We've already had the plague this year, bring on the intelligent monkeys...
Where do I buy tickets to an Elon Musk rocket now?
Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
31–40 of 384 posts
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#32Is there a better source? I'd like to know what gene they added and if there is any reason to believe that could have been an evolutionary step. Gene's dont appear whole out of nowhere. Was it an extra copy of an existing gene? A mutation and duplication? Some weird replication error?
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, I was talking to a fruit fly yesterday... Wait no, that’s not accurate because while larger brains don’t inherently equate to more intelligence, there is a minimum size for any given level of intelligence. That said, this wasn’t a test of intelligence, just how cells grow in response to specific genetic alterations.
I didn’t realize that was scientific consensus. So that would imply that brains under a certain size are incapable of higher levels of intelligence? I don’t think that’s right... I thought the consensus was that brain size has no strong correlation with intelligence at all. That makes sense considering how neurons work, the connections they form seem like they would be more causal.
The scientific consensus is that from the evolutionary perspective, brain/body size is absolutely correlated with performance. This doesn't have to be general intelligence, but can be sensory processing ect.
That is not to say that structure isn't important too. This is especially relevant because the study observed some of the structural changes through to be associated with increased intelligence as well.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea, I was talking to a fruit fly yesterday... Wait no, that’s not accurate because while larger brains don’t inherently equate to more intelligence, there is a minimum size for any given level of intelligence. That said, this wasn’t a test of intelligence, just how cells grow in response to specific genetic alterations.
I didn’t realize that was scientific consensus. So that would imply that brains under a certain size are incapable of higher levels of intelligence? I don’t think that’s right... I thought the consensus was that brain size has no strong correlation with intelligence at all. That makes sense considering how neurons work, the connections they form seem like they would be more causal.
Information processing is limited to the capacity of the network. So it is easy to see that very small brains cannot be very smart (there is no set of connections that can make fruit fly human-intelligent). However, having a large capacity network doesn’t mean it will result in high intelligence. So it’s necessary but not sufficient.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#35Joe Rogan joins the chat
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#36This is crucial in order to maintain ethical boundaries. After about 100 days after the fetus had been growing, the international team unanimously agreed to remove the fetus through a C-section I feel we’ve already entered into sensitive territory by aborting it.
Yeah, aborting in some circles is the same as murder so the "ethics" is a bit blurry here. The crossed the line by creating life and then they killed what could essentially be something that could have had the intelligence of a regular human being.
I'm not an anti-abortionist but I can't deny that the ethics in this area is blurry. Even worse is when you're aborting genetically modified life.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#37Is there a better source? I'd like to know what gene they added and if there is any reason to believe that could have been an evolutionary step. Gene's dont appear whole out of nowhere. Was it an extra copy of an existing gene? A mutation and duplication? Some weird replication error?
The source is this article: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6503/546
The gene is ARHGAP11B under the control of its usual human-specific promoter.
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#38Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#39Is there a better source? I'd like to know what gene they added and if there is any reason to believe that could have been an evolutionary step. Gene's dont appear whole out of nowhere. Was it an extra copy of an existing gene? A mutation and duplication? Some weird replication error?
I found another article that covers the origin of the gene here:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200618150301.h...
Re: Scientists grow bigger monkey brains using human genes, replicating evolution
#40Can we improve our own brain this way? I mean, brain of our kind, not some already living person. What if we can create a creature smarter than us?
Surely, but at what cost?
Exploratory human experimentation... maybe you're testing and aborting half developed humans which already many people would have significant problems, but eventually you're going to have to produce adults and not every experiment is going to be a success.
It's hard to think of a future of our species where self-modification is not part of our evolution, but it is a very powerful tool and like any power a lot of discipline has to go into not misusing it.
Somebody call Dr Moreau