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Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
51–60 of 141 posts
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> E.g.: As our understanding of DNA progresses, and we link more and more of it to different traits, will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview? For almost anything that an interview is designed to discover: no. DNA manipulates probabilities of certain things in one direction or another, but then that probability shift is amplified and…
Once we get past the diseases research, what's stopping us from going further? Could we discover e.g. a DNA sequence in human genome "linked" to higher intelligence, or better leadership qualities? And if yes, what can guarantee that instead of the Nazis' "master race" based on pseudo-scientific scull measurements we won't discover "master genes" based on actual DNA science? What frightens me is not what we can disco…
If there were single genes that produced high intelligence scientists probably would have found one by now. Those sorts of traits are almost certainly highly polygenic. Any single gene is likely to have both small and unpredictable contributions to the traits in question. Even totting up all your "good" and "bad" genes to try to come up with a genetic score is fraught due to complicated interactions; perhaps two "good" genes interact badly and make a bad result, or similar.
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you blog? I'd love to read more, and I really enjoy your writing style.
I found that way of writing terribly arrogant and annoying, like a smart 15-year-old.
I find your harshness, in response to a purely positive and informative comment, to be terribly arrogant and annoying, like someone pretending to be as smart as a smart 15 year old.
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think we're past that. Setting aside politically hot topics like IQ, Height is genetically determined and makes a huge difference in life outcomes. Now it's all about what we do with that information.
You can tell a person's height just by looking at them — unlike other examples, you don't need any advancement in DNA science for that.
That makes height an easy topic to talk about, but it's still challenging to think through the implications. If you can increase your child's height by 20% and thereby increase their likely income by 25% - is it morally right not to? Does it matter whether others can afford that intervention? Is it morally right not to fund public access to such interventions? Does the answer change if relative height is all that matters?
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found that way of writing terribly arrogant and annoying, like a smart 15-year-old.
Thank you for your honest perspective! Sincere thanks. I guess it’s the approach of 45 years of age that I am unfazed. I’ve heard a number of times that my persona in writing absolutely does not make sense to some people – until they meet me. I think I can assure you of my non-arrogance. The wry, cynical, even flippant? note is directed at myself. My limitations and recklessness and jumping to conclusions. If you fin…
You write like why the lucky stiff the author of why's poignant guide.
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can tell a person's height just by looking at them — unlike other examples, you don't need any advancement in DNA science for that.
That makes height an easy topic to talk about, but it's still challenging to think through the implications. If you can increase your child's height by 20% and thereby increase their likely income by 25% - is it morally right not to? Does it matter whether others can afford that intervention? Is it morally right not to fund public access to such interventions? Does the answer change if relative height is all that mat…
On height, that is already a reality.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5956020/
https://www.statnews.com/2019/11/18/a-new-treatment-promises...
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for your honest perspective! Sincere thanks. I guess it’s the approach of 45 years of age that I am unfazed. I’ve heard a number of times that my persona in writing absolutely does not make sense to some people – until they meet me. I think I can assure you of my non-arrogance. The wry, cynical, even flippant? note is directed at myself. My limitations and recklessness and jumping to conclusions. If you fin…
IMO there has been a growing undercurrent, in online discussions forums, of disdain for writing and authors who aren’t well-established as authority figures or known experts in their field. Tone and word choice is narrowing into a conversational style, and anyone “straying from the pack” sticks out like a sore thumb in online boards. Anything sarcastic or playful can be perceived as insincere. I’d be happy to read mo…
You should just leave it at "people like different things" instead of making claims about why people don't like something (especially something that you like).
Because now you invite more negativity (on top of the original negativity and now yours) as people who didn't like their writing may now want to defend themself because they just didn't like the style and aren't part of some "growing undercurrent" who can't appreciate his brilliance because he's not "well-established nor a known expert".
Maybe they just think the writing is overwrought like when you outgrow John Scalzi's lamewad writing after briefly finding it clever in Old Man's War? (I think that's a decent place to end this because Scalzi is a very successful author.)
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love humans, we discover a new interesting thing, think we're big boys who understand everything there is to understand and that we can shape things to our will with no adverse consequences That's how we got asbestos in walls, lead in gas/paint, freon, pfas, &c. The same story over and over and over again. But sure go ahead and start slicing our dna, what could possibly go wrong?
And antibiotics, computers, fertilizer, electricity, cars, stem cells, etc Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying throw caution to the wind, but ludditism also isn't the answer.
> And antibiotics, computers, fertilizer, electricity, cars, stem cells, etc
What did it bring ? At what cost ?
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#59This kind of science leaves me with lots and lots of questions. E.g.: As our understanding of DNA progresses, and we link more and more of it to different traits, will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview? Or: imagine that in addition to the discovery "viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders" there's a disc…
> will we eventually get into a situation where a swab on the water glass tells potential employer much more than the interview? So GATTACA (1997), a recommended movie treating the genetic discrimination, genoism, as main plot. I don't think we will live to see it technologically speaking, but eventually our descendants may live through such hell of statistical speculation.
Thanks for the recommendation, I really enjoyed it!
Re: Viral DNA in the human genome linked to major psychiatric disorders
#60Someone with a better grasp of the scientific method perhaps you can answer this. I am under the impression we (science) hasn't definitively determined causation for depression. How can you definitively determine a link without knowing the underlying causes. It would imply you know how it works, doesn't it?
> Someone with a better grasp of the scientific method perhaps you can answer this. As a (recovered, former) neurobio phd it seems the "grasp" is mostly there + the clarity you want just doesn't exist here I.e., the concept of "depression" is pretty hard to nail down quantitatively in the first place: The best model we've got is a kind of self-contained proven-by-internal-self-consistency thing bootstrapped from ques…
Firstly, thank you.
> For example, calling "how long do mice swim before giving up if you chuck them into a tank of water" is roughly equated to "amount of depression" (this is oversimplified a bit; you correlate a bunch of those measures etc. but still a lot of very weak signals).
Do I understand this? A purely reductionist view of my understanding: this is quantified as "the amount of will to live"? If my understanding is proper, how do you measure this without killing people? I grok that it is an extreme example, I am attempting to glean applicability of such an experiment to humans.
> And even the human black-box stuff in the DSM manuals admits a lot of different subtypes, lots of different and sometimes opposite symptom clusters, etc. It is entirely possible that mechanistically "depression" is a diverse group of mechanisms all boxed up into the most familiar mainstream concept/word.
Totally unrelated, but wife is an LCSW and I've glanced at the DSM. I've become convinced that book is near entirely for insurance purposes, similar to the ICD-10.
ICD-10: W220.2XD: Walked into lamppost, subsequent encounter.