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Frightening question: what if this technology could be targeted not at species, but at races?
ITT: people who live in countries that aren’t ravaged by malaria share their vague feelings of doubt about whether or not getting rid of mosquitos is a good idea
Before anybody says "well actually there was a study that said nothing bad would happen", the horribly flawed studies about wiping out mosquitoes being harmless acts under the assumption that animals that feed off mosquitoes will find other insects to live off of. With insect populations dropping to tiny fractions of what they were years ago, it's incredibly short-sighted to think that's feasible. It's the same as saying "all the rice in the world could vanish and humans would just eat something else." Technically, yes, but taking away a large portion of so many people's daily calories isn't a good idea. And looking at how fish, amphibian, bat, and bird populations are lower than ever, getting rid of a readily available food source that links entire ecosystems together is pretty selfish. Work on treating the diseases instead of taking the easy way and just destroying things.
ITT: people who live in countries that aren’t ravaged by malaria share their vague feelings of doubt about whether or not getting rid of mosquitos is a good idea
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you've been personally affected by malaria your immediate impulse is do whatever it takes to stop it. But we know nothing comes for free, no good human deed goes unpunished. There's a lot of debate about whether destroying malaria-carrying mosquitoes would have any side effects whatsoever. Alternately, it may have some. I don't think your characterization is fair, in other words. Those of us in areas not immediate…
> There's a lot of debate about whether destroying malaria-carrying mosquitoes would have any side effects whatsoever. Alternately, it may have some. There's nothing to be lost in doing a trial in an isolated area. The world is vast, we don't need to eradicate mosquitoes at the same time everywhere...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you've been personally affected by malaria your immediate impulse is do whatever it takes to stop it. But we know nothing comes for free, no good human deed goes unpunished. There's a lot of debate about whether destroying malaria-carrying mosquitoes would have any side effects whatsoever. Alternately, it may have some. I don't think your characterization is fair, in other words. Those of us in areas not immediate…
> But we know nothing comes for free, no good human deed goes unpunished. We know nothing of the sort. Perhaps this is something you know.
Would it be feasible to suggest using CRISP to create another adaptation to the gene, one that preserves the mosquitoes but makes them unable to transfer the disease to humans?
Eliminating a species because we don't like it reminds me of speciesism as Peter Singer outlines in one of his books. (Animal Liberation I believe it was). Where humans assume another species to be inferior and have less of a right to live a decent life.
I do think it's a normal response to value human life more. And in fact, I also do think that in this case it makes more sense to safe the humans if no other approach is viable..
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If importing rabbits to Australia would have saved 500,000 lives annually, it would have been one of the best health-related things to happen to humanity. (The eradication of this particular mosquito species is likely harmless, but that does not matter. We should do it even if it isn't)
Sorry, there are two separate questions here: A) the use of a technology - a gene drive - we have no full control of in the wild B) the act of eradication of a species to help to lower the loss of human life in Malaria affected regions. Your statement regarding the Australian ecosystem engineering is purely hypothetic. The import of alien lifeforms always had a detrimental effect on ecosystems, and often, as a second…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But we know nothing comes for free, no good human deed goes unpunished. We know nothing of the sort. Perhaps this is something you know.
Let's just say it's been pretty reliably proved over time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, there are two separate questions here: A) the use of a technology - a gene drive - we have no full control of in the wild B) the act of eradication of a species to help to lower the loss of human life in Malaria affected regions. Your statement regarding the Australian ecosystem engineering is purely hypothetic. The import of alien lifeforms always had a detrimental effect on ecosystems, and often, as a second…
Or perhaps they have thought and evaluated and made their judgement call.
Frightening question: what if this technology could be targeted not at species, but at races?
I've seen very few countries of note (aside from the US) that use "race" as any kind of indicator. This has a very good reason: It's not a clear biological separation and it also otherwise has little bearing on reality. It's an old, obsolete carry-over that was kept from the days when racism was still an accepted practice and it needs to die the death that it deserves as soon as possible.