservient like the Eloi in The Time Machine.

> a genetically improved species would abhor violence.

On the other hand, humans are the apex predator of the known universe, the output of 4.5 billion years of evolution driven by relentless, unceasing violence. It's not clear that a genetically improved species would abhor violence.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#122

Post by 0xffff2 »

angersock wrote: post #81
fbdhsfagdshafgh wrote: post #33

The particular fix done in this study prevents hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic disorder that I have. I cannot explain how weird it feels to read front page headlines that scientists have "fixed" me, that its a huge breakthrough that scientists will be able to remove part of what makes me ME from future generations. I'm all for it, of course. HCM, most frequently diagnosed in people by their sudden death, is ba…

Now imagine when we can "cure" things like autism, nonstandard genders, race, etc. A lot of tolerance is predicated on things being out of our hands, practically. That goes away if we can change them.

I can't claim to represent the last two, but I would gladly trade a great deal less tolerance of autistic people for no one to ever be born with autism ever again, even if I didn't personally benefit at all.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#123

Post by jerrylives »

openasocket wrote: post #71
quotemstr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is choice? I don't believe that "free will" exists. The concept isn't even meaningfully defined for non-dualists. In reality, we're Turing machines. We have certain inputs, a memory, and certain outputs.

You're forgetting that DNA is far from the only input. There's also environment. And you're underestimating the chaotic, nonlinear system that is the material world. We can't accurately predict the weather a month in advance, what makes you think you can accurately predict the life of a human being?

I don't think it's worth the time to argue with these people who conceive of the human body as a "turing machine" and that genes are as simple as "config file".

This is also the guy who says that "Activism does not work. Grand social movements do not work." But I guess the Civil Rights Movement, women's liberation, and the LGBTQ movement don't count?

This is a serious problem I see with many tech / CS inclined people: in which useful abstractions become the map in which they see the territory.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#124

Post by Balgair »

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…

I went through a human neural development class in grad school and the most interesting thing I learned is that we have no/little idea what is going on. We know that rostralization/posteriorization is set up at initial fertilization in most vertebrates, but we have no what causes it (utube-spindles? actin responses to puncture?). Same with dorsal/ventralization. The way we know this small bit? Toads' (xenopus) have a dark/light side to their eggs and we can track that, but other 'clear' egged species are assumed to be like that, as we can't 'tattoo' a cell membrane reliably yet.

In general, I was really stunned at the insane complexity and fervor of development. I mean, you go from one tiny little cell and one tiny little sperm, and then you end up with a trillion little cells all different and all really specialized in under a year. And it mostly all works! Some of those cell migrate a very long way (from a baby elephant's head to it's toes with some nerves) almost perfectly. Some of the time, tons of cells are born, shepherd other cells about, and then die off in about a day (like apoptosis in breast-feeding). Why? No clue. Maybe evolutionary 'holdovers', dunno, more funding please. Really, the shear complexity and energy of the system, with things crashing into each other, traffic jams of cells in a neural cleft, all going about all at once, it is stunning. I can understand a lot of researchers that are in that field and how deeply religious they are, seeing and 'understanding' it all can be moving.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#125

Post by technotony »

zhengyi13 wrote: post #107
RangerScience wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or maybe those countries will fuck up their population's genetic makeups in unforeseen ways This is why diversity is important.

I think you're right, but I think this doesn't address what I suppose is a reasonable fear: engineer a significant enough advantage to out-compete a rival population, and then only later rediscover the need for diversity. That doesn't work out well in the long term for either population, but that doesn't mean that, given the choice, it wouldn't happen. Given the Chinese example, I'm immediately reminded of the folly…

Enough people living today will have their genome sequence that if that's true you can just edit in the 'diversity' later in the future if that's needed.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#126

Post by macleodnine »

justonepost wrote: post #120
roceasta wrote: post #116

There's a huge difference between eliminating known mutations and somehow engineering for enhanced positive traits. The latter requires knowledge that we simply don't have. Even if we did obtain it, it doesn't follow that Jo Slow would be worse off. We're all of us already better off living in a world with smart people in it. We're obviously better off living in a world with healthier people in it (reduced healthcare…

Healthier people don't reduce costs, they just delay them.

What? Maybe if you only count the costs of someone on their deathbed. Someone who requires Care their whole life definitively costs more than someone who doesn't

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#127

Post by gressquel »

dang wrote: post #112
craptocurrency wrote: post #105

To stop spread and misuse of this research, never make a Chinese as part of this scientific committee. See how they helped spread the nuclear arsenal.

Racial and national flamewar is not allowed on HN, and we've banned this account.

think banning him is a bit harsh. A warning should be fine. I also don't think he meant to be racist, he is just afraid something as powerful as gene editing can get into hands of wrong people. Not saying all chineese are bad.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#128

Post by 0xffff2 »

CoolNickname wrote: post #74

A lot of people will be talking about ethics. But I'm thinking more along the lines of economics. Rich people having expensive gene edited kids. They're stronger, smarter, more driven, and healthier than your kids. They are better looking. They'll be more advanced than kids their age. They'll have all sorts of built in advantages. The social and economic gap will widen. Opportunities come easier to the people who loo…

I don't see any alternative here. You could theoretically make the gene-editing a standard benefit paid for by the government, but the US at least can't even agree on how to provide basic healthcare, so it's unlikely we would agree on this. You could outlaw gene-editing, but as long as it's medically possible some people will still do it, and at best you get the same result at a slower rate.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#129

Post by tathougies »

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…

On the other hand, being completely unfamiliar with genetic imprinting as we are, we have no idea what the effects that this kind of single-gender inheritance may be.

Re: Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation in Human Embryos

#130

Post by RangerScience »

technotony wrote: post #125
zhengyi13 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right, but I think this doesn't address what I suppose is a reasonable fear: engineer a significant enough advantage to out-compete a rival population, and then only later rediscover the need for diversity. That doesn't work out well in the long term for either population, but that doesn't mean that, given the choice, it wouldn't happen. Given the Chinese example, I'm immediately reminded of the folly…

Enough people living today will have their genome sequence that if that's true you can just edit in the 'diversity' later in the future if that's needed.

That would miss part of the initial issue, which is: what if there's something wrong introduced as part of any editing process?
Post reply on HN