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Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

nytimes.com

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Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#71

Post by evanpw »

itsybitsycoder wrote: post #64
evanpw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an interesting heuristic: if an action is morally bad, then its inverse is morally good. Does that seem plausible? If blinding a child is bad, then curing their blindness is good, etc. Applied to this situation: if it's morally bad to enhance the intelligence of a child beyond that of their peers, then it should be morally good to diminish the intelligence of a genius child to be more average. If it's bad to e…

No, I don't think that heuristic passes the sniff test. There are lots of situations where the doing the functional opposite of a morally wrong action is also morally wrong. It's wrong for me to take $50 from you and give it to Bob, and still wrong for me to take $50 from Bob and give it to you. It's wrong to kill babies and wrong to force women to create babies. In these cases the moral inverse isn't to do something…

By inverse, I mean reversing states of the world. If Alice and Bob have exactly equal wealth, then transferring $50 from Alice and giving it to Bob decreases total utility, because of the decreasing marginal utility of money. If Bob now has $100 more wealth than Alice, then transferring $50 from Bob to Alice increases total utility by the same amount. If by "take" you meant steal, then returning the stolen money is obviously also a good thing.

If it's wrong to kill babies, then it's good to resuscitate ones that have died (assuming they're in the same state they would have been: no brain damage, etc.)

If making one average child a genius is bad for the world, then making one genius child average must be good for the world.

If you're a utilitarian, then the heuristic is basically a tautology: If moving from state A to state B decreases utility by X, then moving from state B to state A increases utility by the same amount.

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#72

Post by diminoten »

Zikes wrote: post #69
diminoten wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I hope you've just phrased it poorly. I have not worded it incorrectly. Attractive people may have kids, but so do ugly people, and ugly people have kids with attractive people, too. There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. Your "common knowledge" is failing you here. But wait, so you…

> There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attr... And yes, my two sentences are one and the same. A trait is a category, such as hair color. We can select for that trait without always selecting specifically red hair, for example. In fact, at one point we selected against red hair in some cultures [1]. Similarly, as I described ear…

Did you just link to the peafowl to try and show that in humans, attractiveness and offspring are related?

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#73

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

innguest wrote: post #63
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #27

Humans modifying themselves is scary. Very scary. One way it is scary is it creates a new form of genocide. Rather than murdering oppressed groups, we will simply disable the genes that make them part of that group, erasing diversity. A world with only white, straight, cisgender, neurotypical, conventionally attractive etc. people is not one I want to live in.

So you'd say with a straight face that if everyone in the world suddenly became white, straight and good-looking, that this would be so unbearable to you that you would kill yourself? If you're not literally saying that, then what is the value of your hyperbole? Your post reads like pure fear-mongering to me.

> So you'd say with a straight face that if everyone in the world suddenly became white, straight and good-looking, that this would be so unbearable to you that you would kill yourself?

No?

I'm saying I'd rather not live in a world where diversity has been eliminated.

> Your post reads like pure fear-mongering to me.

Well, it is a potential future.

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#74

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

innguest wrote: post #61
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQ is heritable because IQ selects for the well-educated. Also, everyone is fairly similar in intelligence anyway. It is not for lack of intelligence that black people suffer in the United States.

Your first sentence is a non-sequitur. When did Nature decide that the more well-educated are the fittest? Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments. Black people suffer in the US because the US has a ton of laws that harm them, like minimum wage laws (first enacted to stifle competition), drug…

> Your first sentence is a non-sequitur. When did Nature decide that the more well-educated are the fittest?

IQ isn't nature, IQ is a testing system. IQ is essentially a test of whether you have been given a high-quality Western education.

> Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments.

People's intelligence does vary, but not as much as you think it does. A lot of it, again, is down to education.

> Black people suffer in the US because the US has a ton of laws that harm them,

The legal system does not exist in isolation. It is influenced by US society (which is oppressive towards black people).

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#75

Post by innguest »

hyperbovine wrote: post #66
innguest wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more direct and efficient ways of addressing inequality than genetically changing people to be equal?

I mean, really? Poverty correlates far more strongly with negative health outcomes, lower educational attainment, increased risk of incarceration, unhappiness, decreased life expectancy--you name it--than any known genetic risk factor.

So if everyone were clones that would not be enough equality for you?

How would you go about your further goals in this clone society? Constant monitoring of citizens, tracking their lives, measuring disparities in the short and long term and either awarding or punishing certain activities at certain times by certain people to make sure everything is equal to everyone?

Seriously, what do you mean by equality that the ability to choose one's genes wouldn't fix?

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#76

Post by hyperbovine »

innguest wrote: post #75
hyperbovine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, really? Poverty correlates far more strongly with negative health outcomes, lower educational attainment, increased risk of incarceration, unhappiness, decreased life expectancy--you name it--than any known genetic risk factor.

So if everyone were clones that would not be enough equality for you? How would you go about your further goals in this clone society? Constant monitoring of citizens, tracking their lives, measuring disparities in the short and long term and either awarding or punishing certain activities at certain times by certain people to make sure everything is equal to everyone? Seriously, what do you mean by equality that the…

Haha. I sensed this thread starting to take a turn towards nutcase-ville... aaaand here we are. If you really believe that there is absolutely no daylight between a) lessening pervasive, endemic inequality that exists the status quo and b) "1984 with clones", well, that says a lot about you and your world view. #ocra

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#77

Post by irisnt »

arca_vorago wrote: post #39

I worked in a next-gen DNA sequencing lab (as a sysadmin), and learned a lot while I was there. One of the primary things I took away from it was that the human genome is it's various interactions with other organisms (microbiome) is incredibly complex and difficult to understand in an interrelated way. I would say don't ban it, but rather put regulations that require extremely extensive oversight and testing. It's t…

Did you delete your reddit account?

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#78

Post by innguest »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #74
innguest wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence is a non-sequitur. When did Nature decide that the more well-educated are the fittest? Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments. Black people suffer in the US because the US has a ton of laws that harm them, like minimum wage laws (first enacted to stifle competition), drug…

> Your first sentence is a non-sequitur. When did Nature decide that the more well-educated are the fittest? IQ isn't nature, IQ is a testing system. IQ is essentially a test of whether you have been given a high-quality Western education. > Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments. People's in…

I am more convinced of Dr James Flynn's arguments than yours regarding IQ because I have gone over some of his work, which contradicts what you are saying. If you point me to some of yours or your sources I'd take a look.

Re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome

#79

Post by arca_vorago »

irisnt wrote: post #77
arca_vorago wrote: post #39

I worked in a next-gen DNA sequencing lab (as a sysadmin), and learned a lot while I was there. One of the primary things I took away from it was that the human genome is it's various interactions with other organisms (microbiome) is incredibly complex and difficult to understand in an interrelated way. I would say don't ban it, but rather put regulations that require extremely extensive oversight and testing. It's t…

Did you delete your reddit account?

I did indeed, because I got into a tiff with someone and I like to burn accounts fairly often. It sorta sucks to see accounts go away, but I don't like the string of correlation being too easy. Also, are you stalking me?
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