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First gene-edited babies claimed in China

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Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#271

Post by ramraj07 »

gwern wrote: post #262
ramraj07 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that super weird article. The author's motivations for supporting China's eugenics efforts are puzzling for sure. Thankfully we might be safe for the time being. IIRC the BGI IQ sequencing initiative did not lead to any meaningful discoveries since it's not yet obvious or fully proven yet that IQ is that heritable. My 50c is that we as a population have currently stopped evolving regions of our genome that…

> IIRC the BGI IQ sequencing initiative did not lead to any meaningful discoveries The BGI initiative led to no meaningful discoveries because of internal disarray & politics & strategic missteps meant that it was never completed; if it had, it probably wouldn't've reported much because they made a failed bet that common variation would be unimportant and it would be more efficient to look for rarer variants which bo…

Well I suppose my appraisal of the field is a few years old, thanks for the reference, will go through it.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#272

Post by AllegedAlec »

landryraccoon wrote: post #253
AllegedAlec wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said in another thread on this article: On the one hand, hurray for them for trying to eliminate a couple of quite serious diseases. On the other hand, we have very little clue what the long term effects of not having CCR5 will be for these children. Furthermore, do we really trust China to start messing with people's DNA? I could think up several uses for this that are downright dangerous in the hands of a coun…

This technology might not work at all, or it might be highly effective after refinements. If it is highly effective moral arguments are moot. Genetic engineering will be like nuclear weapons. A nation that desires to be competitive or have economic dominance won’t have any choice, it will be forced to adopt its usage (or be left behind). Even agreements to control nuclear weapons that could cause human extinction sti…

I'm not saying that we should try to ban genetic engineering. It's here to stay.

I'm just trying to point out that the Gattaca situation people seem to be afraid of is not even in the top 10 of worst scenario's.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#273

Post by jobigoud »

AznHisoka wrote: post #187
coldtea wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the first article I have read that has made me realize that the future is right here, right now and there is a very high probability that things are now going to change rapidly. The future? Compared to 1900 we already live in a widely different world, more diff today - 1900 than diff 1900 - 1000 B.C.

If I was transported to my city in 1900 and walk around, I would probably be uncomfortable for a few hours but be adjusted soon afterwards. If I was a 1900’s citizen transported to 1000 BC? holy.. are you kidding me? I would be shell shocked.

But you have hindsight. That thought experiment is more interesting in the other direction. How lost are you when moving forward in time?

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#274

Post by jobigoud »

carbocation wrote: post #8

> It's "unconscionable ... an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible," said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal. This is 100% correct. (COI: Kiran was my postdoc while I was a student in the lab a decade ago.)

You can argue that not fixing biological defects when you have the means to is ethically indefensible.

It's not black and white.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#275

Post by jobigoud »

oh-kumudo wrote: post #171

It already causes quite a debate on Chinese internet as well. People are genuinely concerned about the unknown effects on the babies, and questioning the authors and the hospital's motivation of applying such techniques to human this early without fully understanding its consequences.

IVF was also very controversial and "unnatural" at the time. I hope the kid is fine.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#276

Post by ajmurmann »

linkmotif wrote: post #106
ajmurmann wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a few dozen or even thousand suffer to prevent the suffering of many millions or even billions in the long run, is that not a trade off one would have to make? It all comes down to the old debate of deontology vs utilitarianism

I hope you’re first in line to be among the those who suffer.

Fortunately that won't be necessary. Both of us are safe. The Chinese are doing the research for us. If they don't succeed they suffered and we are not impacted. If they do succeed, they suffered, get some food jobs and money and we likely get to benefit from most of the results. So we can have our cake and eat it to. Yay \O/

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#277

Post by barry-cotter »

ramraj07 wrote: post #237
barry-cotter wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re asking about the degree of difference Ashkrnazim have ~25% of science Nobel prizes having never been more than 1% of global population. That’s one group that’s highly over represented in intellectual achievement. For a more prosaic example look at the list of US spelling bee finalists or national science foundation merit scholarship finalists. There will be a great deal more Asian names than their share of…

I hope that's not all you had in mind when you wrote your comment. All of that shows no proof that it's the genetics that propels the disproportionate level of intellectual achievement. Both of those cases can easily be explained by sociocultural influences within families of various races propelling more intellectual endeavors, and if you don't have peer reviewed references showing otherwise it's probably a good ide…

Torsion dystonia and IQ

SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE IN RECESSIVELY INHERITED TORSION DYSTONIA

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067367...

NATURAL HISTORY OF ASHKENAZI INTELLIGENCE GREGORY COCHRAN, JASON HARDY, HENRY HARPENDING

http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/pdfs/ashkiq.webpub.pdf

>Ever since torsion dystonia among the Ashkenazim was first recognized, observers have commented on the unusual intelligence of patients. Flatau and Sterling (Eldridge, 1976) describe their first patient as showing ‘an intellectual development far exceeding his age’, and their second patient as showing ‘extraordinary mental development for his age’. At least ten other reports in the literature have made similar comments. Eldridge (1970, 1976) studied fourteen Jewish torison dystonia patients:

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#278

Post by blueblimp »

wycs wrote: post #51
skosuri wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wit…

I'm bullish on selection approaches generally, but I think editing is not as promising at the moment. Editing via double-strand breaks is just way too unreliable for use in embryos, and base editing is too limited to make use of GWAS info.

This could change if the tech improves, but it would need to improve A LOT.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#280

Post by danenania »

zeroname wrote: post #270
danenania wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you are effectively arguing that it would be ethical for a doctor to try to experimentally create a glow-in-the-dark baby if asked to by the mother. Good or bad science has nothing to do with the outcomes--that's good or bad medicine . There's plenty of 'good science' practiced on lab rats that would immediately become horrifyingly unethical if practiced on humans, but that has nothing to do with how well the…

> Again, you are effectively arguing that it would be ethical for a doctor to try to experimentally create a glow-in-the-dark baby if asked to by the mother. No, I am not arguing that. That's an embarrassingly absurd conclusion to draw. These babies have a risk of life-long HIV impairment. This intervention may prevent this. With any medical intervention, you need to trade off risk and reward. Obviously, for an unbor…

"You're by far the worst discussion partner I have ever had on HN."

Woe is me!

I somehow doubt you're very high on anyone's list yourself :-/

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