Genetic Technologies and New Eugenics

[jgh7]

When I was in college, I watched the movie Gattaca. I highly recommend it!

This topic is to discuss the ethics of eugenics, particularly New Eugenics which focuses on parents being able to choose the genetics their kids will have to perhaps enhance them. To me there are two sides to this coin which I will list. But if you see another side, please let me know:

1) Doing away with the bad
The first side is doing away with what the majority consider to be disabilities and sicknesses. This side is perhaps the less controversial one but still definitely up for debate. Let's say there were genes that isolate blindness, paralysis, severe mental and physical disabilities, and many other sicknesses.

Q: Would you be opposed to these genes being corrected prior to actual development of the fetus so that it is healthy in this regard?

2) Tailoring the good
The next side is enhancing (yep, this is the controversial one). This involves tailoring your child's intellect, physical abilities, personality, and looks (even gender). Maybe you want your child to be a math wiz, maybe an artist, a skilled poet or writer. Maybe you want them to be a triathlete, the best basketball player ever, the perfect sprinter. Maybe you want them to have the charisma to win over crowds, to be a hilarious comedian, or perhaps just the kind of person who makes friends with everyone. Maybe you want them to have a Kardashian butt, Angelina Jolie lips, blue eyes and red hair, no pimples ever, and not even one freckle.

Q: Should there be restrictions here? If so where is the line drawn?

[Aetixintro]

[Replying to post 1 by jgh7]

It isn't as easy as merely choosing something, some qualities and think that they happen. You need to take into account the nurture side, the environment of the new-born. So how do you go about it? Genetics is about what is able to live once the genes have been engineered. A bad womb or the bad character of the mother can also kill the fetus. So, for a start, you can "load" it up with the physical attributes and hope for the best, but society isn't as simple as that given the years to live until adulthood.

So the best genetic "set-up" may depend heavily on the parents-to-be and the expected challenges in growing up. Perhaps, we're no further than the fact that genetic engineering for human beings is of no particular use at all because of the natural advantages of the true bonds to mother and father are more important than people think and they are already adjusted to society where they are.

Rather than bothering with the "hype" of genetic engineering, I'd rather go for combatting crime and increasing qualities of democracy and human rights that may prove far more effective in improving human beings than any genetic engineering can do! "Genetic engineering does not give people the ability to walk through walls!"

Besides, if this thing called "race" (of human beings), a concept I'm against, is merely due to sun-exposure, you know, the colour of the skin, then "race" isn't really an issue at all.

[Bust Nak]

To me there are two sides to this coin which I will list. But if you see another side, please let me know...

I don't know if this should be considered a third side or just a caveat to the two you listed. Editing our genes to converge to an ideal, whether by removing the undesired parts or adding in desired parts, would lead to less genetic diversity, which can be catastrophic to our long term survival as a species.

[TSGracchus]

Genes are not blueprints. Genes are recipes, where each ingredient is part of the whole. The Russians selected silver foxes for non-aggression, and got silver foxes with spotted coats and floppy ears. If you select for intelligence you may get unforeseen side effects. We must be cautious when building our "Brave New World".

[Neatras]

We'll need to massively up computational power so we can develop simulations that adequately model physical interactions from the microscopic up to the macroscopic in order to start "modeling" new genomes.

But in the event we find one that is at least as good as our current one, and slightly better (more stable, more resistant to cancer, etc), then it'd be useful to initiate an experiment by producing new humans in a controlled environment and providing them the opportunity to demonstrate if their modified genome gives them a higher quality of life.

As a transhumanist, I yearn for the day we can set aside limitations that would make our ape bodies self-destructive.

[bluethread]

We already engage in genetics. Every time one has sex one is engaging in genetic engineering. It just is not as specific or centrally controlled. The real problem with eugenics is that it is tends to separate the natural process from the outcome. This is a problem, because of motivation. Though it is considered an advancement by some to separate sex from reproduction, societies that do that tend to be less interested in the reproduction part. The remaining justifications for reproduction tend to be rather impersonal and self serving.