Given the rate of advancement in the field, thanks to the biotech industry, it's quite possible that when I am ready to have children ten years from now, there will exist the means to engineer them into what I want. To smooth out any wrinkles in their genomes, or even to give them enhancements - such as inserting extra aural genes from a mouse into a fertilized egg to give a kid superior hearing.

Would you ever enhance your children, if given the means? Why?

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

To be the first to answer my question, I would not hesitate to guarantee the best possible life for my children. On average, every person has at least a few active genetic diseases in them, such as poor eyes (nearsightedness), blood disorders (diabetes), immuno disorders (susceptibility to allergies), etc.
Removing these curses from my children and adding some blessings such as intelligence, long life, and more acute senses would better their future lives.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

I'll make mine a perfect web-board arguer. He'll (or she'll) consist of a giant ass with fingers and a foodhole.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

Big deal. God releases behind-the-ear upgrade

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"Name a country, any country, and I'll dig up god-awful dirt on it. 'tis pointless."
--Andrew

I think it's a good idea, and then I think about Gattaca (the movie) and I have second thoughts; where's the line that we shouldn't cross?

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They say that if you play a Windows Install CD backwords, you hear satanic messages. That's nothing; play it forward and it installs Windows.
--thanks to TBobMac

[This message has been edited by macmaxbh (edited 10-27-2003).]

If I ever have kids and have the option of "enhancing" them, I'll probably just make sure they don't have any really bad diseases.

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Be the shoe
What's the problem with repairing the ozone layer? We've got space shuttles and Saran Wrap...FIX IT -Lewis Black
I have a fever, and the only perscription is more cow bell -Christopher Walkin
I'm up an unsanitary tributary without an adequate means of transporation. -My drafting teacher

I think you're being too optimistic with your timing. I see what you're talking about happening eventually, but not that soon.

When it does become possible, I'll be the first in line to get daddy's little superman.

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"Indeed, my inner minimalist can get so anal he refuses to have a name like Stan, my inner artist, or Gary, my inner
musician, or Zha∂elæghøngã, my inner phonologist.”

What's interesting about genetic engineering is that once we have the technology you describe, Slug, there is still alot to do. As we figure out how proteins interact with cells and growth (et cetera) we can begin to engineer entirely new life forms. Once we know enough we could make a life form that performs as an automobile. Or a plane. Or a prop in a movie, like a Dragon*. If we figure out what makes a person smart... the possibilities are indeed endless.

*CGI will make that unnecessary.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

I say we work on improving the ones we've got, rather than simply making sure the next generation is better. That way, we keep what we've got now without the problems of introducing a whole heap of new problems. Otherwise, where will it end? The idea of creating perfect humans is pretty much obsurd, because new problems will arise, new diseases, new imperfections, and we'll end up never drawing the line.

Personally, I wouldn't improve my kids. They don't deserve it, and I like the idea of making babies the natural way

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mmm, clomipramine. *yawn*

Picturing that makes me Laugh Out Loud.

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primal tribal chemical digital night
I've got to get dressed to go out of my mind - kc

We can already do what I've described. We've already sequenced the genomes of multiple species and identified which genes do what. We have the technology to isolate those genes and insert it into any genome we wish - did you know about 60% of the corn you eat is genetically-modified?

The university I go to, Santa Cruz, is responsible for the Human Genome project and has one of the best genetic libraries and research staff in the world. Here you can actually look up the sequences of most genes you want. If you had the machinery, you could turn those letters into DNA, then insert it into any organism you wish. It's just a bit of a messy process right now.

What I'm saying is, it's only a matter of time untill we have the gall and precision to perform alterations to human genome. One can compare genetic advancement's predictions to 50's-era predictions of cities on the moon, but the difference between the two is that genetic-alteration has huge commercial investment and applications - the might of industry is financing biotechnology, whereas going to the moon relied on government funding.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

Flaws are what makes us human. I don't think going in and starting to play around with our genetics, rather, our unwilling children's genetics is such a good idea at the present time. Just 60 years ago we had a maniac that took over Europe that thought he could make the perfect race. Humanity doesn't exactly seem mature nor wise enough to handle it yet.

I'd love a pet dragon!

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Arhhhhhhg Replied
Arthur.
The Journalist in response to moonunit4eva
:wanders off and eats laundry detergent:

Yeah, but we don't know in most cases what the results of these combinations will be. I mean, giving mouse ears to kids is fine and all, but you probably wouldn't want to go into a modern day movie theater with superior hearing--it'd probably hurt like hell. And what girl would want to date a boy who's part mouse? Think of the social stigma--I mean, it's not like he's part cheetah or anything (now -that- would be cool).

But then again, if he were part cheetah, he'd probably devour his dates (just out of instinct)--and he'd be hard to catch because he'd run so fast. We'd have to hire cops who were part cheetah, so they could keep up with the cheetah-derived criminals. Think of what that would cost! And cheetahs are kind of loners anyway . . . I doubt you could get a bunch of part-cheetah cops to work well together. Pack instinct is more of a lion or killer whale thing. So you'd probably find a lot of part-lion people hanging out at nightclubs and such, where they can socialize. What mouse-eared kid is going to stand a chance on a date in a nighclub full of lion-men?

(Sigh) It's obvious you haven't thought this through . . .

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I suffer from zeldakathippazophobia--fear of getting trampled down by Zelda.

Whatever. I'm gonna buy me a new body every 10 years, and spend most of my time living on and on as a 20' tall ape man and punch out skyscrapers like in the game "rampage". Forget your theaters and night clubs.

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"Name a country, any country, and I'll dig up god-awful dirt on it. 'tis pointless."
--Andrew

Oddly enough, I was going to say the same. Individual genes control the manufacture of individual proteins. It is highly unlikely that "instincts" will be affected by a change to ones cardiovascular system, especially in a way exactly like the Cheetah. If anything goes wrong, it'll most probably be something completely different and new.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

Hitler had some interesting, yet flawed, ideas regarding eugenics. The Nazi party passed laws forbidding people with certain hereditary diseases from having children. He also tried exterminating those he deemed to be genetically 'bad'. However, both methods led to much pain and conflict, and ultimately would have resulted in no overall improvement to the human genome. Hitler gives the concept of Eugenics a bad name.

Whether humanity is mature enough or not to smooth out the flaws in our genome is irrelevant. Can you really think of a case where giving your child a perfect genome would be bad, or are you simply queasy with the notion of changing the genome?

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

[This message has been edited by Slug (edited 10-28-2003).]

Genes are genes - the aural genes from a mouse don't have any stamp on them that say 'Made by Mouse'. Where the gene comes from is irrelevant - what matters is that you have a gene that can enhance hearing.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

Gattaca is a perfect example. If you chose to genetically-engineer your child in the future, it might not be because you want to, but because you have to - for not doing so would leave your child 'inferior' in a society where everyone is a superman.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

Who says we have to draw a line?

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

Quite a few people actually.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

The main problem I see is that it would be prohibitively expensive to have super children. Thus, only the rich could afford it, creating an even more elite and wealthy upper class. The "naturals" would feel inferior, leading to a hatred between the two classes. I'm pretty sure that a superiority complex would go along with being genetically enhanced, as well.

Society as we know it, certainly wouldn't survive.

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ATGO - Now with (some) content!

Oh please. The rich have bought themselves a better life at the expense of others for time beyond rememberance. All we need to do is make genetic engineering relatively cheap. Spare me the doomsday scenario.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

A more interesting question is would your children resent you for engineering them a certain way?

I don't know why; but the idea that I was modified to be smarter, faster, and better looking would stir up alot of resentment in me. How much of what I accomplished would be attributed to me instead of my genes?

"This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it."
-William James

There is no such thing as 'smooth[ing] out the flaws' or 'giving your child a perfect genome'.

You are your genes and your environment anyway. Nothing has changed. I would harbor no resentment.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

It would be equivolent to playing with a stacked deck of cards. The cards themselves are the same; but the game is most certainly not.

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"The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

To a certain extent, one stacks their child's deck with their own mate selection. Humans are already programmed to find a mate that will produce the most capable child - so I must say, still, that this is no fundamental shift. The only change is in our ability.

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

I've seen very stupid children of very bright parents and vice versa. The link between parents and child's ability levels are not nearly the same as the link between a child's ability and the genome's he's been programmed with by a scientist.



I disagree with your assumption about human programming. In my mind, choosing a child's strengths and weaknesses is a fundamental shift from the way children are conceived now.



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"The intellectual is constantly betrayed by his vanity. Godlike he blandly assumes that he can express everything in words; whereas the things one loves, lives, and dies for are not, in the last analysis completely expressible in words."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

How much of anything you do can be attributed to yourself instead of their genes?



Of course there is: the elimination of such imperfections as genetic diseases.
For example, to smooth out my genetic flaws, you would replace my asthma-causing lung genes with fully-functioning defect-free ones, my astigmatic eye-growth genes with ones from a person with perfect vision, the genes that will eventually lead to my balding with ones that won't, the genes that make me more prone to heart disease with ones for a healthy, strong heart.

As far as 'perfect genome' goes, that's up to interpretation, but there definitely is such thing as an improved genome.

Earlier you said:


As poetic as that is, it makes no scientific sense. Many breeds of dogs are so inbred they carry a myriad a genetic diseases. As far as flaws go, your pitt-bull is more human than yourself, using your logic. If I am missing your point, I would appreciate it if you could clarify.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

But then, again, where is the line of what we should mess up and what we shouldn't mess up? I agree genetic diseases (just learned about some in Biology) should be eradicated, but how is premature balding a genetic disease? It's completely cosmetic. What would happen if you got genetically altered and have perfect eyesight? I, born at the same time, wasn't, so I grow up with glasses. I would instantly be 'lower' then you--some people would take one look at me and say "Oh, he wasn't genetically altered. He's poor, and probably unsafe/abnormal (genetic diseases) also". If some are genetically altered, the ones that aren't will be considered (at least by some) to be inferior. Why create even more divisions in society? Or, can you tell me how the above couldn't happen?
Note: Above is pretty similar to the backstory of Gattaca, which I mentioned earlier.

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They say that if you play a Windows Install CD backwords, you hear satanic messages. That's nothing; play it forward and it installs Windows.
--thanks to TBobMac

I can only imagine all the rediculous directions this is going to go in when it does happen as it will.

But I think for at least the next 50 years we are going to discover that its more complex then we are and we arent going to become God any time soon.

Have you ever seen those puzzels where you can push one and all the ones next to it change and they are about impossible to solve? imagine one of those with a trillion nodes and multiple phases of every node. we'll be able to push certain isolated pegs in certain places and get a positive result but any attempt at doing it in mass will result in mass amounts of negative effects.


And judging by how well things like biotech crops have been accepted (the result is pure starch and oil just like everything before) and people think they are going to horribly mutate or die or blow up the world if anyone eats it.
Of corse the anti-advancment group here is those who dont want more food to be produced because they want to call the world overpopulated. They burned down the warehouses of golden rice that would have hundreds of thousands of people from disease and blindness. All for no good scientific reasons at all, but coincidently they believe there are too many people. coincidently.
I expect to see the same vehiemt opposition to these kind of procedures. After all many people should die or live unproductive lives from genetic diseases.

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Cheat 2
Cheat in almost any mac game. Even Nova... Even UPLINK.

No, there is not. Whether it is improved or not depends greatly on the environment.



The problems associated with inbreding is nature's way of promoting genetic diversity and preventing disruptive selection. By preventing disruptive selection, you prevent genetic isolation. In other species, inbreding is fine. In many species, these genetics diseases and disorders that come up through inbreding are there as a benefit to the species, in other species, this is not the case.

Other diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia have benefits. Not having it in many areas increases your chances of dying.
Your statement about being poetic and scientific are reverse. Whether or not a gene is 'bad' or 'good' is just a judgement call that varies from perspective. For example, there are many traits that are altruistic, they are 'good' for their group or species, but 'bad' for the individual.

Passing laws against it would only further the social divide - as it would make all such procedures black-market, and thus very expensive. There will always be someone willing to hire a skilled scientist to do a simple tweak job in his spare time to get the superior kid. It's virtually inevitable that we will have superhumans in the near future.



That's not how DNA works.

A string of DNA consists of blocks called genes. Where the gene is on the DNA, whether or not it's backwards, and how it got there are irrelevant. Genes consist of instructions, such as which cells the gene should be active in, under what circumstances the gene should activate, and the actual protein-synthesis sequence.
If you insert a gene, it will work, unless something goes horribly wrong, such as corruption, in which case the gene almost always simply turns into empty, non-functioning junk that doesn't do anything. Geneticists estimate that as much as 90% of your genetic material is this "junk" DNA, that does absolutely nothing - just random codons that may have been genes at some point, but are just filler now.

By the way, Human DNA has only 3 billion nucleotides, not trillions.



There's no such thing as superior eyesight, superior sense of smell, superior intelligence, compared to something else? Are you really saying this, or have I misread your post?



Correct - you are wading into fuzzy grey zone. With those types of genes, it's questionable whether or not the gene is good, but with the types of genes I'm talking about, there is no question: yes, sickle-cell anemia can help you against Malaria, but it also causes a myriad of other problems. I'd rather give someone the immune-system of a shark, as well as healthy blood genes.

To summarize, yes there are gene-variations, such as the difference between hair color, where the good of one variation over another is questionable, but in cases such as 20/20 eyesight versus far-sightedness, there isno question.

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If you want to win anything-a race, your self, your life-you have to go a little berserk.

[This message has been edited by Slug (edited 10-28-2003).]

Humans look for a mate that will give them the best chance of passing on their genes to the next generation as much as possible. Women commonly look for someone who will stay around and provide for the family whereas men try to put their sperm wherever it will go. If some new guy comes along and takes care of your bastard child, so much the better. Men also look for fertility in their mates, and all people look for fitness and symmetry. (Symmetry makes a person attractive to other people and is a good sign of genetic normality.)

[/what i remember from psych class]



Perhaps. But is it a fundamental shift in a relevant direction?

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

If the rich become smarter, etc. They're smart enough to realize that the poor get pissed. Look at, oh, say, ANY society which didn't have industrial reforms. Things like the Soviet Union can happen. Smarter rich will ensure a happy lower class. Whether that means making everyone genetically perfect (probably the best scenario; witness the prisoner's dilemma, in which the best situation is TFT, resulting in cooperation between both parties and the maximum realistic gains.) or by the rich giving up most of their wealth.

Smart people aren't idiots. And if they are, they won't last long.

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Cheers,
Shackles

I didn't mention passing laws against it anywhere--where did you get that from? I said genetic engeneering was a bad idea.
My question is: What is considered 'genetic disease' and should be cured (like genetic diseases) and what will just create a large social gap?
Hmm.. maybe diseases that can be treated during life (gene therapy can cure some things like immune deficiancy disorder) should be corrected during birth, and 'cosmetic' changes shouldn't be changed (aka eyesight).
LJS--I'm not sure I completely understand your post, so I won't respond to it and make my confusion confuse others...

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They say that if you play a Windows Install CD backwords, you hear satanic messages. That's nothing; play it forward and it installs Windows.
--thanks to TBobMac

[This message has been edited by macmaxbh (edited 10-28-2003).]

Don't muddle up the issue with useless laws. Deregulate, as those conservatives selectively seem so intent on doing...

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

I'm defining `smarter' as have a better ability to absorb knowledge. That doesn't automatically mean wisdom. That comes with experience. I think that up brining has a lot to do with how you turn out as a person, particularly in social areas. The experience required isn't necessarily there.

While I did paint a bit of a doomsday picture, we all know that there is no way in hell this would become cheap enough for the masses. At least not for a long, long time. What would happen is some company will decide to market this. It will initially cost a fortune, and probably come with no guarantee on a `perfect' child. It is an expensive enough endeavour to clone a sheep, let alone afford the costs associated with modifying an embryo into a `perfect' human. The initial trials will be on some form of laboratory animal, from rats, to eventually primates, probably c-h-i-m-p-s (Is this word still censored?). The first human trials will probably be with whoever volunteers, just to ensure it is viable in humans. But when it goes commercial, it will be very expensive, to recoup the R&D costs.

The only times when I would see such genetic engineering of humans as `A Good Thing™', is in the case of serious genetic defect or life threatening condition. Tarnælion Andiyarus wrote a pretty good paper about `perfect humans' a while back.

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ATGO - Now with (some) content!

So essentially, genetic engineering can allow you to customize your child. Not necessarily better or worse, just changed.

What's so wrong with that?

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"Great, now we're gonna have to see advertisements from the lobbyists for Big Gay." --LJS

One word: Furry.

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Walking in the dark,
Never knowing where I stand,
My footing is sure.
Thinkspeakwritedrawsing>>Dream

Yeah... furries are cute. But I am not sure how that would work out in real life. Same goes for chibis.

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"Name a country, any country, and I'll dig up god-awful dirt on it. 'tis pointless."
--Andrew