Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

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Fan of Science
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Fan of Science »

You are committing the same error that the eugenics movement did --- selecting a person as a mate based on who they are is not the equivalent to selecting them on a genetic basis. This is because genetic determinism is non-existent for a number of things, including intelligence. A person's genetics combines with the environment and produces the end result we get with who a person actually is. Had Albert Einstein been raised by two drug-addicted parents in a gang territory, it is doubtful that anyone ever would have heard of Albert Einstein the physicist. He could easily have been Albert Einstein the drug addicted gang member, and a eugenicist could easily have falsely concluded that he had bad genes. One could only select among people who have lived in the same environmental circumstances in order to select for specific genetics. Take Trump, for example, and his kids? They don't seem very bright, but, given their money, they are quite successful. The thing is many others would be just as successful as they if they were also handed millions of dollars as their inheritance. There is, thus, no way to tell whether Ivanka has better genetics than someone sitting in a county jail cell for drug use, who was raised in dramatically different circumstances.

So, it is not true at all that people chose their children's genetics when they decide whom to have children with.
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LuckyR
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by LuckyR »

Fan of Science wrote:You are committing the same error that the eugenics movement did --- selecting a person as a mate based on who they are is not the equivalent to selecting them on a genetic basis. This is because genetic determinism is non-existent for a number of things, including intelligence. A person's genetics combines with the environment and produces the end result we get with who a person actually is. Had Albert Einstein been raised by two drug-addicted parents in a gang territory, it is doubtful that anyone ever would have heard of Albert Einstein the physicist. He could easily have been Albert Einstein the drug addicted gang member, and a eugenicist could easily have falsely concluded that he had bad genes. One could only select among people who have lived in the same environmental circumstances in order to select for specific genetics. Take Trump, for example, and his kids? They don't seem very bright, but, given their money, they are quite successful. The thing is many others would be just as successful as they if they were also handed millions of dollars as their inheritance. There is, thus, no way to tell whether Ivanka has better genetics than someone sitting in a county jail cell for drug use, who was raised in dramatically different circumstances.

So, it is not true at all that people chose their children's genetics when they decide whom to have children with.
You do realize that you just shot the OP in the foot with all of your crazy talk about "environmental circumstances", don't you? But moving on, while there is not a one to one correlation between parent's genetics and their children's (as genetic manipulation can provide, theoretically), it is equally, if not more incorrect to suppose that there is little to no genetic influence. The difference between selective breeding (what folks do every day), and lab based genetic manipulation is one of efficiency, not of subject. This becomes more clear if we think about animal husbandry instead of people.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Alias »

LuckyR wrote: This becomes more clear if we think about animal husbandry instead of people.
Two aspects of human mating and domestic animal breeding that are radically different:
The breeding stock of human-owned animals is selected for commercially lucrative, or sport-competitive traits; thus is based entirely on blood-lines.
1. The mating of human elites is based on political alliance, class, caste and economic station, the conservation of family land, power and wealth. Only poor people reproduce on the basis of pubescent carnal attraction (which is closest to the genetic selection of wild animals, except that their available pool is constricted); the middle class tends to marry for romance (at least partly delusional), psychological stability (a sound basis for long-term union, which helps to raise offspring to maturity, but has little affect on their genetic makeup) and social betterment (which is also only indirectly beneficial to the offspring.)
2. When couples decide to have a baby, their first consideration tends to be "I want" - not "What will it be like?" They don't even think about the quality of the infant, usually, unless something is medically wrong with the foetus. (Or there wouldn't be so many defective babies!)

Do you know how many thousand exemplary human specimens die every year of violence, environmental toxins, malnutrition and preventable disease, without ever being DNA screened or tested? Nobody knows. Because humans don't really care about genome: the economically disadvantaged have no social value.
Genetic superiority has no affect social advantage; you must already possess the latter before you can access the former.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

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LuckyR wrote:Remember, humans (like most animals) do not breed randomly. Individuals choose their children's genetics when they choose whom to have the children with.
That's assuming that there is a choice available to any human when picking a mate to have children with.

I would like to have picked Raquel Welsh or Zsofi Hajdu, or her sister Agnes, or Bridgitte Bardot. Those would have been my first choices.

Did I get my choices? Sorrily, not.

I daresay nobody gets their first choice, second choice, .... nth choice. The one they have children with are not a partner of choice. They are a partner of the best default available.

-- Updated 2017 July 14th, 12:49 am to add the following --
Alias wrote: Do you know how many thousand exemplary human specimens die every year of violence, environmental toxins, malnutrition and preventable disease, without ever being DNA screened or tested? Nobody knows. Because humans don't really care about genome: the economically disadvantaged have no social value.
Genetic superiority has no affect social advantage; you must already possess the latter before you can access the former.
Well, other than in developing nations, this is a concern only in the USA.

In civilized countries with advanced economies and mature societal systems, the problems you mentioned are virtually non-existent.

Whereas it the USA they are prevalent, due to:
- no free and complete access to public healthcare
- gun laws in existence
- lack of public awareness and no sensible basic science education
- extreme poverty being rampant due to widespread substance abuse, a part of the American cultural fabric.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Alias »

-1- wrote: [ Genetic superiority has no affect social advantage; you must already possess the latter before you can access the former.]
Well, other than in developing nations, this is a concern only in the USA.
So - the vast majority of the world,'s population. Those civilized countries with universal health care, etc. still have economic and social hierarchies, more and less privileged people, classes with more or less access to cutting-edge technology, opportunity and material advantage. Their populations, like every other nation's, is increasingly multiracial, which means a more diverse gene-pool for natural selection and thus, improvement, increased resistance to UV rays, malaria and influenza, without medical intervention.
And, of course, their mature economy is not as secure as one might wish; even their civilization is at some risk.
Anyway, this very small minority of human global population isn't going to be decisive in the long-term genetic development of the species.
Humans won't change very much in any foreseeable lifetime. This is not the thing to worry about.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Fan of Science »

If Terry Pratchett hadn't been independently wealthy, he would have been denied access to medications to treat his dementia, because of his age. The British so-called universal health-care system definitely left him out of consideration merely because he developed dementia at a young age. There is no universal health-care in place anywhere. There are merely different systems in place that ration health-care services. Terry Pratchett himself was a very outspoken critic against Britain's health-care system as a result of his personal experiences. Trying to pretend that America lets people die off while other nations take care of all of their citizens is simply a mischaracterization of reality.

-- Updated July 14th, 2017, 11:32 am to add the following --

Lucky is right that humans do not breed randomly, and especially women, on average, try to mate with men who have at least a certain level of social status. My point was merely that since humans do not all live within the same environment, that a man may have high social status while having poor genetics, while another man may have great genetics, while being in a low social status, given his environmental circumstances. So, this results in some form of genetic selection, but it is not a clear linear relationship and is more hit and miss than a lot of people realize.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Alias »

Fan of Science wrote: Trying to pretend that America lets people die off while other nations take care of all of their citizens is simply a mischaracterization of reality.
America does. But the "developed" (rich; imperial or post-imperial) nations also let people in Africa, Asia and South America die off, when not actively killing them off. It's silly to think of the human genome as a product of Europe. While certainly influential in who dies and in what numbers, Europe is the least effective factor in the regeneration of the species.

-- Updated July 14th, 2017, 11:32 am to add the following --

Lucky is right that humans do not breed randomly, and especially women, on average, try to mate with men who have at least a certain level of social status. [/quote]
If she gets to choose. Human societies are not organized in such a way as to give women unlimited choice of mates. (Or any say at all, in some countries - and these are some the most prolific peoples, atm)
My point was merely that since humans do not all live within the same environment, that a man may have high social status while having poor genetics, while another man may have great genetics, while being in a low social status, given his environmental circumstances. So, this results in some form of genetic selection, but it is not a clear linear relationship and is more hit and miss than a lot of people realize.
Exactly. The genetic component is so minor as to be negligible in the overall population.
Also, people are irrational in their reproductive behaviour. Men often prefer women of a physical type poorly suited to child-bearing, because of cultural normas - and some women's fashions, in the attempt to make a normal woman look more like the cultural ideal actually reduce her reproductive capability.
And then there are the various forms of "pride" - people insisting on the Caucasian phenotype, even when it's clearly inferior to a Eurasian mix, for example, or deaf people wanting deaf children, even though that's a disadvantageous trait in the world at large; or wanting their children to marry a weedy, stupid Catholic, rather than a sturdy, clever Protestant, or any of the other crazy tribal obsessions.

Rational, planned, scientific reproduction is going to be limited to a very, very small minority of the human race for a considerable chunk of the future. And that small segment won't become any more noticeably entitled or privileged as a result of enhanced genetics, because it's already corners entitlement and privilege.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Fan of Science »

I live in America, and know many poor people who are on such government programs as Medicaid, and their medical care is taken care of by the government-funded program. There are also charities like St. Jude's that assist people, and I'm just not aware of anyone actually being denied medical treatment, obviously within reason. I'm sure that some poor people aren't eligible for some highly-expensive experimental procedures.

I think in sociobiology, the claim is that what men generally find attractive in a female relates to her ability to have children, but, I notice that many of these claims ignore a woman's intelligence, and so I'm a bit skeptical about the current assertions of science. There have been some studies done that show after people to get to know another person, that if they are smart, or hard working, funny, get along well within the group, then those people actually seem more physically attractive as well to the other group members. This works for both men and women, which is why I think that the claim that men simply focus on young, attractive females for mates is not completely accurate. Men also get attracted to smart women, and women who are funny, etc., even if on first appearance they may not be all that attractive.

The ability to genetically manipulate babies so that they can fulfill some grandiose expectations of the parents, I have a feeling is a long way off, and there really is a danger that such genetic manipulations may change what it even means to be human. At best, we will be able to genetically manipulate someone so that if they are exposed to certain environments, that they then may be more likely to develop certain abilities. I doubt that this would ever be cost-free. Increasing some abilities may cause others to be less likely to develop, and I'm not sure what gives parents a moral right to engage in such manipulations of their children. I think far too many people believe in genetic determinism to follow the challenges to designing babies.
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Re: Human genetic modification (Designer Babies) and society

Post by Alias »

Fan of Science wrote:I live in America, and know many poor people who are on such government programs as Medicaid, and their medical care is taken care of by the government-funded program. There are also charities like St. Jude's that assist people, and I'm just not aware of anyone actually being denied medical treatment, obviously within reason. I'm sure that some poor people aren't eligible for some highly-expensive experimental procedures.
Yeah, don't get too comfortable regarding the continued funding of such medical care.
But, anyway, all the poor and low-income people get born, reproduce and die without having their DNA screened, so we have no idea of the overall genetic quality of 200,000,000 Americans, nor of how many are near-perfect genetic specimens. We only ever notice the few standouts who fight their way to stardom in some field. Nor will this majority have access to genetic modification for their offspring, so the standard American model of human will continue to dominate.
I think in sociobiology, the claim is that what men generally find attractive in a female relates to her ability to have children
Have you seen any supermodels lately?
The ability to genetically manipulate babies so that they can fulfill some grandiose expectations of the parents, I have a feeling is a long way off, and there really is a danger that such genetic manipulations may change what it even means to be human.
And do we have a generally accepted definition now?
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