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First gene-edited babies claimed in China

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Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#51

Post by wycs »

skosuri wrote: post #30
wycs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. We would be fools to outlaw it here, for we would become as children compared to future citizens of nations that do not share our taboos.

"Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations"... Where in the world are you getting this from? This is unlikely to be true for a long time. Intelligence, as far as genetics controls it, is a complex trait... with few if any large effect (especially positive) mutations.

Though thousands of alleles contribute to intelligence, we would only need to edit a few hundred to get extremely large increases in IQ, especially if you perform a round of embryo selection (or even iterated embryo selection) before editing.

Editing hundreds of alleles may sound incredible to you now, but I don’t think it will sound so incredible for long.

Even ignoring GM, embryo selection can get us pretty far with current technology: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#52

Post by carbocation »

elcomet wrote: post #40
DennisAleynikov wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"an experiment on human beings [is] not morally or ethically defensible" is not an opinion but an assertion of how genetic editing fits into our current moral and ethical frameworks.

But it is an opinion. Being an assertion doesn't prevent it from being an opinion. You and I could very well find arguments for defending it, even while fitting the current morale.

The semantic argument about how I phrased my agreement is more worthy of discussion than the ethical argument about the alleged human experimentation?

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#53

Post by TeMPOraL »

For the surely upcoming discussion about pros and cons of genetic editing in humans, Kurzgesagt has a basic overview of the space, if you can spare some 15 minutes with your morning coffee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhjPd4uNFY

(not affiliated, just love their videos)

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#54

Post by markdown »

cyphar wrote: post #22
Svexav wrote: post #11

It’s no surprise this comes from China, the same country that grinds dead babies into pills.

When I first read this comment I thought it was hyperbole (I've heard about the vaccine and melamine scares -- which harmed and killed many thousands of children -- but not about dead babies being put into pills). But no, it's real fucking thing[1,2,3,4]. What the actual fuck. How is a Hacker News comment the first time I've heard of this? [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/ho... [2]: http…

I don't understand this. They don't advertise the pills as human flesh pills, so why use that material in the first place? Why not dead chickens, or runoff from an abattoir?

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#55

Post by withhighprod »

cyphar wrote: post #22
Svexav wrote: post #11

It’s no surprise this comes from China, the same country that grinds dead babies into pills.

When I first read this comment I thought it was hyperbole (I've heard about the vaccine and melamine scares -- which harmed and killed many thousands of children -- but not about dead babies being put into pills). But no, it's real fucking thing[1,2,3,4]. What the actual fuck. How is a Hacker News comment the first time I've heard of this? [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/ho... [2]: http…

It’s quite ancient and almost related to cult groups. Well, in some country it’s also part of its religion See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuman_Thong. Should I tell you it’s very popular among celebrities?

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#56

Post by wycs »

nradov wrote: post #47
wycs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Intelligence is polygenic. The average human is no Von Neumann. At the very least genetic engineering could raise average IQ to Von Neumann’s level. We know that phenotype is possible with no ill effects. It will likely take us much further.

You haven't addressed my point. No one disputes that intelligence is partly genetic. However if it was possible to raise intelligence through genetic engineering with no ill effects then why hasn't evolution increased the incidence of that phenotype already?

Most likely because it seems to be a phenotype that does not reproduce itself. None of Von Neumann’s children had kids if I recall correctly. This environment does not select for IQ past a certain point; this does not imply we cannot engineer people to be more intelligent any more than it implies we cannot engineer people to be dwarfs.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#57

Post by carbocation »

thomasfedb wrote: post #45

Moral frontiers aside, current gene tech is still not where we'd like it to be in order to pull of these sorts of things and know we haven't done harm. Side edits are a big problem with CRISPR-Cas9.

To be fair, that's part of the moral argument.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#58

Post by pgreenwood »

DennisAleynikov wrote: post #2

the first edit is HIV resistance, not a bad way to start the black mirror episode that is the rest of our lives from now on.

If it works and HIV resistance installed in a population, then it opens the possibility HIV could be then could become an effective bioweapon for that population.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#59

Post by buboard »

skosuri wrote: post #5

The edited gene is for CCR5, which currently doesn’t have known function, but is the entry point for HIV. So editing for prophylaxis. This was probably done because if there aren’t a ton of loss of function beneficial traits, and probably with the main desire to be first. Except, if the reports are true, this is not just an experiment but a person (or people). I guess the main desire is to normalize editing. Brave ne…

oh wow. CCR5 has been found to have a role in memory recently. Knockout mice have better learning[1] and pronounced increase in spine formation/turnover[2]. These babies are going to have super-memory:

1. https://elifesciences.org/articles/20985

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29379017

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