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  • Human Genetic Engineering

    (first since my spelling is of the age of spell check and i'm tired if i misspelled in the title please edit it, yes there is something to being lazy)

    now the cloned meat thread got me thinking in general about human genetic experimentation and its a suffeciantly muddy topic (in political, scientific, moral, and religious) areas that i thouhgt it might make a good topic for debate and disscusion

    i firmly beliove in genetic research stem cell and otherwise. with this kind of study we may be able to cure everything from male pattern baldness to basic mortality let alone aids cancer etc
    would you like to live 200, 300, 1000 years? in good health and vitality granted a major societal change to that spend 50 or 60 years as a "youngster"
    be able to make your children supergenuieses with gene modification
    biosculpt to whatever physical form you want or more basically not go bald or not need glasses or have green eyes over brown at choice
    have yourself cloned at birth with the exception of a brain so that if something goes pearshaped you have a hand replacement liver, heart, etc

    have yourself cloned at 30 ro 40 and raise it as a child, perhaps using existing genetic material bring einstien back to life thru cloning. or shakespeare, or ceaser, or on the flipside hitler, gengus, caligula (ok maybe the materal avalible only allows for enistien if even him)

    well this should get the ball rolling, have at it you pack of vultures
    Last edited by Lunan; 01-02-2007, 09:08 PM.

  • #2
    I'm in favor of it. Ethical considerations will have to come in to play, of course, but I don't think that they should be too based on the culture's religious views.

    Our understanding of genetics could become our greatest tool for the furthering of our species. I don't have any problem with genetics being used to wipe out everything from cancer to mental retardation. The only thing that I would have a problem with its application is if engineering is used for frivolous bullshit like making sure you've got a blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid. Or the afore-mentioned cure for male-patterned baldness. If you're talking cosmetic crap, it's a waste.
    "I don't find myself in the same luxury as you. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you don't know what it is not to have freedom." ---Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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    • #3
      I firmly believe in the requirement of sterilization for longlivety... so you just get to get 1000 if you agree to be sterile. Otherwise the world would be overcrowded much faster... apart from that I am all for the science of genetic research, I just don't believe we need to apply all we learn to our lives. We can choose what we want to do with our knowledge, we are not slaves of "the facts". If used with care and humanity at heart I think we can gain much of genetic research, if used careless and with personal gain at heart I think we can get either a "Uebermensch"-Society or die out of some fluke (Like all (humans) becoming ill because all have the same genetic information in one area of the genome).

      PeAcE
      greetings from austria, best known for its history and fine wine... feels like a wine cellar on a graveyard 8-)

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Harrdy
        I firmly believe in the requirement of sterilization for longlivety... so you just get to get 1000 if you agree to be sterile. Otherwise the world would be overcrowded much faster...
        With the high occurance of self interest exhibited in human nature, the race would be wiped out!
        "That was the law, as set down by Valen. Three castes: worker, religious, warrior."

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        • #5
          would you like to live 200, 300, 1000 years?
          At present - no.
          If I could use that time exploring space - probably yes.
          What's up Drakh?

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          • #6
            manditory sterlization for longevity is an interesting thought, not one i have had myself, but interesting we have 6 billion odd peopl eon earth, if the world was better managed we could prod sustain about 10 bil before puting too high a strian on the ecosystem, as it is currently managed we are likly too high by 1 or 2 bil. now if we all lived for 200 years i would think some form of global birth control would be nessisery, at least until we could really start colonizing other worlds (luna, mars, titan, the jovian satelites) i'm not gonna suggest extrasolar targets

            side note if we lived 200 odd years intersteller travel could be feasible

            very interesting thought though, 1 child per couple, could cause some interesting social trends
            also if you didn't have to have a child till you were 75 or so we coulkd all learn how to live

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Harrdy
              I firmly believe in the requirement of sterilization for longlivety...
              Originally posted by Lunan
              manditory sterlization for longevity is an interesting thought, not one I have had myselfà
              03 January 2007
              From New Scientist link
              DNA So Dangerous It Doesn't Exist
              "A group of researchers at Boise State University is investigating the theory that there are genome sequences so dangerous they are incompatible with life. Greg Hampikian, a professor of genetics, and his team are comparing all possible short sequences of nucleotides to databases of gene sequences to determine which ones don't exist in nature. The New Scientist reports that the US Department of Defense is interested enough in their work to have awarded them a $1 million grant. I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take."

              Originally posted by Rallytbk
              Interesting part about the article is the end quote, your comment has been discussed by others and may be possible in the future.
              ...Further down the line there is the possibility of constructing a "suicide gene" to code for deadly amino acid primes. It could be attached to genetically modified organisms and activated to destroy them at a later date if they turned out to be dangerous, Hampikian suggests.
              Last edited by rallytbk; 01-04-2007, 07:08 AM.
              "The world is a dangerous place---not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it" --Albert Einstein

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              • #8
                Somehow it reminds me of Bladerunner... replicants - or "skin jobs" - where build to cease to function after some years. But I always thought they just got one "cycle" of cellgrowth, not multiple as with humans (terminated by Telomeres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere). But such a mechanism would also be a possible explanation. Funny how cinema sometimes "hits the nail on the head"...

                PeAcE
                greetings from austria, best known for its history and fine wine... feels like a wine cellar on a graveyard 8-)

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                • #9
                  you guys gotta read Varley's "eight worlds" clone stories

                  Originally posted by Harrdy
                  Somehow it reminds me of Bladerunner... replicants - or "skin jobs" - where build to cease to function after some years. But I always thought they just got one "cycle" of cellgrowth, not multiple as with humans (terminated by Telomeres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere). But such a mechanism would also be a possible explanation. Funny how cinema sometimes "hits the nail on the head"...

                  PeAcE
                  Given that the healing of even a small injury requires new cell growth (i.e. cell divisions), and that red blood cells have very short lives and are constantly replaced via cell division (among many other examples, e.g. the gut lining cells are replaced daily) your proposed mechanism for a built-in expiration date for replicants is completely impossible... They'd die much earlier than the specs.

                  Sometimes fiction only seems to hit nails by being vague, the devil is in the details, and fiction usually gets those wrong.

                  Originally posted by Lunan
                  biosculpt to whatever physical form you want or more basically not go bald or not need glasses or have green eyes over brown at choice
                  Sounds almost impossible, unless you are willing to go into some suspended animation where you'd have lots of your cells killed and replaced... changing shapes and colors in adults would require that.

                  Making changes for children is much more plausible, programming them with genetic modifications to be expressed during pregnancy and adolescence for a desired final shape or abilities.

                  In principle I don't see much wrong with genetic modifications of humans. But I would want to be sure that any harmful side-effects are reasonably known and very unlikely before the procedures are rolled out.
                  Also, not all modifications would be acceptable. Frivolous changes are an example previously mentioned. I would think that modifications that increase antisocial behaviors should be banned (e.g. no need for people with greater tendency to aggression).
                  Such... is the respect paid to science that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recalls some well-known scientific phrase
                  James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79)

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                  • #10
                    e.g. no need for people with greater tendency to aggression
                    The military and (some) sports would have a different view...

                    The reason behind why I am so cautious is that we are not able to work with nature in a constructive way. When we begin to shape humans I am quite sure we wouldn't deal with them in a constructive way. Instead I see "Uebermensch"-Societies (where some are just (seemingly) "better" then others, hated for that or not) or very focused societies (where there are specialists for every aspect). The "lets make our child special" is only the first layer of the process IMHO... It is hard enough to get a job now, where everybody is quite similar (with the exception of learned skills), what future would wait if there where people inherently more able to do your job? Would you blame society or your parents? What about the higher efficency "setting free" more average people, what would they do, now they don't have an income, a lot of free time on their hands and a hatred (which can be easily directioned by populists). What about their rights then? Because when only a minority is "enhanced" then the average joe is the majority, they could vote the "specials" into a kind of place like with the Psi Corps (to draw a possible similarity to B5) or the "average" could loose the right to vote, because they are no longer "productive" (I don't suck that out of my fingers, the "no work - no vote" people are getting stronger RIGHT NOW, at least here in austria).

                    Capt.Montoya:
                    Given that the healing of even a small injury requires new cell growth (i.e. cell divisions), and that red blood cells have very short lives and are constantly replaced via cell division (among many other examples, e.g. the gut lining cells are replaced daily) your proposed mechanism for a built-in expiration date for replicants is completely impossible... They'd die much earlier than the specs.
                    *White* blood cells - which need to adapt to intruders - have Telomerase in them, to work against the shortening of the Telomeres. So they can split more often. The bone marrow cells - which produce the red blood cells - are also like that, they are very similar to stem cells in some regards. The point would be about injuries (and maybe the "gut lining cells", which I don't know of atm), I would need to watch again to see if it is a property of the replicants to heal faster. It would make sense (from the: "better than human" angle), so I tend to say they are. Considering the far advanced state of genetics I would think there would be a way to temporarily set free Telomerase in the injured cells (e.g. via the "shock" of the injury), or even have a depot of stem cells which are then used to heal. There wouldn't be enough to heal *all* cells of the body, or e.g. the brain cells... thinking about that it might be that ONLY the nerve cells have been modified... but with a different mechanism, as they don't split (in a grown human) anyway...

                    PeAcE
                    Last edited by Harrdy; 01-04-2007, 11:48 PM.
                    greetings from austria, best known for its history and fine wine... feels like a wine cellar on a graveyard 8-)

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Capt.Montoya
                      I would think that modifications that increase antisocial behaviors should be banned (e.g. no need for people with greater tendency to aggression).
                      Are you fucking kidding me?

                      How do you think we made it to this point? The only reason we're the top of the food chain is because we were smart enough and MEAN enough.
                      "I don't find myself in the same luxury as you. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom, because you don't know what it is not to have freedom." ---Ayaan Hirsi Ali

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Karachi Vyce
                        Are you fucking kidding me?

                        How do you think we made it to this point? The only reason we're the top of the food chain is because we were smart enough and MEAN enough.
                        Well, he meant aggressive in the context of increasing antisocial behavior. I don't think he'd equate all aggression with antisocial behavior...
                        Recently, there was a reckoning. It occurred on November 4, 2014 across the United States. Voters, recognizing the failures of the current leadership and fearing their unchecked abuses of power, elected another party as the new majority. This is a first step toward preventing more damage and undoing some of the damage already done. Hopefully, this is as much as will be required.

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                        • #13
                          I personally think eugenics, no matter how one chooses to clean up the term, is a fundamental wrong in humanity.
                          -=Mike
                          ...What constitutes a "defect" is a fluid. In some countries, being Jewish is viewed as a defect...

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Der Mike
                            I personally think eugenics, no matter how one chooses to clean up the term, is a fundamental wrong in humanity.
                            -=Mike
                            ...What constitutes a "defect" is a fluid. In some countries, being Jewish is viewed as a defect...
                            my dear sir, this has got to be the best and most succint reason i have come across for being ageinst genetic engeneering, as a jew myself i have to say its a very strong argument, but at the same time we are now taking an extremly diverse and mutli hued issue and making it black and white, and thats a bad situation

                            what about cancer, virius, etc research? not the more flashy design your own baby type of thing but just better life conditions for everyone?

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                            • #15
                              I disagree, vehemently, with aborting babies for it. Adult stem cells have shown tremendous promise, as do cord cells.

                              I also say that stem cell research is simply a desire to give money to biomed companies. People forget that stem cell research is legal --- the government just won't give money for it.
                              -=Mike

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