CRISPR machines that can wipe out entire species

Post by mrfredward » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #71

Insanity wrote: post #36

It's horrible that people are dying because of malaria. I'm a bit divided on this approach though, I don't know enough about the topic at hand to suggest a different approach, but let me try. Would it be feasible to suggest using CRISP to create another adaptation to the gene, one that preserves the mosquitoes but makes them unable to transfer the disease to humans? Eliminating a species because we don't like it remi…

People are also dying of war and hunger and lack of clean water and medicine. I would even argue that those are the bigger problems and the deaths of malaria are more symptoms of the former problems. Usually, it ain't the rich people who die of malaria. So I would focus in those problems instead of trying to inject suicide genes into the wild. I like the saying: the opposite of well done, is well intented.

Post by krageon » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #49

krageon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But we know nothing comes for free, no good human deed goes unpunished. We know nothing of the sort. Perhaps this is something you know.

Pretty much all projects of large-scale human ecological interventions ended up with some unexpected side-effect. It's extremely hard to take into account all the variables and often you fix one issue, but create 10 new ones. Just think of using myxomatosis to control rabbit population, or introduction of cane toads in Australia in attempt to control sugarcane pests.

Post by runako » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

easshvsh wrote: post #80

runako wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> last few genes that make them black, or let them get sicklaemia Popular understanding of race (it's a social construct, so this is the relevant metric) has little or nothing to do with susceptibility to a given disease. Similarly, dark skin != what we commonly think of as "black" (think dark-skinned people from Asia, for example).

Dark skinned people from Asia are from a different race than dark skinned people from Africa. For example if you have a dark skinned person with epicanthic fold, chances are that's a person from Indonesia or its whereabouts. Race is not ONE trait, it's a set of traits, and all of them are encoded in DNA.

Post by nkozyra » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #93

ivanhoe wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much all projects of large-scale human ecological interventions ended up with some unexpected side-effect. It's extremely hard to take into account all the variables and often you fix one issue, but create 10 new ones. Just think of using myxomatosis to control rabbit population, or introduction of cane toads in Australia in attempt to control sugarcane pests.

Okay, I'll bite: Vaccination (and near or total eradication) of Polio.

Post by lm28469 » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 3:27 PM UTC

skolsuper wrote: post #59

krageon wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen very few countries of note (aside from the US) that use "race" as any kind of indicator. This has a very good reason: It's not a clear biological separation and it also otherwise has little bearing on reality. It's an old, obsolete carry-over that was kept from the days when racism was still an accepted practice and it needs to die the death that it deserves as soon as possible.

I'm really struggling to understand your first sentence. Are you saying people generally aren't racist outside the US? Because my experience has been very, very different (and that's as a white male)