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Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

wsj.com

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Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#141

Post by hanniabu »

cronix wrote: post #57

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…

> Something like "everybody will get Alzheimers by age 50" where it takes 50 years to even discover it.

Yup, and my then the market is established and the companies creating the market will say it's impossible to know that the side effect was actually caused by altering your DNA, and go on knowingly selling services that are destroying lives all in the name of money

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#142

Post by albertgoeswoof »

code_beers wrote: post #127
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except food doesn’t tend to harm you if it’s DNA is a little different, you digest it, it doesn’t modify your cells directly.

The DNA doesn’t, no. But what does DNA do? For one thing, it contains instructions for constructing proteins. Proteins which you ingest with the DNA as part of the food. GMO foods have been shown to produce malformed proteins, and some of them appear to have harmful effects when eaten. And that just scratches the surface. https://responsibletechnology.org/gmo-education/health-risks...

That genetic modification can, and does, happen naturally, all the time. It’s how evolution works

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#143

Post by code_beers »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #142
code_beers wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNA doesn’t, no. But what does DNA do? For one thing, it contains instructions for constructing proteins. Proteins which you ingest with the DNA as part of the food. GMO foods have been shown to produce malformed proteins, and some of them appear to have harmful effects when eaten. And that just scratches the surface. https://responsibletechnology.org/gmo-education/health-risks...

That genetic modification can, and does, happen naturally, all the time. It’s how evolution works

That talking point has already been attempted by others. Using one term, genetic modification, for several completely different processes doesn’t hide the truth, it just confuses people.

And no, grafting entire sections of bacterial DNA into plant genomes absolutely does not happen in nature.

Please read the link, then get back to me with any actual scientifically founded refutations you may have. Citations are throughout the link, but I don’t see any from you!

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#144

Post by Real_S »

joe_the_user wrote: post #122
akira2501 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't think this really takes away from gp's argument, which is that editing genes is complicated and could wind-up with unforeseen consequences. "Genetic engineering" is more like "cut-and-past-programming" on a stream of data that is not-really-code. Fully understanding the implications of even "simple" changes may wind-up impossible.

The "cut-and-paste" analogy is perfect here. Imagine you discover super-complex code for which you have only a rudimentary understanding. Now imagine replacing sections of code from one program with sections from another program and calling it an improvement before even testing the code!

Older versions of genetic engineering are like pasting code into a random section of a program. CRISPER-CAS9 is more like replacing one section of code with another. Better? Sure. But we still dont really understand the system.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#145

Post by zilian »

savanaly wrote: post #84
nerdponx wrote: post #5

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/

This whole thread if a summary of «How I ate my father»

Back to the trees !

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#146

Post by zilian »

code_beers wrote: post #130
trophycase wrote: post #106

Yes, you're interfering with an extremely complex system. Are we really so naive to believe there is some exact 1:1 mapping of genes to traits, or even close to that? The fact I've heard things like "75% of DNA is useless" [1] seems like such a laughably naive statement I fear for the future of humanity. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2140926-at-least-75-per...

...What future of humanity? Call me cynical, but we seem absolutely bound on wiping ourselves out one way or another. Our focus on money above all else is killing us all. We’re playing useless games, winning useless tokens, and spending them on useless prizes, all inside an arcade that’s on fire. Climate change, GMO foods, overpopulation, water pollution, nuclear war, ecosystem destruction, we’ll find a way eventuall…

Listing all hard problems is a common trope/trend we see often these days with doomsayers. Is it an excuse to be a nihilist and not act on those problems ?

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#147

Post by projectileboy »

projectileboy wrote: post #107
cronix wrote: post #57

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…

Exactly, exactly, exactly. The hubris of people thinking that they understand “this gene has this discrete effect” is astounding to me.

For the downvoters, you might find this interesting:

https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

...and now extrapolate to biological systems evolving over a much longer period.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#148

Post by jf- »

cronix wrote: post #57

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…

Hijacking the top comment to say that this thread is a mess. Nobody seems to know what they’re talking about and at several points it degenerates into arguments about GMO food. It would be really nice if some domain experts, if there are any here, would give us their opinion on the article and the issues it raises.

Re: Deformities Alarm Scientists Racing to Rewrite Animal DNA

#149

Post by snovv_crash »

jayalpha wrote: post #132
smaddox wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"GM foods are arguably no more dangerous than any massively engineered foods " 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

Any change analyzed in a vacuum is risky. The trick is to compare it to the alternative, and see if it is more risky. The alternative to GMO is applying random mutations, and then selecting a strain that has the behavior we want. This has much higher risk than changing only what we need, since many other components could be changed at the same time too, and each of them also have these many interactions.

Honestly, Taleb should stick with what he knows: finance. In other fields I trust his opinion about as much as I would any other Wall Street banker.

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