What do you think, should they start testing it on people ? With genetical modifications, I mean the technique ( that's already available ) to manipulate the gens of an embryo, and make it better resistant against diseases, or just stronger, or faster, or everything listed. I think it should be allowed.
Ideally, that would be a great idea. A human immune to disease (well, whatever we can cure/prolong) and having the perfect child who plays sports, learns, plays music blah blah blah.. But this is the real world and I'd be more worried about the children (or animals) where the experiment goes wrong. What happens to them? Do they suffer? Is it humane to end their lives? All this, all that. If it was no longer an experiment and could be done perfectly, I would have no problem with it.
Well, based on what I said, it's clearly not a yes or no answer from my perspective given I don't know what happens to these people if and when things go wrong.
Actually no, there's at least one type of computer that simulates how the human brain reacts to different substances. I remember some hospital here in Stockholm getting one not long ago. Using that method, it wouldn't be much of a problem.
Has anyone seen Gattaca? In the movie they genetically modify babies to be super humans, "god children" and a lot of interesting points are also brought up during the movie. As for testing genetic modifications, using it on embryos can be quite dangerous. I'm not sure the process of how that type of testing would be done, but if the failure rate is anything like the cloning of Dolly (1/277) then if the others resulted in deaths of the embryo or severe mutations, then I don't think the testing would ever ethically be allowed. If you have to let the embryo grow into a human being before being able to see the results that is. I guess the problem is, it might be easier to test for certain immunities, but if you were to test for better physical/mental prowess, then you would have to let the child develop a bit more before you could test for it. Some people feel a bit better testing on embryos, but if you've tampered with an embryo, and have let it grown into a human being, then that can get more complicated. Especially if it was a failure. There has been a certain type of genetic modification being done on embryos, but calling it genetic modification is a bit far, and it's only used to decrease the chances of certain types of infertility in an embryo. http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s290619.htm I can see the bright side in that they can increase the survival rate for certain diseases, even decrease the risk of getting certain types of cancer if your parents have had a history of that. But I can also see an advantage the richer people can have. IVF is expensive, so you can imagine how expensive genetically modifying embryos would get, on top of IVF. The richer people would choose more talented, smarter, stronger children, who would have an advantage over people whose parents did not choose or could not afford to do it. It might even cause a bigger gap, as in the richer produce better children who are more capable of making money through their talents, and the poorer as a whole, getting poorer. As for the computer simulating how the brain reacts to different substances, it's most likely the genetic modification would have to happen before the brain even develops, while they are embryos. Although you could see how the baby's brain is different to a control baby, that's just looking at the results, not the actual testing.
i would say on the whole that it shouldnt be done, humans are just a species of animal as well, just because we have the higher brain power to do something like that doesnt necessarily mean we should. what would happen if in an ideal world there were no viruses/diseases towards humans, what then? the population would expode and we would slowly be killing our world, its already beyond its capacity, anyway i digress. I feel that through disease and viruses the human population is at least kinda kept in check. the thing is as well, say for example woohoo we've eradicated all this, i can put all my money on it that a new more powerful supervirus will evolve. so on the whole as part of the bigger picture then no it shouldnt be done, its both unethical and impractical.
That's a good point.. And I also think with the population being beyond capacity, that global warming will somehow fix that problem, as well. I think it's Karma biting us all in the ass.
You're definitely right about that. But humans aren't really animals anymore, because with animals it's survival of the fittest. With humans, every "animal" survives, even the ones that wouldn't have survived without very much care. So our genes are becoming worse and worse.
Well, the thoughts of doing it isn't just for the sake of doing it. The ideas behind genetic modification is to better mankind, decrease the death rates, and to improve the human physique. I can see many reasons why people would want to do it, but the testing behind it probably wouldn't be allowed, due to ethics or religion. We are already killing the world. But we would kill it even quicker if the population grew at an exponential rate, which it is doing at the moment. I think you would lose your money then. If we genetically modify our bodies to improve our immune system, it won't result in a 'powerful supervirus'. I've said in another thread (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13067&st=0&sk=t&sd=a ), by using ANTIBIOTICS to kill bacteria, that's how we end up with super bacteria. Our immune system uses antibodies to stop bacteria and viruses. If we used genetic modification to improve the efficiency of the production and action of antibodies, then it would be a great benefit against disease. The antibodies do many things: prevent antigens from entering/damaging cells, act as a signal for other macrophages (white blood cells etc) to remove them, and also can cause immune responses that destroy the antigens. They aren't like antibiotics, where you use a chemical to stop or destroy the microorganism that is causing damage. We successfully eradicated small pox in the wild because of vaccines. Vaccines stimulate antibody production, which successfully destroyed small pox when it entered the body. You didn't see a super small pox, did you. The Hepatitis B vaccine only lasts for a certain amount of years. If we used genetic modification to improve our immune system, it might be possible for it to last a life time. If they can find a way for it to be done humanely without causing malformed humans, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. It can definitely have its uses, but as for genetic modification to make us stronger, faster, I would be more against that. Well...that's just a whole other debate!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect That's just a hypothesis, but maybe it could be applied to other things such as body types? There have been some rebuttals to the Flynn effect, and it could be due to economic factors, and the advancement of technology.
I'm having trouble understandig some things here. When it comes to genetically modifying plants and such, you often crossbreed different plants to get the effect you want. So are you talking about actually going in to each gene and modify it (is this even possible?) or are you talking about something more similar to race biology? Either way I think there are several ethical dilemmas. For instance, if you chose not to genetically modify your kid, he/she might not be given the same chances as others, or he/she might get teased in school or whatever. I'm a bit confused, so if anyone could clarify exactly what you mean by genetical modifications, especially the procedure, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Genetic modification in plants can involve cross breeding, but there are newer ways to create gm plants. DNA from a specific organism whose trait is desired is shot into that plant's nucleus with a particle gun, which contain the cells genetic material. This is how most of the GM plants have been produced. The other way is by using a vector (a carrier). Basically a certain bacteria has a circular DNA called a plasmid, which can transfer its DNA into the plants genome. So they cut out a part of the plasmid, and replace it with the desired gene, so that gene gets transferred into the plant I think he was talking about gene modification. Yeah, it's possible. That's how they got the fish that glow in the presence of certain chemicals. Or glow in the dark. Genetically modified animals have been used as experiments, and lately as novelties. http://www.glofish.com/about.asp Because we haven't gone through all the scenarios of the ramifications of these GM fish being released in the wild, Australia has banned them. So, you basically want the gene. There are steps to do it. 1. Isolate the gene you want 2. Remove the gene you want. This is done through digestion enzymes, which cut at specific parts of a DNA strand. 3. Alter the gene if needed, (maybe to make it more acceptable to the acceptor organism, or for something else) 4. Transfer gene into a vector or a different DNA segment That's pretty much the procedure to transfer DNA, which is genetic modification. Yes...intentionally cross breeding humans... now that would be unethical! (reminds me of Mr. Linderman with DL and Jessica in Heroes) If you read my link from the first post, the second half does describe a way that may be considered as 'genetic modification' in a human embryo, but that is an extreme call.
Wow, I had no idea that sort of thing was possible to do yet. I thought it would be at least five or ten years. Just one thing, exactly how do you know if it will work? Is there any way to calculate if it will work before you test it, or are do you just try and keep your fingers crossed?
I personally think gentically enhancing or modifing anything is wrong, because the chance of causing something more horiffic as we see in movies is always there no matter what we are told about safety ect. Things do and can happen, I just think we should leave things the way they are, the natural order of things will take care of illnesses and such, as History has always done.
Agreed as well. Like the alien movie where they cloned sigourney weaver and there was like a handful of deformed versions of her and the alien combined. That was nasty. I mean, it's not the same thing exactly being as they were trying to make a super human using an alien but the fact remains, some of those versions were nasty and horrible looking. She set herself on fire. I ruined the movie for those who didn't see it. Well, I guess I didn't ruin the entire movie. I don't even remember the rest of it.. so I guess I didn't.. are you still reading this?
Well, they're not just shooting blindly. With the glofish for example, they isolated a gene from a jellyfish that produced a fluorescent protein, and put it into the zebra fish's genome. As for knowing whether it will work or not, I'm sure they have prior history and knowledge, and can expect a certain result, but of course there is no way of knowing for sure until you test it. Causing something more horrific? I think the movies have been putting ideas in your head. In biology, a simple experiment is making a certain bacteria resistant to ampycillin. It's simple gene modification. There is no danger of getting horrific bacteria. What do you think would be more horrific if the zebra fish didn't accept or produce that fluorescent protein? You would just get normal zebra fish. It totally depends on what you are experimenting on. I can understand that you would get horrific human cases should genetic testing go wrong, but then again, it is what you are testing. And what sort of horrific things in the movies were you worried about? History has always taken care of illnesses? Smallpox was responsible for 300-500 million deaths world wide. Who knows how much more could have happened if we left it to 'History'. Humans produced a vaccine which increased the resistance, thereby allowing the continuation of our survival. If we did leave things the way they are, and didn't try to search for a way to stop smallpox, the world's population would be drastically lower. That was also using human cloning, along with genetic modification. Cloning has a very high failure rate, so it wasn't surprising that there were so many failures. It wasn't realistic, it was science fiction. While there is truth behind science fiction, it is still fiction.
It might be an experiment, however a human should not have the right to modify another(If you get what I mean). Now, imagine the results of human cloning. In the end, everyone's gonna look the same as everyone would want children to look perfect, and that perfection would be duplicated many times. Also, maybe there'll be something like clones vs humans sometime in the future?
How would everyone look the same? It's not like everyone is going to choose to clone themselves. That's a duplication of one person. Not only would it be expensive to clone one person, the failure rate would be so high, you would have to be a rich person to pay for a clone, or more than one clone. And the cloning of animals (take Dolly for an example) isn't perfect. Dolly's life span was shortened, she died prematurely. The theory is that since they took the cell of a 6 year old sheep, and the normal life span of a sheep is 12 years, she was genetically 6 years old when she was born, and died at 6 years. If that is the case, even if you do choose to clone yourself, the clone wouldn't last long. And clones vs humans sometime in the future? In that hypothetical situation, clones are humans. But yes, that would make a great movie. Sound awfully familiar though.... And we're talking about genetic modification here. Not human cloning.
right when you said that i would lose all of my money because i said that a new superbug would arise, i beg to differ. bacteria, viruses, everything! mutates, and with the bacteria and viruses these mutate at phenomenal rates so there can be jus that one mutation to turn in such a way that it affects humans. Say that we do gm someone to have an amazing immune system it would be impractical because how can you create immunity to something that doesnt even exist yet, its a simple hunter (bacteria) and hunted (humans in this case) relationship which is clearly seen all over the world, not just in humans, eg lions and zebras - lions ran faster so zebras ran faster, lions ran faster than that so zebras developed stripes etc. Or in the case of humans the HIV virus is a perfect example, im sure that even with the best immune system not everything will be fended off