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bilbo0s

Hmm.

Why is anyone talking about gene modification then?

Serious question.

Why not just get rid of mosquitos?

If you can't just get rid of them, it's unlikely that you can modify the genes of all of them.

If you can introduce something to modify the genes of all of them, then you can introduce something to eliminate them all as well.

It seems that elimination is actually easier. Or at worst just as easy. What is it we gain from gene modification?

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> Why not just get rid of mosquitos?

Because its harder than it sounds: LOTS of effort goes into eradication, whether by large-scale environmentally destructive methods (literally draining the wetlands where they reproduce), toxic methods (spraying poison over areas they reproduce near human populations, which also means over humans and water used by humans), or trickier methods lkke releasing masses of sterile male mosquitos to mate unproductively with females to reduce the number of productive matings.

But these efforts are usually less than complete successes at the best of times, and have gotten worse over time as—as the article here notes!—“Efforts to prevent the spread of the disease have been complicated by existing malaria interventions becoming less effective due to mosquitoes developing biological and behavioural resistance to insecticides and barrier-based controls.”

> It seems that elimination is actually easier.

It sounds like someone has never tried elimination.

A huge focus of gene drive manipulation of mosquitos is to force their populations to extinction.

The male is created with an X chromosome that will destroy any other X with which it is paired, leaving only other male progeny with the hostile X.

This goes on for a few hundred generations, driving the female population to zero.

There are grave moral questions in this, but eventually the technology will reach those who decide to deploy it, perhaps against the general will. It is only a matter of time.

Ask Africans if they would be against eradicating mosquito born diseases. It is very easy to speak from your comfortable home. I have strict opinions about this one issue; we need to forget about ethics, morality and take calculated risk and wipe out disease carrying mosquitos.

Yes, I agree that this is obvious. When it is accessible in these regions, it will be used.

Because historically genociding a species carries a lot of baggage. It's not something you can intellectually reason someone into believing.

That's not actually the reason—eradication efforts have not been avoided on this basis, indeed, mosquito eradication has long been a central pillar of efforts to control malaria. The reason for trying something else is that eradication efforts have rarely been completely successful and mosquitos are getting better and resisting them from the reproduction pressure imposed by the massive, sustained efforts at eradication, not because eradictation is something people want to avoid because “genociding” mosquitos is seen as undesirable.

If that's not the actual reason, then why do people keep discussing the moral implications of mosquito eradication?

https://unherd.com/2018/09/commit-mosquito-genocide/

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ethicsproject/teaching-resour...

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35408835

https://time.com/4319137/so-should-we-just-kill-them-all/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/09/13/what-would-hap...

https://www.livescience.com/what-if-all-mosquitoes-died

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585176/

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/13/20754834/mosquit...

Idk, 7 articles over 10 years isn't very strong evidence of a raging debate

Surely this isn't the totality of all discourse on the subject.

I do not even think it is morality actually. It is just that citizens of western countries would absolutely like to see these mosquitos eliminated from their countries. It is just that they are against eliminating them in Africa, Latin America etc. In the name of being “concerned about ecological impact.” of doing so. Once global warming accelerates and some of those diseases such as dengue and zika become prevalent here in America public opinion will magically change haha.

Well you can count this western perspective as being in favor of mosquito elimination from the entire planet.

I hesitated adding an eight link. Alas, it was too few.

People discuss lots of things, without those discussions being significant influences on policy.

Avoiding mosquito “genocide” has not been a signficant source of policy restraint on eradication efforts, a fact that many of those “discussions” you cite bemoan, but have had no substantial effect in changing.

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