Designer Babies?

KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNN!!!!!!

LOL!    I know the reference, but why in the world did you say that?

Because Kahn and his followers were genetically engineered.

Ohh! That was subtle IMO! Good show!   

Khan?

I happen to have distorted vision, where I have "visual snow" all of the time. I am all for genetic engineering if it prevents dawns syndrome, etc. Anything to keep people out of Hell. Some people live in it every day. I am 100% for genetic engineering for perfect health.

Do you get a colour chart?

Dude, that sucks! I am terribly sorry for the hand that genetics has dealt you!

I think the reason most people are concerned is because there isn't a clear line between "debilitating defect" and "unpleasant nuissance." While I am sure that 99% of all people would consider your condition undesireable (all other things being equal...), there are a considerable number of conditions for which that determination would require the exercise of judgement. And if there is one thing that people are uncomfortable about, it is other people's judegement (arguably with good reason).

Consider the often-cited example: what if the embryo your wife (or you... I don't want to presume too much) carries has a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality. Let's ignore the science, for the time being, and just take it as a given that this can happen, and that we can find out, and that your child has it. Anyway, what do you do? The status of homosexuals in society fluctuates rapidly, sometimes within a generation, but it seems to me (and to many others) that, on average, in most cultures, at most times, life has been more difficult for homosexuals. Yes, this is a societal issue, but society is arguably just as biological as chemistry (ask a dog, or a bee, or a chimpanzee). So your child could very well be at a disadvantage in life. Never mind the potential knock-out blow this would deal to your long-term reproductive success (in the Darwinian sense, i.e., potentially fewer blood grandchildren). Should you knock out the gene? Or terminate the embryo? To do so is implicitly discriminatory... what could be more biased than not allowing a minority to be born? Such discrimination is unacceptable, or at least illegal, in many western societies.

If we allow you to make that choice, what is to stop people (e.g., certain noteable trans-racial pop superstars) from choosing the skin color of their child? If skin color does make a difference in your chances for success, you wouldn't want to burden your child with your handicap, would you? No one is fond of "slippery slope" arguments these days (why, I wonder, in a world where you can restaurant for serving coffee that is too hot?), but if taken to its illogical conclusion, this would have me manipulating the genetic makeup of my child to prevent him or her from inheriting my obscenely long and painful arches. Forget plastic surgery, every girl in America would be born with a petite nose and two enormous... tracks of land.

I personally agree that our current ability to predict genetic abnormalities ("pre-screening," in the language of the article) may lead to better odds of a happy life for our children. I see it as a logical outgrowth of the need to reduce the human population. However, given the inefficiencies in natural selection, and artificial selection the "old fashioned way" (i.e., lots of livestock inbreeding), I would really hate to see what selection by consensus of fashion would make out of the human race. Millions of little Brittany Spears clones?

BTW, check out this website: I am not kidding when I say I have visual snow; it litterally is like seeing through a badly tuned T.V. set. www.visualsnow.com.

I seriously don't believe that such genetic manipulation would spiral out of control as you claim. I think most people would be increadibly uncomfortable with doctors playing around with their childrens genetic code. One molecule out of place and the child could have a third eye ball on his or her knee.

I don't think anyone would want a doctor/scientist doing anything more than necessary to something so important and so fragile.

Are you not blind?

ok your genes have delt you a bad card so what, bathoven was deaf, Di Vinci was gay and Autistic. If stem-cells and genectic engineering come to the future of mankind it will be the end of us. It is our weaknesses that give us the strength to move forward and reminds us of our morality if we cure all of these defections we will lose our flear and our indiviuallity. I want to help people going though deeper hells then I, but the way to do that is to accept them for who they were born to be, no simply erase the thing that gives them the strength to move on.

The future will be bleck for those who choose it. Rich people will make there offspring smarter, faster and stronger in turn making them richer and the poor people will carry on with there weaknesses and the stronger will opress the weaker because the are who they are. And what do you think greedy politions and beaucrats will do with this technology? at birth they will minipulate the population to vote there way and accept blindly any propision that they make cause another rise of totaltian goverments and dictatiors.

And I will not prostitute my best abilities to make some rich-arse richer insted I will raise rebellion, I will not attack though guns and bombs but though another world based on mathamatic's and numbers and that is where my kind rain unquestioned and we will destroy whatever weapons you nero-typicals would use agianst us.  

If starts to become more common place, then eventually it can get out of control. We have a baby on the way and they asked if we wanted to test for a list of common diseases. I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future they give you a list of things they can prevent with genetic manipulation. Why risk your child getting a serious disease if you can prevent? Vaccines and medications have risks but we still take them. If it's safe, then everyone would do it. After that it would only grow over time to things that are not serious problems. Eventually, everyone has 20/20 vision, perfect hearing, good metabolism, etc. That sounds good in principle but are we still unique individuals after that?

I'm not sure if you can get better at this point in time, so I'll just say "Best of luck at getting better." just in case.

BTW, thanks for the link. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read, especially coming from someone who has a good reason to know about snowy vision.



I'm probally going sound like an ass for saying this: Why don't you fix it?

We are born without our concent. We are given a body instead of us getting a chance to choose. We have been given physical, or even mental traits that we may, or may not want. So how would it be different if someone were to choose what we go as apposed to gambling and hoping for the best? If the option of engineering a child became available, you could say that every baby' traits were chosen (the choice of: to engineer, or not to).

What are the chances of becoming a boy or a girl?... Perhaps 50/50, maybe? How about brown, or black hair? How about letting your child have bad vision, or a serious health problem? The point is, if no action is taken to choose what your child gets, you are gambling by letting nature take its course. In case you haven't realized, Nature does not always make healthy children. In fact, sometimes it can result in very unhealthy ones.



The politicians really should stop to take a look at the laws once genetic engineering becomes possible. Its most unfortunate that we live in a society that has those who are elected to run the government are only required to be charismatic. They are not required to be smart... thats the puppet master's job.

Lets get back to the point before I start ranting off topic. I have bad vision. I need to wear glasses to see things about as well as normal person. That is a problem. So if that made me a minority, then would it be illegal to have it fixed before I was born? To carry the point further, would it be illegal for me have surgery performed later in my life to have it fixed?

Now for the homosexual minority. How many of them hid in their closets being tormented by the question: "Am I a freak?". Then later, some of them become flamboint, get a little courage, and start a gay pride parade. Suddenly people start thinking that they have a culture, that they are some ethical minority. The moment that happened, all the homosexuals in the closets start comming out and joining the parade, and use that to try to hold their fragile, and confused mind together.

How much problems could have been solved if this little rogue gene was fixed? No gay pride parades to torment the 'strait' people. No homosexuals hiding in their closets wondering if they are a freak. No gay marriage issues, etc.



*shudders* *followed by some cold sweat*

An army of blonde haired, blue eyed, big boobed, pop stars with IQs barely reaching the double digits. God, this a reason why I hate humanity. To quote the guy at my local 7 11 "Normal is boring.". Personally, I'll stick with my aspergers syndrome, thank you.



One might call that "neat" or "cool". It would be an interesting way to start a conversation on the bus...

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Before people lable me a racist bastard, or what ever you might try to call me, you should know that I'm developing philosopher who finds it ammusing to select difficult points of view, and argueing in their favor. So if you didn't like my arguement, don't hate me, hate the arguement I made, and try to defeat it.

If it is the defects that are the cause of human success, then why don't we engineer an army of freaks?  



Define unique. Do you mean, that I'm not you? Then sure, we're unique. Or do you mean that we must somehow be diffirent enough to a certain extent to be unique? Twins are pretty similiar. Are they the same person, possesing the same genes that made them look the same? Or are they somehow different, capable of possesing different personalities that can make them very radically different people?
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Just more food for thought...

Bloody hell, I have never had a forum with this many lower-grade Autistic brothers in it, well listen they seek to wipe us out and prostitute our abilities to make the damn nero's smarter (no offence nero's), I say neh. They will never have MY abilites and will defend who I am and all those who are going though this world of strangers and breaucracts.

I suggest you read clone by Malcom Rose for a different perspective.

Unique means: being only one of it's kind, we are all one of a kind for now.

I am a non-idenical twin, he's a nero-typical for referance, but I have meet a LOT of idenical twins and in some cases there differences are quite major (eg. one has a interest in arts the other science) while others can be minute (favoritie colours) but thats what makes them indivials in there own right because of them being twins they seek ways to be different while those whom are individuals want a clone of themselves, only better then themselves. Which I fear the only can stop this plague is rule all of mankind itself. Then I fear of me dieing and plague being passed by fools with no fore-sight *sight* .  

So, if we build up to a perfect human model, genetically, isn't that counter-evolutionary?

I mean, a virus could find a weak spot in that perfect genome, and wipe out humanity. The best viruses are not the perfect ones, they are the imperfect ones that actually have flaws in their replication systems and thus keep changing their genome with every generation.

"ok your genes have delt you a bad card so what, bathoven was deaf, Di Vinci was gay and Autistic. If stem-cells and genectic engineering come to the future of mankind it will be the end of us. It is our weaknesses that give us the strength to move forward and reminds us of our morality if we cure all of these defections we will lose our flear and our indiviuallity. I want to help people going though deeper hells then I, but the way to do that is to accept them for who they were born to be, no simply erase the thing that gives them the strength to move on." (I don't know how to do the quote thing)

So what bad card has your genes dealt you? I say you make the above statement out of complete ignorance of just how much your life can suck from physical abnormalities. That said, genetic engineering probably isn't the way to go, as the rich would get richer (or healthier), and a special virus could wipe out the genetically engineered, and leave the "inferiors" alive. What we need to is to continue to develop drugs and treatments to counter-act bad genes, accidents, etc.

Just highlight some text and click the Quote link.

Since things seem to be staying pretty civil, I'd like to interject a personal thought of my own--

The article covers two different things: screening/selection, and engineering. These things are similar in the final effect (you get a child with the genes you want), but the means of getting there are entirely different. While with engineering you're actually altering them to *make* them fit your ideal, screening is essentially the same as plain old eugenics; you're picking who gets born, and who doesn't, just because one is more desirable than another. And that has entirely different moral implications.

I'm assuming that those statements might of been directed at me since I made an effort to create an arguement to get people's skin to crawl. Could you guys be a little bit more specific at who you are directing your commments to in the future?

Anyhow, I'm not ignorant of what I'm talking about. I merely wanted to try to get people's skin to crawl by talking about an unconfertable subject, in a manner that would be unconfertable. I felt that to simply ignore the subject would be more dangerous, than it would to be simply to talk about it.



None, except a possibility for type 2 diabeties.

I have a non-genetic birth defect called aspergers syndrome, as I had mentioned in one of my previous statement. Its a neurological defect that results in the parts of my brain that governs social behavior simply doesn't develop to the same extent that it would for a normal person. At the same time, the parts that govern higher intellegence develop more, resulting in things like having a talent for math. Some call it the university professor syndrome, for the fact that those who have it are often quite smart, but wierd.

Let me give you an example of how this works in my life. I have a sense of humour. That is considered unusual for someone with my condition. Ussually we might try point out the funny parts as stupid, or why that shouldn't, or wouldn't happen in real life, and completely miss the punch line. Another example is, I tend not to hang out with friends. I really don't care if I fit into a social order, and I could care less about being "cool". It seems to be a lot of work for benefits that I don't care for. I'm quite happy to spend my days sitting in front of my computer, never talking to another person.

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Maybe I'll write a post argueing in the other direction to point out that I'm not ignorant.

P.S. How do you properly spell unconfertable?

Alright, here I go...

God is good. God is perfect. Blah, blah, blah...

Because God is perfect, when he decided to create the world, he choose to create the best one, because to create any other would mean he would not be perfect. In this world, he created all sorts of creatures including us. Of all the possible forms he could of created us with, he choose to create us in the way we exist now.

Of all the abilities, talents, and skills he could of given us, he gave us what we have. We are flawed creatures. Our senses don't always work, in fact, they often fail quite frequently. God being perfect and good, didn't create us to be continuously decieved by bad senses, so he gave us a mind that could compensate for any flaws in our senses. How many times have our senses told us one thing, yet our minds knew it was another?

Sure God could of made us with perfect senses. To know everything about the universe, without any chance of error, or any required effort on our part. But God didn't make us that way. The reason is, if God did make us that way, it would mean that those who did not deserve it, would know as much about universe as those who did deserve it. Our flaws were not given to us to make us suffer, but to serve as a filter between those deserve, and those who do not.

This means that the only ones who would know anything truely about reality, would be those who spent the time and effort to aquire the knowledge, and those who didn't would have to rely on those who did to know anything. The same thing goes for those who have a severe physical deformation. By having it, you learn something about reality that you probally would not of other wise have.

Stanly Tarrant, you said that you have snowy vision, and that you would support what ever tests, or engineering that would be needed prevent these problems. Is the desire to prevent those problems a sense of sympathy? If you didn't have snowy vision, could you actually say that you knew why people shouldn't have to endure such problems, or would you merely think that that people shouldn't suffer? The difference here is: you know or you think.

The fact is, God is perfect, and he created us as part of a perfect system. If we start fiddling around with our genetic code, we would be throwing a monkey wrench into God's grand design. Suddenly we could have augments that could be way smarter than you. They could be faster, stronger, and healtheir too, but be a complete assholes.

Is that what we want?

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I hope you guys enjoy the read about as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I would not worry about genetic engineering too much. I am a molecular biologist that specializes in development and how genes interact. Trust me when I say they don't have a lot of the genetic engineering figured out yet. Yes the human genome is sequenced but we don't know what most of the genes do yet or how they interact with each other. This is going to be a long way off before someone can safely test these techniques in humans.

Oh my..... Once I read your post Divine I had to respond because it was just.... Well let me start off by saying that we "fiddle" with genetic code just by selecting the person we have a child with. Do you like blonds, brunettes, tall people, less agressive people, those that have a smaller nose, those that are more athletic. Trust me when you pick those people out to have a child with you are selecting for genes and "fiddling" with the genetic code of your offsring. You just can't easily see all the genetic traits that you "fiddle" with.

And your statement has no validity to people that don't believe the way you do. I am not just talking about your religion but also the ASSUMPTION (not fact) that you think everything is perfect and ment to be the way it is. If you can give me some direct evidence that 1)God exists 2)That God is perfect 3)And that IT (NOT HE OR SHE) created everything in the universe (let alone the things outside) as a perfect system, I would really love to see and listen to this evidence. It would make my life so much simpler.

Bottom line don't go around telling people what they are and how they should appreciate their disabilites. I am sure they have enough to contemplate without you tell them that GOD messed with them to test them or just because IT (AGAIN NOT HE OR SHE) can.

Your whole statement about people getting what they deserve is just rediculous. Sounds like you are jealous that God didn't strike you down with some terrible genetic disease.

You're kidding me... autism? On a forum for a computer game?

Next to academia and the local chess club, this is THE plce to look for any and all sorts of social disfunction. I recall a story on the radio about how folks with Asperger's Syndrome are increasingly taking to computer forum-style venues for social interaction; the social cues AS people miss are completely absent from HTML text anyway (except as smiley-faces), so they have no disadvantage! I feel bad for the folks with these problems who don't have forums, computer games, and "social reject" friends... like my poor sister-in-law, who is too autistic to be cool, but too cool and too attractive to be a nerd. When I was growing up (not so long ago), we didn't have the internet, so people like us hid in the library and played Diplomacy and BattleTech during lunch, and tried to avoid ending our day being thrown bodily into the dumpster. Viva la forum!

Anyway, if we could cleanse history of Asperger's Syndrome, we would probably have to do without Newton, Einstein, and numerous other luminaries. And, I assure you, eliminating social disfunction would purge our universities of all of their prime assets. So, I suppose I agree with the general trend of posts here, that not all "disfunction" is a complete wash.

Still, those pictures of "visual snow"... ugh! Man, that is NOT cool!

Maybe God wants us to do genetic engineering. How is it possible for us to throw a monkey wrench into God's plans if he is perfect and powerful beyond measure? If he hates genetic engineering so much, then why don't He smite us within the blink of an eye? People probably thought cars were "of the Devil" when they were invented over a hundred years ago. Now, we just accept automobiles as a part of daily life. People use to think it was ok in God's eyes to own African American slaves, but now we obviously don't think that way. How the hell do we really know what pleases and offends God? Why don't he tell us in a booming voice?

BTW, general pants you did the visual snow simulator on that web link I gave you? Well I have that as one of my visual symptoms every moment of my life, 24/7. This is in addition to eye floaters, increased after-images, etc. Basically, my vision is very annoying, but hey, it is what it is.