There was a recent slashdot story about a controversy over using genetic screening in conjunction with IVF, which got me thinking.

They are going to raise a new perfectly healthy baby, for the purpose of donating the umbilical cord blood to their sick child in order to save his life. So what if they're using IVF to screen out genetically defective embryos? The sole effect of this treatment, when allowed to go ahead, is a benefit to all parties concerned and does harm to no one. (For those of you who believe that the destruction of embryos is immoral because the embryos are people, all I have to say is that one mindless ball of flesh is not any closer to personhood than any other, because the sole characteristic that makes one a person or makes one capable of having a "soul" (if such things exist) is having a mind capable of thought and emotion, which is obviously not a characteristic of anything that has not yet developed any sort of nervous system) But I digress.

The whole slippery slope argument about "Designer Babies" is completely bunk because sliding "down" that slope would be nothing but benefit to mankind. The world would, unquestionably, be a better place if genetically-based diseases were eradicated and people had more of a genetic predisposition to be healthy, fit, and intelligent. So what if the benefit only applies to those who can afford it; the same can be said of ALL expensive medical treatments, and yet we don't see anyone advocating banning chemotherapy for that reason.

One of the other arguments against so-called "Designer Babies" is that genetic screening will, in many cases, be applied very narrowly (for example, to enhance physical attractiveness) neglecting more important things and actually making the person-to-be less healthy overall. So, hypothetically, the technology could be misused in harmful ways. Big deal. Antibiotics have been and are still being misused resulting in the creation of dangerous antibiotic-resistant diseases that are taking a great toll in some areas, such as Russia's problem with MDR Tuberculosis. Nevertheless, that has never been a good reason to ban antibiotics altogether, and this situation is hardly any different. The industry could be regulated to avoid abuses and malpractice, the same way other medical procedures and prescription drugs are handled today. The difference between this and other medical resources that are legal but regulated is grossly insufficient to warrant the double standard of banning genetic screening/improvement altogether.
The third objection to so-called "Designer Babies" is an (IMO irrational) fear, spawned from science fiction, of creating a "super race" of genetically engineered humans, raising the standards for everyone and harming those whose parents couldn't afford the genetic improvement technology. Let me ask you, how is that sort of economic divide any different from the current situation? Rich people can afford to send their students to better schools, and provide them with a more advantageous upbringing in general. This results in a situation where the children of middle class and rich parents have more of a chance to succeed than the children of poor parents, regardless of their innate potential. Does this mean that all private/rich-public schools should be disbanded, and everyone, should be condemned to a crappy education and a disadvantaged upbringing? Heck no. That would certainly satisfy the resentment of the poor, without really helping them, but it would harm everyone else. That is analogous to the issue at hand: Banning genetic screening/improvement would simply hold back part of society from improving themselves, without providing any concrete benefit except satisfying paranoia and class envy. Such a ban would do nothing to serve the common good.

To quote James Watson, the co-discoverer of DNA's structure, "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."

As long as they genetically engineer all children to think like Soviet Mikee does, then I'm for it.

Otherwise I'll continue to be against the practice.

[edit] I think Mikee is the best recipient for this [/edit]
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[This message has been edited by Stark Bledfast (edited 03-28-2003).]

heh, that kind of specific modification is impossible.

All that can be changed by genetic engineering is general tendencies. Things like nutrition and the development environment (especially inside the womb) also have an important effect.

But the standard deviation of identical twins' IQ scores is less than 10 points, and ugly people tend to have ugly children, so obviously genetics has an important impact on things.

Genetic engineering isn't going to make everyone an Einstein with superhuman strength, much less make them be born that way. Development is important too.

Of course, one could argue Soviet mikee doesn't think to begin with... he's nothing more than emotional responses

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Bleh. All it would do would turn the world into Nazis (except without all the murder).

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Oh, so you disagree with the people who say they have found the "gay" gene? That is behavioural. And if you can alter whether a person likes one sex or the other, then you can alter whether they rely more on emotion or logic, etc.

Or are you saying that this wouldn't be done? If that is the argument then I don't believe it. Once gene alterations are done, people will design their "perfect" child.

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Oooh, I hadn't thought of that.

Ok, as long as we can create a master race, then I'm all for it. Otherwise I will continue to be against it.

</humor for the easily offended>

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Now THAT's a self-contradiction

The soviet communists shunned and suppressed genetic research because it posed a danger to their ideological convictions that all people were born equal and molded by their surroundings alone, just as many modern liberals oppose intelligence tests and racial/societal correlations thereof.

There's a word for that: Lysenkoism.

The fallacy here is that they confuse objective measures of average capabilities with sweeping generalizations about categories of people. The fact that Asians on average score better than Africans on intelligence tests does not necessarily mean the tests are biased. Jumping to that conclusion on the basis of ideological convictions is an affront to scientific objectivity. But that is what the widespread neo-lysenkoism in society leads to. Witness the widespread uncritical acceptance of condemnations of "social darwinist" ideas.

The genetic differences between races (except for some superficial physical traits) are now seen to be statistical rather than essentially uniform. And since the statistical distributions overlap extensively from one group to another, one cannot infer an individual's potential from his race. Acknoledging the fact that there are differences in AVERAGE traits between different groups of people is not a racist proposition.

[This message has been edited by hyperion (edited 03-29-2003).]

I don't entirely understand the correlation between genetic engineering and political affiliation - especially with a long-dead German political party. Please elaborate.

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Of course you could probably genetically engineer someone to be homosexual, provided they grow up in a normal environment and not an extremely repressive one. Behavior is obviously influenced by genetics to some extent, as well as by environment. But making someone think just like Mikee is impossible because there are so many variables, including environmental ones. Obviously there is no such thing as total genetic determinism. But rejecting genetic behavioral influences entirely is equally absurd.

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Absurd, yes, but I have actually heard people try to pass-off the entire concept of DNA. Once on this board, no less.

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"The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself."
--Archibald MacLeish

My primary argument against genetic engineering is that we just don't know enough about the effects of such tinkering... yet. My impression is that genes are more interconnected than we might think - to use a science-fiction example, what if a genetic alteration to, say, increase average IQ by 20 points also has the effect of psychopathic tendencies developing at puberty?

That said, I have no problem at all with screening to avoid serious genetic ailments. I just think we should be very very careful about any changes we might make unless we're very very sure about their effects.

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Obviously there are pitfalls to half-baked methods that have unexpected side effects, but the same can be said of all experimental medical treatments. That is no reason to oppose genetic engineering on principle, because eventually the bugs will be worked out, with sufficient research. Congress' rush to ban genetic engineering and cloning is misguided and paranoid. The first attempt at a cholera vaccine was lethal, but no one advocated banning all vaccines for that reason. There so special about genetic modification to warrant such an extreme double standard. Obviously the companies that develop this technology will go to great lengths to make sure it actually works properly, as with nearly all medications. Some regulation is probably in order, analogous to the FDA's function in the drug industry. But there is no reason for the outright ban that Congeress wants.

I agree wholeheartedly.

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Hey, forge isn't half bad...

I think it would be a bit hard to modify children to be born without frontal lobes.

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Not the political party, the way of thinking. The Nazis believed in purifying the human race through killing all the imperfections. Genetic engineering is the same thing, except without killing people.

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Wish I could clone myself and make the clone female, so i can go out with the perfect human...
Just kidding of course.

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Have fun with your deformed children.

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You'd still have the killing, just in a non-violent way.

By introducing genetic engineering to create a master race you would be not allowing other races to continue, effectively killing them off. Just you won't be doing it with guns but rather with science.

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That's a ridiculous comparison. You might as well call Harvard nazi-esque because it creates an educated elite.

master race my ass. The beneficiaries of this would maybe be in the 98th percentile in many characteristics, but they'd still interbreed with normal people.

Why would the interbreed with normal people? That would contaminate their corrected genes.

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Er, I'm going to assume I was editted out in favor of mikee, but I'm also trying to figure out whether Stark Bledfast is being complimentary or sarcastic.

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well in any event, the normal people wouldn't run out of people to breed with, and their descendants would eventually be converted into genetically engineered people as the price for treatment drops over the next 50-100 years.

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The original quote was actually for myself, but I replaced myself with Mikee. I was looking for shock value(ie, people seem to have some sort of instant reaction to Mikee), not necessarily anything that would be deemed "good" nor "bad."

The "forge" quote above was someone else editing my quote and inserting you in there.

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Ok, makes even less sense now.

Interesting fact: According to the Doctrine of Double effect, if you genetically engineered a child and the main reason for it was to save somebody else's life, then the Catholic Church should support it (or at least not object to it).

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Not necessarily.

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Care to elaborate?

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It all depends on how the pope arbitrarily decides to interparet the church's massive volume of apocryphal and self-contradictory doctrines. It's to the point where any and all decisions could be justified with some sort of established catholic doctrine.

OK first off. I'd like to state, here and now, that there is no proof that most diseases are genetically determined. There have been studies done that seem to show there are.... and then counter studies that revoke them. A case in point: do you believe in the alcoholism gene? A scientist has done research seeming to show that some alcoholics are genetically determined. People say that homosexuality is genetically determined. All I can say is, prove it. There is no evidence that genes determine sexuality.

Recently a parody of the search for the 'gay gene' was done on a 'news show' in Australia, where scientists claimed to locate the 'christian gene'. It was of course, a joke. But it highlights the absurdity of claims that things like sexuality are genetically based. If sexuality (which is not predetermined, really, but is rather a development both socially, mentally and psychologically) can be called genetic, then why not religion? Why not a preference for a particular sport?

Sigh. People jump on explanations like this as an excuse, to make them feel better about their son/daughter being different. Sure, it might be partly genetic. But I doubt it. And as someone studying both genetics and bioethics, I can tell you that there is no clear proof.


-Andiyar

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