Decius wrote:
] Nanochick wrote:
] ] ] Bioethicists and scientists contemplating the future fear
] ] ] that genetic engineering and other technologies are going
] ] ] to divide human beings into classes that may one day try
] ] ] to destroy one another.
]
] What do you think?

Heh...thats no small question. I have several thoughts on this article. First off, it is obviously meant to be dramatic to draw readers in (Who wouldn't read an article with that title?)
From the very get go, its obvious to me that it was written with the intent to stir up emotions.
Yes, the scenario they envision is definetly hypothetically possible. This is the "designer baby" argument again, which I am so tired of. Seriously...there are other arguments to be made about genetic engineering, but this one is replayed like a broken record because it sounds so horrid. I never hear anyone bitching about the fact that if we start modifying genes in the germ line, it could cause serious problems down the road in the area of population genetics. Genes balance themselves out, and they have their own ecology. For example, in Africa, where there is more of a chance of getting malaria, you find a higher frequency of the gene for sickle cell anemia. Why is that? Because the sickle cell anemia gene aids in resistance to malaria. If we fixed the bloody sickle cell anemia gene in the germ line with genetic engineering, that whole population would then be vunerable to malaria and might even get wiped out completely by it. If that happens, the genetic diversity of the entire planet would be lowered, which brings us one step closer to total extinction. Now that, my friends, is much scarier than the designer baby argument.
The designer baby argument, although possible, is hard for me to respect. For one, designer babies would have to have a market. The proponents of this argument love to talk about how all the rich people would be dying to spend lots of money on this technology, but I have yet to hear one person say, "Damn, I wish I could design my baby...I wish Gattaca was a reality!" The designer baby argument is a logical fallacy. Its a slippery slope argument that stems from the fact that we have and use the power of genetic engineering to monitor embryos for devistating genetic diseases. Genetic screening is very similar to in vitro fertilization, which caused just as much stir when it showed up (I believe in the 1970s), but is accepted in present day society. Genetic screening is the same process as in vitro fertilization, only before the embryos are implanted in the mother, they can be screened for genetic disease if both members of the couple are carriers of a genetic disease, which would lead to a high probability that they could have an affected child. The embryos are screened, and only those that don't contain the mutation are implanted.
Obviously, you can see where some people would be uncomfortable with this. This is why bioethics people get paid so much. On one hand, you have the chance to make sure that your child won't have some sort of awful, debilitating genetic disease, while on the other hand, your quasi playing god by changing the fate of what kind of child you will have (genetically normal or genetically diseased). As well, some people don't like it because who is to say that a child will have a less fufilling life if they have a genetic disease then if they don't. And also, for those that believe that an embryo at the few cell stage is already a life, they don't like this process because the genetically defective ones are discarded...thereby, it becomes the abortion argument. This is when it leaves sciences hands and becomes a philosophy/ethics problem. And this is where the "designer baby" argument was born. If we are already screening embryos for genetic disease, then whats to stop us from taking the next step?
I think that ultimatly, we will never see the designer baby argument become a reality. There is no market for it that I can see. And even if there was some sort of market, there is no way that laws wouldn't be passed before we would get to that point. Finally, if we did actually get to the point where we had designer babies, I don't think we would choose to do so. Although the human race as a whole is divided on many thousands of issues, when you step back and look at us from an ecological standpoint, we as a species are ultimately looking to keep eachother alive, if only to pass on our "selfish genes". I think that those that are proponents of the designer baby argument aren't giving the human race as a whole enough credit. We are here ultimatly to survive as a species, and if we created a rift through designing babies or fucking with the germ line, I believe that, just as the article said, it would be the end of the human species as we know it. And I just don't think we would let ourselves get to that point. I think we are more intelligent than that.
Right now, researchers are working on gene therapies for disease. These future therapies are intended to be used in the somatic cell line only...not in the germ line where it could be passed on to future generations and effect genetic diversity. I am a proponent of somatic cell gene therapy, and I am interested in possibly entering into this research world. This is vastly different from "designer babies". It is only being done to help people who are suffering, and it wouldn't cause some sort of rift, because it is a medication that would probably be covered by insurance. As far as gene therapy branching out into something more cosmetic, I don't know. That would be interesting to see, but I definitly don't see this happeneing within our lifetime, and I don't think that people would be able to do something like raise their intelligence through somatic cell gene therapy. If it turned cosmetic, it would be more like science fiction, where you can go to the gene modification parlor (as opposed to todays tattoo parlor) and get something strange done like have your genes modified so that your hair glows green in a blacklight or something (or just get it modified so that you never go grey).
Anyway...yeah....those are my thoughts on this article.
Sorry for the rant....its just something that is complex to answer, and I still don't know if I conveyed everything I need to convey. :)

RE: Wired News: Will Genetic Engineering Kill Us?