Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shall they try your children first? Oh so sorry - they died young and in agony, from unintended side effects. But Science!
Of course we wouldn't try on humans first. Animal trials precede human trials.
Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
21–30 of 113 posts
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#22Surprise surprise, he has 3 million yuans to be fined. Had he given more of those to the government officials and/or jurisdiction, he wouldn't even have to face the charges in the first place.
> Zhang was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 1 million yuan ($143,000), while Qin was given a suspended sentence of one year and six months in prison and fined 500,000 yuan ($71,600).
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#23Interesting. I still roll to disbelieve on China shunning human enhancement. The gains are just too great, the fruit too low hanging. Several standard deviation increases in polygenic traits are on the table, including the most important economic trait, intellectual ability: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection Given China’s almost unique state capacity to think long term, history of eugenic policies in sport, an i…
Apart from that I do believe, that in the future human gene editing makes sense. Once it is actually understood. (until then volunteers are allright with me, but experimenting with babys ... is a bit off)
Because we are successfully eliminating natural selection in various ways. But evolving works naturally through selection. Degeneration would be the long term effect, unless we find other ways. And improving our genes as we see fit ... seems to be a solution.
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course we wouldn't try on humans first. Animal trials precede human trials.
animals are not humans so something that works on a mouse or a pig could have unknown bad side effects for humans.
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow those are optimistic numbers. Considering we have NO idea what genes select for most features (if any).
We don’t need the causal variants for embryo selection, just the predictive variants. We have this for height now. The only reason we don’t have this for IQ now is everyone doing GWAS studies are too chicken to put an IQ test in with their other measures. As the cost of a sequence declines, this will not last. Obviously, this is not an issue if there is state involvement.
Example:
>A genome-wide polygenic score constructed from the GWA results accounted for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence in the normal range in an unselected sample of 3414 individuals, which is comparable to the variance explained by GWA studies of intelligence with substantially larger sample sizes.
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow those are optimistic numbers. Considering we have NO idea what genes select for most features (if any).
We don’t need the causal variants for embryo selection, just the predictive variants. We have this for height now. The only reason we don’t have this for IQ now is everyone doing GWAS studies are too chicken to put an IQ test in with their other measures. As the cost of a sequence declines, this will not last. Obviously, this is not an issue if there is state involvement.
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#27Interesting. I still roll to disbelieve on China shunning human enhancement. The gains are just too great, the fruit too low hanging. Several standard deviation increases in polygenic traits are on the table, including the most important economic trait, intellectual ability: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection Given China’s almost unique state capacity to think long term, history of eugenic policies in sport, an i…
Well, if human gene editing really would work, than china (and others) would not only select for intellect, but also for obedience. Which is scary. Apart from that I do believe, that in the future human gene editing makes sense. Once it is actually understood. (until then volunteers are allright with me, but experimenting with babys ... is a bit off) Because we are successfully eliminating natural selection in variou…
In the short term though, it seems like a good idea. Regardless, in a multipolar world we don’t have much choice in the matter.
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow those are optimistic numbers. Considering we have NO idea what genes select for most features (if any).
We don’t need the causal variants for embryo selection, just the predictive variants. We have this for height now. The only reason we don’t have this for IQ now is everyone doing GWAS studies are too chicken to put an IQ test in with their other measures. As the cost of a sequence declines, this will not last. Obviously, this is not an issue if there is state involvement.
I think the lift in IQ you get from embryo selection is counteracted by a lot of other (negative) factors.
It is also unclear to what degree epigenetic inheritance plays in IQ. My opinion is the 8-10 IQ point boost is less than variance from unknown factors relating to doing IVF versus natural birth. In other words I would still go with natural birth (which has been time tested by evolution)
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don’t need the causal variants for embryo selection, just the predictive variants. We have this for height now. The only reason we don’t have this for IQ now is everyone doing GWAS studies are too chicken to put an IQ test in with their other measures. As the cost of a sequence declines, this will not last. Obviously, this is not an issue if there is state involvement.
People have done IQ vs genetic variation in GWAS. They find that there is almost no impact of common variants on IQ. Example: >A genome-wide polygenic score constructed from the GWA results accounted for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence in the normal range in an unselected sample of 3414 individuals, which is comparable to the variance explained by GWA studies of intelligence with substantially larger sample size…
Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years
#30Interesting. I still roll to disbelieve on China shunning human enhancement. The gains are just too great, the fruit too low hanging. Several standard deviation increases in polygenic traits are on the table, including the most important economic trait, intellectual ability: https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection Given China’s almost unique state capacity to think long term, history of eugenic policies in sport, an i…