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The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

sciencemag.org

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Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#41

Post by wincy »

Hermel wrote: post #24
michaelt wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to have a steroids-optional elite sports league because all the non-steroid-users would get outcompeted, effectively turning it into a steroids-mandatory league. Either everyone uses steroids or they're completely banned - there's no middle ground. In the jargon of game theory, in the absence of a ban, everyone doping is the only strong Nash equilibrium. The fear is gene edited babies would trigger th…

I see the problem with steroids in sports. They are unhealthy and sports is a zero-sum game. But what's the problem with manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and more attractive? Wouldn't that improve the world? Everyone benefits if humankind becomes less dumb.

The movie GATTACA comes to mind which, while fictional raises some interesting ethical questions.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#42

Post by wincy »

nl wrote: post #37
Hermel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the problem with steroids in sports. They are unhealthy and sports is a zero-sum game. But what's the problem with manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and more attractive? Wouldn't that improve the world? Everyone benefits if humankind becomes less dumb.

What about the countries, ethnic groups and religions that can't afford to edit the genes of their children. Is their destiny to be out-competed by those groups with the best gene editing technology? What if a particular highly effective gene editing technique is perfected and patented in country A and they refuse a license to country B because they are rivals? What if in country Z only ethnic group X is allowed to r…

The Uber-Han has arrived.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#43

Post by zbrozek »

wincy wrote: post #41
Hermel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the problem with steroids in sports. They are unhealthy and sports is a zero-sum game. But what's the problem with manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and more attractive? Wouldn't that improve the world? Everyone benefits if humankind becomes less dumb.

The movie GATTACA comes to mind which, while fictional raises some interesting ethical questions.

I watched that movie and wished that I could have been the beneficiary of such editing. Once it's possible it seems obvious to want to do it. What's the problem?

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#44

Post by wincy »

zbrozek wrote: post #43
wincy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The movie GATTACA comes to mind which, while fictional raises some interesting ethical questions.

I watched that movie and wished that I could have been the beneficiary of such editing. Once it's possible it seems obvious to want to do it. What's the problem?

I don’t have a problem with it, but certain worldviews would driving motivators in the world would be very upset about gene editing. Like imagine if in 50 years billionaires are biologically immortal. That’d be quite something.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#45

Post by s1artibartfast »

est31 wrote: post #36
s1artibartfast wrote: post #32

I think the elephant in the room is not He's work, but the fact that embryonic selection is already commercially available from Steve Hsu's Genomic Prediction[1] and other companies. It doesn't impart new genes, so it can't give HIV immunity if the parents don't have it, but it can screen large numbers of embryos and allow the parents to select the one(s) they want based on their genetic makeup It is done using well…

Creating multiple embryos in the lab then screening them for diseases etc. can of course help with some situations, but if both chromosomes from one parent carry some variant of a gene, you can't get rid of it. Similarly, you can't introduce desired variants if none of the two parents want them. So arbitrary edits are way more powerful.

I think powerful is a loaded word, but the rest of what you said is correct. They are different technologies for different things. Crispr is "good" for single genes. Screening is "good" for polygenic traits. For example, intelligence is thought to be linked to over 500 genes. This would not be good target for embryonic editing, even if the error rate was extremely low.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#46

Post by s1artibartfast »

nl wrote: post #37
Hermel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the problem with steroids in sports. They are unhealthy and sports is a zero-sum game. But what's the problem with manipulating people to be healthier, smarter and more attractive? Wouldn't that improve the world? Everyone benefits if humankind becomes less dumb.

What about the countries, ethnic groups and religions that can't afford to edit the genes of their children. Is their destiny to be out-competed by those groups with the best gene editing technology? What if a particular highly effective gene editing technique is perfected and patented in country A and they refuse a license to country B because they are rivals? What if in country Z only ethnic group X is allowed to r…

What do you mean by out-competed? For humans, reproduction has very little to do with the traits that people might want to select for. Just about every group that could afford such treatment is already has a low fertility rate.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#47

Post by alisonkisk »

Fezzik wrote: post #28
gmfawcett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humanity has done selective breeding for centuries, and nobody ever complained. Nobody has ever complained about eugenics? About master races vs. inferior breeds of human, or about hereditary caste systems? I think you need to brush up on your history before making such claims.

I imagine OP is talking about how we get to select our partners, not eugenics. And how, generally speaking, the wealthier and better looking a person is the wealthier and better looking their partner and then children will be. Edit, to add: the same is likely true for realized intelligence as well.

And it's absurd to say that no one ever complained about that or aren't still complaining about that.

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#48

Post by copperx »

Retric wrote: post #18
jcranmer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Against He specifically, the biggest factor that causes consternation is that He seems to have been more motivated by winning the accolades of being first than by actually doing good work. The work came out of nowhere, wasn't exactly successful (in that neither of resulting gene edits actually reflected the intended result), and it's unclear if the parents actually understood what they were consenting to. To the broa…

Human experiments without consent is about more than just the parents. A huge factor is early experiments will result in a lifetime of suffering for the infants due to any mistakes or unknown consequences etc. The ethics might be more debatable if we knew what was going to happen, but there are huge unknowns here.

I can already see the headline coming: "I was a CRISPR baby, and I wish I wasn't born".

Re: The untold story of ‘circle of trust’ behind world’s first gene-edited babies

#49

Post by eunos »

michaelt wrote: post #21
little_panda wrote: post #2

I'm feeling bewitched by this entire story of rejection of He Jiankui. Could someone here please describe in layman's terms what's wrong with the _ethics_ of germline editing? Edit: yes it's gonna be crazy expensive and 10+ years will pass before the tech is ready for mass use, I realize that.

It's impossible to have a steroids-optional elite sports league because all the non-steroid-users would get outcompeted, effectively turning it into a steroids-mandatory league. Either everyone uses steroids or they're completely banned - there's no middle ground. In the jargon of game theory, in the absence of a ban, everyone doping is the only strong Nash equilibrium. The fear is gene edited babies would trigger th…

>The fear is gene edited babies would trigger the same effect: If I'm in my country's richest 3% and I know parents in the richest 2% are gene-editing their children to be healthier/smarter/prettier, can I afford not to do the same?

Can't you say the same about private school?

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