Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
In many ways we are already selecting for those traits and have been for countless generations, so assuming we had a well-understood and safe method for artificially selecting for them then there should be no ethical quandaries beyond "but, that's cheating!" There are no scorekeepers of the universe, nobody's going to give us karmic demerits for finding a shortcut. The only risks are scientific, like the obvious potential loss of diversity of the gene pool as we converge on certain universal traits.
From another perspective, what if we could identify genes which bring the value of a trait below the baseline? For example, imagine we could identify the gene which would cause someone's teeth to be so bad as to require braces to correct later in life, but it would still be a largely superficial genetic change largely related to "beauty". Should some people be made to suffer or "earn" straight teeth while others are born with it? Why should this be true of any traits?
Or creating a permanent underclass from those who were unfortunate to have parents who couldn't or wouldn't give them the enhancements - and for that to carry forwards as jobs, and the wealth to advance your children, increasingly go to those who have been modified.
In effect, if you found something and it really worked, you might well lock a large portion of the population out of any realistic chance of meaningfully participating in the future.
(Though I suppose one might argue that this is the case now, with education and good environments going primarily to the wealthy. The difference would be in the degree to which the path was locked in.)
We may eventually get through to them, at any rate. See Bill Gates and Polio vaccines, for example.
EDIT: I appreciate the urge to have a kinder and gentler HN, but let's not start cluttering up threads more than we have to with references to the guidelines. It's meta, and meta kills.
Hardly permanent, I'd say; eventually they would be outcompeted to extinction by H. s. mutabamus, in the same way H. s. sapiens (is thought to have) outcompeted neanderthalensis.
However, I don't think such a thing could happen "overnight" as you suggest. In order for those genetic enhancements to become commonplace they will need at least several generations of trials, especially to explore how various genes interact. This long process could well lower the barrier for the less privileged to participate.
Newly-developed gene modifications will first appear in children of the wealthy. The sons of the rich will have plenty of one night stands. Many of them will be with women who have timed their ovulation and will collect the used prophylactics on their way to the bathroom. If you're poor, you just need to teach your daughters how to pick the right marks, and your grandchildren can inherit many of the traits that the rich are willing to pay for.
But this problem will only last a few generations due to purely technical limitations. The politics now will only determine whether gene modifications will be available on the open market or grey market in the future, because they will definitely be available on the black market and in the "secondary" market.
What we are not quite confident about is if one gene may have two or more different affects that we have yet to discover.
Artificially changing selective genes without thinking that another gene may be needed to counterbalance one change is the possibility most worrying.
It is also mostly moot, as genetic interactions are already a part of everyday conceptions. Many of today's genetic afflictions are due to parents' genes interacting unexpectedly. See Lorenzo's Oil[1], for example.
What are you talking about?
The concept of beauty changes every generation (so what would we select for?), and IQ/fertility has, at best no definitive correlation (and many would argue it has a negative correlation)[0].
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligenceI also never claimed that in all of human history we always chose the same traits for beauty, but we have always selected for what we felt like "beauty" was at the time, even if that meant selecting against an "uglier" option. It was never a straight line, and it probably never will be.
Beauty changing every generation may actually be a boon to the process, as well. If the majority of one generation selected for a particular beauty trait then it would lose its appeal, driving diversity as less people selected for it or more people selected alternatives.
We humans are a fickle lot, at least until we find the fickle gene.
If you're not saying we're selecting for intelligence or beauty, then what are you saying? You claim "the concept holds true", but I'm not sure what the greater concept you're trying to explain is. That humans are still evolving?
Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I hope you've just phrased it poorly.
I'm not saying we're not selecting for intelligence or beauty, I'm saying we're not selecting for the same intelligence and beauty every generation. A few thousand years ago intelligence was being able to tie a pointy rock to the end of a stick, and that sure played a role in natural selection. "Intelligence" as I intended to convey is broadly defined, it's not just the modern definition of IQ but the skills to survive and thrive in the environment of the time.
I have not worded it incorrectly. Attractive people may have kids, but so do ugly people, and ugly people have kids with attractive people, too. There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. Your "common knowledge" is failing you here.
But wait, so you're trying to tell me that this sentence:
> In many ways we are already selecting for those traits and have been for countless generations
Is supposed to have meant this:
> I'm saying we're not selecting for the same intelligence and beauty every generation.
?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attr...
And yes, my two sentences are one and the same. A trait is a category, such as hair color. We can select for that trait without always selecting specifically red hair, for example. In fact, at one point we selected against red hair in some cultures [1]. Similarly, as I described earlier, intelligence today is often defined as IQ or literacy while intelligence in the past might have been toolmaking, memory (for verbal history/storytelling), or navigational skills.
That's why I don't see any ethical quandaries about genetic modifications for beauty, because it's highly unlikely to lead to homogeneity and even if it did, if everyone is beautiful then nobody is, which means people would immediately find new definitions for beauty and pursue those instead.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Prejudice_and_discrim...
Applied to this situation: if it's morally bad to enhance the intelligence of a child beyond that of their peers, then it should be morally good to diminish the intelligence of a genius child to be more average. If it's bad to enhance the intelligence of an entire generation, it should be morally good to switch back to leaded paint and gasoline.
Or my favorite, from slatestarcodex I think (I can't find the link): if it would be morally bad to cure heroin addiction with a pill rather than the "hard way" with will power, then it should be morally good to addict schoolchildren to heroin. (In other words, if the chance to build character has more value than not being addicted to heroin, then we should be addicting _more_ people to heroin).
If it's wrong to kill babies, then it's good to resuscitate ones that have died (assuming they're in the same state they would have been: no brain damage, etc.)
If making one average child a genius is bad for the world, then making one genius child average must be good for the world.
If you're a utilitarian, then the heuristic is basically a tautology: If moving from state A to state B decreases utility by X, then moving from state B to state A increases utility by the same amount.
I like the "there are no scorekeepers of the universe" line.
The ability for humans to use the intelligence that evolution has provided them for whatever they see fit, including the ability to better themselves and better the species as a whole (or, sadly and unfortunately, to hurt each other), should be considered part of the evolutionary process. Just because humans have intelligence doesn't mean they exist outside of evolution. In fact, not using our evolved intelligence to influence our genetic makeup is avoiding thinking about how and why we have this intelligence to begin with.
The ability for an organism to influence the genetic makeup of itself and its descending, through either gross methods like breeding/natural selection or discrete methods like genetic engineering/modification is really just one step out of many on the evolutionary ladder.
States in general do not have a good track record at preventing things that can take place in a small room, with inexpensive equipment and few personnel.
Consider the kinds of equipment, and its associated cost, needed for genome editing -- and compare to that required for development of nuclear weapons. The collected might of the western world has occasional challenges in preventing development of nuclear weapons; it's not clear to me how anyone expects to be able to enforce a "ban" on editing the human genome. And for a glimpse of what an unenforceable ban looks like, look at the drug war.
The whole thing is empty posturing. Genome editing is coming, like it or not. Bans won't prevent it; they'll just prevent open discussion on how and where it's being used.
And who will be overseeing the research? If it must be conducted in the dark and on a budget, does anyone doubt that human experimentation will take place?
No thanks.
Ethical or not, the cat is out of the bag and the only way is forward.
Regardless of the morality of it, the U.S. government will probably work on creating super-intelligent humans for national security and defense reasons.
I'd actually be surprised if they haven't started doing this many years ago, and it's top-secret.
These are both smooth moves if that's the intent, though I don't think it's sufficient if the tech is really so indefensible.
I think another important consideration is long-term branding. Because the tech is not defensible, there's going to be a whole bunch of competitors, so how can we differentiate ourselves? "We're the ones who did this safest, and we've been about safety from day one."
That's going to be a pretty compelling narrative for human gene therapy suppliers.
It's encouraging to see strategic smarts in science at an early stage in a bio venture that could end up having a very large impact on medicine. So that's really cool, my hat's off to them for these plays. I think the new biotech therapies will need huge monopolies with the resources and motivation to push with the highest standards. After all, for developing biotech, do you really want to be buying your medical future, from a garage startup? Or from a massive name?
So I think it's smart they're clothing themselves in the apparel of major names from day one: caution and safety. It's also exciting to think that right now could be the start of some huge biotech firms of the future, companies that will literally be 10x bigger than the energy companies of today.
It's the same reason I criticize GMO products (worked with big agriculture geneticists before going into bioinformatics), namely that the testing periods are so short and lack oversight is so nonexistent that it is the unforeseen consequences that make me very wary of GMO foods.
We need to just be able to admit when a technology is very dangerous, and instead of hiding it away, open it up to as many eyes as possible, and fund the testing as much as possible. The key point for me though is the time factor. Testing over extended periods of time (1,5,10,20 years) is a must for such dangerous scientific advancements.
Luckily sequencing and modification are becoming cheaper and more reliable by the year, to the point that I am pretty sure that your local doctors office is going to have a sequencer before 2020.
I can't wait till my non-compete is up in a few months and I can get more involved.
Genetics could improve the inequality situation too, but that would require challenging elements of our economic system which is off the table.
No it couldn't, and in any case that are infinitely more direct and efficient ways of addressing inequality if that is truly your goal.
How would you go about your further goals in this clone society? Constant monitoring of citizens, tracking their lives, measuring disparities in the short and long term and either awarding or punishing certain activities at certain times by certain people to make sure everything is equal to everyone?
Seriously, what do you mean by equality that the ability to choose one's genes wouldn't fix?
I do think in that case it would be more likely to have a leveling effect, since it would be technically easier to fix problems or boost capabilities to high but normal human levels than it would be to try to go beyond normal human ability. At the very least there would be less risk of a runaway divergence if anyone could access this technology as part of normal family planning.
I agree that in our present economic system this would join elite schools and trust funds as another way generational inequality is perpetuated. IMHO we jump to banning because any economic change is categorically off the table. If these scientists instead called for universal access to any human enhancement technology, that would be crimethink.
You should question your assumption. While there is without question a social element, there is growing evidence that IQ is at least 50/50 heritable.
Not to mention birth defects and other genetic disorders which can only be kept under control now by people with enough money to get their kids therapy, rehab, etc. So in fact putting people on an equivalent genetic playing field is a great way to give an investment to the children of the current underprivileged .
(edit: think about it this way -- health care costs are currently a kind of regressive tax, as it takes a larger portion of the poor's income than the wealthy. so anything to lower overall treatment costs will help reduce inequality.)
If that's the case, augmentation and genetics are literally the only technologies that could have a lasting impact on inequality.
Also, everyone is fairly similar in intelligence anyway. It is not for lack of intelligence that black people suffer in the United States.
Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments.
Black people suffer in the US because the US has a ton of laws that harm them, like minimum wage laws (first enacted to stifle competition), drug laws (first enacted on racist grounds to jail minorities), welfare laws (first enacted to segregate minorities in ghettos). But god forbid we blame the State, it must be a "social" problem...
IQ isn't nature, IQ is a testing system. IQ is essentially a test of whether you have been given a high-quality Western education.
> Your second sentence is wrong. People's intelligence vary widely which is why some people can't even answer a hypothetical question and engage in thought experiments.
People's intelligence does vary, but not as much as you think it does. A lot of it, again, is down to education.
> Black people suffer in the US because the US has a ton of laws that harm them,
The legal system does not exist in isolation. It is influenced by US society (which is oppressive towards black people).
We're willing to ban a technology because we fear how it could be used? How is there no discussion about how this could aid the fight against cancer?
I doubt there are any actual scientist driving this ban (a phd in ethics doesn't make you a scientist in my book).
edit: grammar
Requirements to be an astronaut
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/featu...
* Distant visual acuity: 20/100 or better uncorrected
* Height between 62 and 75 inches.
Both of those are based on your genes. Have bad genes, you don't get to be an astronaut.
There's also
* Blood pressure: 140/90 measured in a sitting position
And while I suspect most people can adjust their blood pressure through diet and exercise I'm sure some people could never get in that range. In other words they'd have the exact same problem as they guy in GATTACA, a bad heart.
Then again, if you're genetically blind or have dwarfism, that may not be the case.
I think GATTACA is less about genetics setting a bar, but that the bar is constantly getting raised until it will eventually be unreachable without artificial enhancement.
One way it is scary is it creates a new form of genocide. Rather than murdering oppressed groups, we will simply disable the genes that make them part of that group, erasing diversity.
A world with only white, straight, cisgender, neurotypical, conventionally attractive etc. people is not one I want to live in.
If you're not literally saying that, then what is the value of your hyperbole? Your post reads like pure fear-mongering to me.
No?
I'm saying I'd rather not live in a world where diversity has been eliminated.
> Your post reads like pure fear-mongering to me.
Well, it is a potential future.
That's why it works.
"..standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology."