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First gene-edited babies claimed in China

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Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#161

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

carlmr wrote: post #133
xenadu02 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly not; improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans. Most mouse models don't replicate in other animals either.

>improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans. What if it makes people more scared, because they can remember past experiences better. This could lead to less procreation and thus inverse selection pressure. Only because a trait is superficially good it doesn't mean nature would select for it.

Why would a memory enhancing drug only increase rememberance of negative memories and not the positive and loving ones? Such people could become more active, motivated and procreating more because life seemed more motivating for them because they remembered all the good from the past also?

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#162

Post by buboard »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #161
carlmr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>improved memory is absolutely something evolution would select for in primates, especially humans. What if it makes people more scared, because they can remember past experiences better. This could lead to less procreation and thus inverse selection pressure. Only because a trait is superficially good it doesn't mean nature would select for it.

Why would a memory enhancing drug only increase rememberance of negative memories and not the positive and loving ones? Such people could become more active, motivated and procreating more because life seemed more motivating for them because they remembered all the good from the past also?

it would increase both, but negative ones can have bad, debilitating consequences in life (cue PTSD, phobias)

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#163

Post by nathan_f77 »

danenania wrote: post #145
nathan_f77 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the scientist is trying to reduce the risk of death and suffering. (They're not just flipping a coin to see what happens.) We already know a lot about certain genes and what they do. For example, mutations in the HBB gene cause sickle cell anemia. Removing the mutation in that HBB gene is a good idea 100% of the time. You can just look at the 99% (?) of healthy people who have an HBB gene without that mutat…

The problem is that we don’t know whether this would prevent diseases with any reasonable certainty, and using non-consenting human beings to try to find out implies a profoundly dangerous devaluation of human life and individual rights. If you can reach a high certainty level through other kinds of tests, then that would be another story.

Sickle cell disease affects millions of people, and it's the most common inherited blood disorder. We know for sure that certain mutations in the HBB gene cause sickle cell disease, so I think there is 100% certainty when you're correcting this specific mutation. People who don't inherit this mutation don't get sickle cell anemia. (Because their HBB gene doesn't produce blood cells that are shaped like sickles.)

I didn't realize that CRISPR gene editing can cause damage to other genes [1], so it might not worth it yet. If there was a perfect CRISPR procedure that had no other side effects, then it would be hard to argue against that.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180719165032.h...

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#164

Post by shubb »

coldtea wrote: post #136
wycs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this is true. I do not know. But human enhancement through genetic engineering is coming. Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. We would be fools to outlaw it here, for we would become as children compared to future citizens of nations that do not share our taboos.

> Changes in traits, such as IQ, by 5+ standard deviations looks possible. This looks totally unlikely. Not to mention generally undesirable (people with IQ over 150 or so often have severe problems in their social life, and a lot of them don't ever even create or discover much, not to mention the insufferable part whose main accomplishment is to be members of MENSA).

They didn't actually specify positive. It would be pretty easy to reduce IQ by 5+ standard deviations. Plenty of monogenic disorders cause learning disabilities, just gotta knock out those genes...

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#165

Post by scarejunba »

citilife wrote: post #64

This sounds super sketchy: > He said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done. > There is no independent confirmation of He's claim, and it has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing that is…

It’s funny to see Western standards here. There exist Eastern parents who will try to train their 2-year-olds to fly. That’s damned risky and an Indian tried it a couple of decades ago.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#167

Post by choot »

nradov wrote: post #47
wycs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Intelligence is polygenic. The average human is no Von Neumann. At the very least genetic engineering could raise average IQ to Von Neumann’s level. We know that phenotype is possible with no ill effects. It will likely take us much further.

You haven't addressed my point. No one disputes that intelligence is partly genetic. However if it was possible to raise intelligence through genetic engineering with no ill effects then why hasn't evolution increased the incidence of that phenotype already?

I've IQ of 90 (taken it multiple times) which is considered below average on Standford Binnet test.

I didn't do good at school but i had many friends! I never felt i was less intelligent than my friends which make me question the IQ score thing.

My Dad has high IQ (135) and he's a mathematician.

So how did i inhert low IQ? My mom's score is average at best, 102.

I've sold 3 companies, i am married and I've managed to be quite wealthy.

You don't need to posses high intelligence to survive and reproduce in this world that's why it's not selected for.

We don't walk out of womb and given a puzzle to solve where if we fail, we are instantly killed.

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#168

Post by wiz21c »

cbg0 wrote: post #157
a_imho wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's very treatable if it occurs Surely it is a bit of a stretch.

Compared to a few decades ago, you can live a much longer life thanks to the medication available nowadays.

well, then it means one understands "treatable" as "there's a treatmen for", it's different thatn "there's a cure for"...

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#169

Post by aaaaaaaaaab »

valtism wrote: post #29
noobermin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess time will tell if it leads to any adverse effects. I'm not a biologist which is probably why I'm more wary of this, but if there is some unforeseen circumstances then we'll find out I suppose.

I've worked with enough legacy code to know that playing around with seemingly unused areas can have unexpected consequences. The trouble here is that we can't see those consequences until they end up hurting someone.

The genome is the ultimate legacy code:

- it's been written for billions of years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Earliest_biologica...)

- without any sort of upfront architecture or planning

- the development methodology can be summarized as "change characters randomly and see if it compiles"

- incredibly bloated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-coding_DNA)

- contains random snippets copy/pasted from other codebases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_viral_element)

- the only success criteria is that the "program" shouldn't "crash" before it can make a copy of itself

Re: First gene-edited babies claimed in China

#170

Post by barry-cotter »

nradov wrote: post #61
BurningFrog wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human intelligence has not increased because it has not been strongly selected for. If it was maximized, at the expense of other traits, a lot could definitely happen. > The average human genome appears to be close to a local maximum. Absolutely, but it's maximized for the environment we lived in 10-100 generations ago.

"Superior IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-...

IQ is positively correlated with physical and mental health, height and longevity. We have strong evidence for all of those. Given it’s generally positive effects and the fact that we have copious examples of high IQ success stories this result seems unlikely to hold up.

IQ predicts health and longevity.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0963-7214.200...

Intelligence Predicts Health and Longevity, but Why? Linda S. Gottfredson1, Ian J. Deary

Low iq is a risk factor for several mental health disorders.

https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.ajp.20...

> Results: Lower childhood IQ was associated with increased risk of developing schizophrenia spectrum disorder, adult depression, and adult anxiety. Lower childhood IQ was also associated with greater comorbidity and with persistence of depression; the association with persistence of generalized anxiety disorder was nearly significant. Higher childhood IQ predicted increased risk of adult mania.

Childhood IQ and adult mental disorders: a test of the cognitive reserve hypothesis

Karestan C Koenen

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