131–140 of 218 posts
This just in: fucking with stuff we don't fully understand has negative consequences we don't fully understand. I'm grateful this is happening, otherwise our hubris might get too out if hand.
Your comment reminds me of this comic [0]. http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
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"No single point just does a single thing." Exactly this! And this is why GM foods are more dangerous than you might expect. Even if gene x does only x in organism A, there is no guarantee that gene x does only one thing or the same thing in organism B.
GM foods are arguably no more dangerous than any massively engineered foods we've been eating for decades/centuries. Direct gene modification is more like using a scalpel rather than a 2x4. Still potentially dangerous, but far more precise.
This may be your opinion. While GM foods are not per see dangerous, the long tail risk is tremendous, exactly because you can not tell what a gene is going to do in another organism. Take my word for it, I have a PhD in that shit.
Taleb also advocates the precautionary principle: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.5787.pdf
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Even if this hypothesis is correct, I would replace "dangerous" with "unpredictable", because the resulting effects of those interactions would be as likely to cause good as to cause harm.
Why do you think changes would be as likely to cause good as to cause harm? In complex, yet structured, systems - I think changes without fully understanding what you're doing are vastly more likely to cause harm than good. Software is the obvious example. Change a line of bytecode/assembly to something else. I think the chances of that change being good are extremely close to 0.
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It's more like editing the raw binary of an executable. It's only more precise if you understand the binary representation and the impact of changes. Otherwise it's incredibly imprecise, as you are just randomly flipping switches. In the case of genetics, we have a some understanding, but it is fairly limited. There is real potential for unexpected harm, given how much we don't know and the complexity of the code. Of…
I don't think it's really accurate to describe selective breeding as restricting how you can modify the underlying data. I'd rather say that the executable itself contains layer upon layer of consistency checks so if you modify it too much it will just refuse to "boot up." In fact selective breeding relies heavily on this mechanism since it can create hundreds or even millions of nonviable organisms for every viable…
From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…
Or the really scary part...if it not noticed for generations. For example, a reduction of IQ each generation or such.
From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…
> From my laymans POV It's just so much more complicated than that. There is an additional huge array of variables like introns[1] and exons[2]. There's also the fact that not all base pairs encode even for genes, there's things like tRNA[3] and ribosomes[4] and the super amazing ribozymes[5]. Even after all that you have specific DNA binding factors[6] that along with the insane machinery[7] of our DNA regulate whic…
From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…
So now we are going to start in on biology?
The irony is too strong: “”” The goals are to improve agricultural productivity, produce hardier beasts and reduce practices that are costly or considered inhumane. “”” I can’t help but think about Oryx and Crake . I’m more interested in applying these principles and efforts and resources to plants and non-animal sources. I feel that further modifying animal agriculture is orthogonal to direction we can move civiliza…
We'll, the reality is that most people will continue eating meat regardless of what people like me and you think of it, so it's probably a good idea to put some effort into minimizing the negative consequences. Also, we can research lots of things at once, and research funding is not a zero-sum game. I don't think anybody's defunding non-animal agriculture research for this. Finally, there's a good chance that this s…
From my laymans POV, DNA is just a shit ton of variables in a very complex code that interact with each other. No single point just does a single thing. They all interact with each other. No different than changing a variable in one piece of code and having it create a bug in another that was previously working. For me, the real scary part is altering something, which inadvertently changes something else that isn't q…
That's not only a layperson's POV. There was an article in The Atlantic (approx a year+ ago) - which I've looked for an cannot find (sorry) - on a scientist who long to short "I don't think things (i.e., DNA) are what most science thinks it is." Much like you he said, "it's not this simple. the mesh is more complex and has multiple currently unforeseen dependencies." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing. And every month since…
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> From my laymans POV It's just so much more complicated than that. There is an additional huge array of variables like introns[1] and exons[2]. There's also the fact that not all base pairs encode even for genes, there's things like tRNA[3] and ribosomes[4] and the super amazing ribozymes[5]. Even after all that you have specific DNA binding factors[6] that along with the insane machinery[7] of our DNA regulate whic…
Sounds like it's time to refactor that system into something less crazy. Or better yet, rewrite it in Rust.