RugbyRebels

rowan wrote:Oh, sorry, according to my Google translator, it appeared like you were suggesting the concept of designer babies was pie in the sky, so to speak...

rowan wrote:Not so sure about that. I think the great moral debates of the next few centuries are going to revolve around should we or shouldn't we play God? Should we 'design' our babies or shouldn't we, should we bring ancient species back to life or shouldn't we? Should we control our natural environment or shouldn't we? Aldous Huxley knew this eighty years ago. It's completely inevitable.

cashead wrote:

rowan wrote:Not so sure about that. I think the great moral debates of the next few centuries are going to revolve around should we or shouldn't we play God? Should we 'design' our babies or shouldn't we, should we bring ancient species back to life or shouldn't we? Should we control our natural environment or shouldn't we? Aldous Huxley knew this eighty years ago. It's completely inevitable.

1. God doesn't exist.
2. If it means eliminating preventable diseases and is safe and reliable, why not?
3. Yes, especially if the cause of their extinction is "people"
4. Yes, especially if it means revitalising vegetation.

The only debate about it is if you're a boring person who hates things that are good and cool.

OptimisticJock wrote:Russia or post antibiotic care. Mainly Russia though I reckon.

Digby wrote:

OptimisticJock wrote:Russia or post antibiotic care. Mainly Russia though I reckon.

Tasmanian devil milk may address some bugs we're hearing today

Vengeful Glutton wrote:Bring back Police Squad



and Mr Ed.



Can gemetetics do that?

morepork wrote:The designer baby boogeyman comes up pretty much every time a technology is developed that can modify genetic material and leave the system viable. Transgenic mice that are used to model disease are a cornerstone of therapeutic development and arose from technology developed that enabled the growth and manipulation of embryonic stems cells. Same fears were aired then, but no designer babies to date. If it were that simple to control the myriad gene-environment interactions that go into generating even the simplest multicellular organism, we would have cracked evolution and the secret of life. It's not simple because simplicity without redundancy would be an evolutionary dead end, like a small rural settlement on the South Island of New Zealand. Variation and disease exist and drive adaptation. Without them we would be nothing.

The only "dangers" of the technology would be it getting into unregulated hands. The CRISPR technology is great, but it has limits in terms of efficacy. It targets specific genetic identity with a reasonable degree of specificity, but there is still a significant chance of off target effects. For a heritable single gene disorder with high penetrance and no foreseeable effective treatment there might be the hope of editing out the defect in eggs or sperm using CRIPR so the mutation is not passed on to the next generation, but anyone that claims they have a magic cocktail of specific gene edits that will lead to increased intelligence or physical attributes is talking out of their arse. The result would be a total train smash.

Vengeful Glutton wrote:

morepork wrote:The designer baby boogeyman comes up pretty much every time a technology is developed that can modify genetic material and leave the system viable. Transgenic mice that are used to model disease are a cornerstone of therapeutic development and arose from technology developed that enabled the growth and manipulation of embryonic stems cells. Same fears were aired then, but no designer babies to date. If it were that simple to control the myriad gene-environment interactions that go into generating even the simplest multicellular organism, we would have cracked evolution and the secret of life. It's not simple because simplicity without redundancy would be an evolutionary dead end, like a small rural settlement on the South Island of New Zealand. Variation and disease exist and drive adaptation. Without them we would be nothing.

The only "dangers" of the technology would be it getting into unregulated hands. The CRISPR technology is great, but it has limits in terms of efficacy. It targets specific genetic identity with a reasonable degree of specificity, but there is still a significant chance of off target effects. For a heritable single gene disorder with high penetrance and no foreseeable effective treatment there might be the hope of editing out the defect in eggs or sperm using CRIPR so the mutation is not passed on to the next generation, but anyone that claims they have a magic cocktail of specific gene edits that will lead to increased intelligence or physical attributes is talking out of their arse. The result would be a total train smash.

Cheers for that. I agree that there is a lot of hysteria surrounding it. Interesting (bit in bold). I guess the point is that disease, for all the suffering it causes, has got us to where we're at. So eradicating it might be a bad thing?

WaspInWales wrote:Considering we've only managed to eradicate one infectious disease so far, I don't fancy our chances to eradicate many more that soon anyway.