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CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

nature.com

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Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#61

Post by kazagistar »

dallashoxton wrote: post #59
rmellow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please rethink that it's a good world where positive genetic traits can be added to babies - in a world where this is common, you or your kids would be in unfair competition with genetically superior people simply because their parents are rich. And the poor would be, for the first time in history, objectively inferior. Yes, kids with rich parents are already at advantage - just wait to see what genetic superiority d…

Thing is that any society that hesitates on adopting genetic engineering out of some fear of exacerbating income inequality or whatever is going to lose out in the long run to any civilization that has no such ethical hangups about genetic engineering. It's a prisoner's dilemma.

Remove IP laws, copy all the best tech from everywhere, and make it availible to everyone possible. Not sure how that will necessarily lose to a small number of the rich hoarding access.

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#62

Post by jcoffland »

Puer wrote: post #24
bilbo0s wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is that by the time they were in Kindergarten, the newer models would obsolete them. Bigger, faster, stronger, and MUCH smarter! Now 10% off!

In an alternate universe where Apple produces babies, they'll eventually become so thin they'll snap and bend if you look at them funny.

And they are full of bugs that Apple refuses to fix.

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#63

Post by echevil »

cheeze wrote: post #7

Does anybody really believe that China is upholding strong ethical standards here? Sure the uni dumped this guy, but I'd assume there is a large project that the government is at minimum aware of to edit genes.

It doesn't really need strong ethical standards here. This scientist received almost universal criticism in China.

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#64

Post by [deleted] »

rmellow wrote: post #33
songco wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ok and good thing if the results is only positive like "Bigger, faster, stronger, and MUCH smarter". (Maybe not include Bigger?) The worst part of this is that it may not safe. If this introduced some flaws in the babies gene, how to control this, don't allow them have babies?

Please rethink that it's a good world where positive genetic traits can be added to babies - in a world where this is common, you or your kids would be in unfair competition with genetically superior people simply because their parents are rich. And the poor would be, for the first time in history, objectively inferior. Yes, kids with rich parents are already at advantage - just wait to see what genetic superiority d…

[deleted]

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#66

Post by chosenbreed37 »

idrios wrote: post #53
joesb wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one hand, I kinda agree with you. On the other hand, I usually stop and inspect myself whenever my reasoning that something is bad is not because it hurts me, but because I can't accept to see others improve. Good rule of thumb is that people should have the freedom to do anything as long as it doesn't violate other people's right. How does a rich family violate poor family's right by making their rich baby better…

> Good rule of thumb is that people should have the freedom to do anything as long as it doesn't violate other people's right. On the micro-economics scale, I would not only agree with you, but argue that a successful society depends on it. Just as you should be allowed to participate in whatever harmless recreational activities you like at your own home, so should you be able to keep for yourself anything you've mad…

> Just as we break up monopolies to give competition a chance, we should be working hard to break feedback loops that enforce hierarchy of classes so we can give everyone a chance to be successful or fail on their own.

Mmm...with respect to enforced/entrenched class hierarchies you argue that we should break them up. That looks good on paper but when it comes down to it many parents/families who are smart do their utmost to give their children a leg up. Is this not legitimate? Isn't this, generally speaking, how families that have retained status/prosperity across generations?

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#68

Post by chosenbreed37 »

joesb wrote: post #45
rmellow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please rethink that it's a good world where positive genetic traits can be added to babies - in a world where this is common, you or your kids would be in unfair competition with genetically superior people simply because their parents are rich. And the poor would be, for the first time in history, objectively inferior. Yes, kids with rich parents are already at advantage - just wait to see what genetic superiority d…

On one hand, I kinda agree with you. On the other hand, I usually stop and inspect myself whenever my reasoning that something is bad is not because it hurts me, but because I can't accept to see others improve. Good rule of thumb is that people should have the freedom to do anything as long as it doesn't violate other people's right. How does a rich family violate poor family's right by making their rich baby better…

> On the other hand, I usually stop and inspect myself whenever my reasoning that something is bad is not because it hurts me, but because I can't accept to see others improve.

Good point. Not many are as clear thinking as you. The one point against this kind of manipulation is that I'm not sure we can predict all the potential consequences. By altering the genes of a few individuals we may incur unintended consequences in generations to come. So whilst we may not personally suffer from the guy next door giving siring to "superior" children there may be trouble a few generations down the line. Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic...

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#69

Post by imtringued »

duxup wrote: post #49
bilbo0s wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part is that by the time they were in Kindergarten, the newer models would obsolete them. Bigger, faster, stronger, and MUCH smarter! Now 10% off!

I wonder if a new version, new advancement would be a terror for everyone else. They'd drop a social step, can't do things, less needed, etc. The movie Gattaca explored this a bit. People in the film are heavily defined by their engineering. They might not BE just engineered, but being superior, or inferior is all encompassing. It becomes all they are. In the film it is a bit of a curse even for the best. Jerome fail…

Gattaca didn't explore actual superiority of genetically engineered humans. It was mostly about a guy cheating his way through through a surveillance state that openly discriminates against humans with inferior genes. The scary aspect was that everyone blindly trusted the gene scanner to be infallible (proven wrong by the protagonist). Whether the scanner was based on genetics, machine learning or your eye color didn't actually matter to the story.

Re: CRISPR-baby scientist fired by university

#70

Post by credit_guy »

meowface wrote: post #46
jcranmer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, let's get this silly sci-fi trope out the way. Genetics doesn't work like that. We don't have a clue how to edit DNA to make people smarter or taller or stronger. And there's no sign that we're going to get to that knowledge sometime this century. Furthermore, what we do know about our genome and our proteome strongly suggests that lots of stuff are doing double-duty. The gene that causes sickle cell anemia als…

You could be right, but I think you're being a bit pessimistic. We're nowhere near fine-tuning complex traits like intelligence and strength, but I could see it happening within all of our lifetimes.

I wish you were right, but I have my doubts. Some people familiar with writing software think the DNA is some type of very long program written in some unknown language. If only we could decipher the language. In reality, there is no language. The genes are recipes to build some nano-machines (the proteins). That's it. Some of us posses a certain version of a protein, some posses another one. Everything is emergent properties. It's like positing the rules for a "game of life". You can't tell from the rules what emergent behavior you'll see. You need to run the game. Evolution does just that, it runs the game. Some codes survive, some don't. There is no language of the genetic code.

For us to fine tune inteligence or strength, we need to be able to predict lots and lots of layers of emerging properties. Or simply to find ways to run the game many, many times. We can't run the game by experimenting with babies. Will we be able to run the game on a computer? I'm not holding my breath on this one.

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