Chinese Researchers Claim to Have the World's First Genetically Edited Babies

I would love to have a genetically engineered kid to be a super-human like KHAN !!
 
PantherBlitz said:
Wait, What? --- he has a supply of human embryos to tinker with??
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If you aren't aware of it, in-vitro fertilization generates human embryos. The leftovers from these fertility treatments are allowed to be used (if donated to science) for up to 14 days after fertilization. This is why some pro-life advocates think that fertility treatments such as IVF is murder since they believe that life begins when a sperm fuses with an egg. Before 14 days, an embryo is a ball of identical cells-- the first structure shows up as a streak of cells on day 15. This research is actually fairly common.

Apparently, some of the experiments were done by Michael Deem who is a bioengineering professor at Rice University in Texas. The Chinese assistant professor was previously Deem's PhD student. Deem said that he was present when the parents gave consent for the editing and worked with He on the project. I imagine some of He's "years of experience" refer to his time at Rice University and then his postdoc at Stanford.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/11/27/rice-investigate-scholar-gene-editing-case
 
Laowai said:
Yeah. Ok. That's not at all why birth rates decrease. While I'm sure you can find a few nutters who are consiously abstaining from having children because of the constant doom and gloom fearmongering over AGW, they are exactly that....just a few nutters.
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That is exactly why birth rates have declined. It is only a First World concern! I have given many reasons and there are varying shades of each. One of those is definitely self limiting. In the West it is perceived to be "greedy" and of "excess" to have large families.
Go ask a young couple how many kids they plan to have and why.
If you disagree with my list I would be glad to hear your reasoning why First World countries are currently experiencing the lowest birth rates ever, and within those populations why it is only immigrant/minority populations who are far exceeding the national birth rates?
 
Assuming that this is true, the first generation will most likely have problems. It will get better though.

A few things.

First, only diseases? HAH! Of course, balding, bad eye sight, an IQ under 220, etc. will soon become "diseases".

Second, most likely only the rich will be able to afford this. So, this will create more generational wealthy, as they'll be superior physically and mentally. A generation of super men and the peasants, which will never end.

Third, you only need a few generations of cloned babies before you can go back to the traditional approach of making children.

And even though gene editing is highly unethical by modern standards, if this turns out to be true, any country which doesn't follow suit will be at a significant disadvantage.
 
Kdawg said:
great. I prefer sex with no condoms.

of all the horrible things done to humans by humans, this ranks nowhere near the top.
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And that is your choice, but when your dick crusts over and falls off don't come here bitching about it.

Just sayin'.
 
The Mad Atheist said:
Not too sure if I would like this even if for health reason.
Plenty of abuse potential for creating "super" humans for the rich and powerful, or companies to prefer engineered people over those that are not.

EDIT: On the other hand, I wouldn't mind having a Neko woman!
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Why does that matter, every part of human existence is built on the reality that humans select for the best genetics. Companies already choose the people with the best genes its just they are choosing from the population as a whole you let me know when Victoria secret selects a fat ugly girl for their models, or let me know when a company selects a guy born with an iq of 60 for their CEO. What genetic engineering does is gives everyone an equal shot rather than all of us being subjected to the random variables that created us. And reproduction is no different a lot of people falsely think there is someone for everyone out there and so on but its not woman actively select for the best genes and men do the same and lots of members of the population don't ever get to reproduce.
 
It's not that cut and dry rudy. By your judgement, no one but the pretty or goodlooking or smart would ever have kids. Relax man, there is someone for everyone if people are willing to accept some faults in others.
 
I'm cautiously supportive of genetic "editing". If they are tweaking the genes that cause health issues awesome.

Ths issue is that it will not stop there, there will be people who want defining characteristics changed in their kid, hair color, eye color, make them a super footsketball player etc.
 
I'm surprised none mentioned this. The real issue I see is whether this would cause biodiversity to fall bellow viable levels. If everyone was breed to be immune to all disease, and to have genius level intelligence, and no defects whatsoever. That could be an issue for genetic diversity.

I don't care about the ethical implications, because feelings doesn't matter. Sustainability and viability matters. It's really the same argument as whether abortion is murder.
What makes you you, is the experiences you collect during your life, and human embryos don't collect any experiences before birth as the part of the brain that collects memories isn't even developed yet. Therefore they shouldn't be considered people.
 
IMO, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that we genetically edit people to become smarter, stronger and more resilient to diseases.

Humans share something like 96% of their DNA with chimps, and look at how dumb they are in comparison to humans.
Oh, not to let humans off the hook, just look at how dumb the average human is, pretty damn stupid.

Now, with my limited imagination, let's say we create humans that are even further different from chimps or us.

The hopeful outcome would either be we all get little Joey/Janey offspring that can produce masterpiece music on par with Tchaikovsky, have the mathematical prowess of Einstein and the physical strength of Phelps leading our species to places that Sci-Fi has only dreamed about.
-or-
We, normal humans, have this massive fight for survival, as an Eugenics war breaks out, where Superior genes try and wipe out inferior genes and put us in our place. Much like how Humans wiped out Neanderthals. (Presumably, at least, because we don't exactly know why Neanderthals became extinct.)
-or-
Somewhere in-between


But all that genetics aside, I think the first problem we have is this whole climate change thing and how we, as humans, need to not make ourselves go extinct due to our greed.
 
MrDeaf said:
But all that genetics aside, I think the first problem we have is this whole climate change thing and how we, as humans, need to not make ourselves go extinct due to our greed.
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You're in luck! AGW fearmongering is not based on reality, it's all a crock of crap.
 
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Nunu said:
It's not that cut and dry rudy. By your judgement, no one but the pretty or goodlooking or smart would ever have kids. Relax man, there is someone for everyone if people are willing to accept some faults in others.
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I never said it was that cut and dry that's just your over exaggeration of my statements. What I am saying is that your genetic makeup is a large part of how successful you are in life this is even more true for woman than men. The other massive influence on your life is your childhood upbringing, more powerful influences taking place the younger you are. This is in stark contrast to what society pushes people to believe that everyone has in them the ability to be the best and its all about your own choices. But most of the actual scientific data suggests the opposite from mate selection to job success. Genetic engineering could be the next great equalizer in society like guns.
 
M76 said:
I'm surprised none mentioned this. The real issue I see is whether this would cause biodiversity to fall bellow viable levels. If everyone was breed to be immune to all disease, and to have genius level intelligence, and no defects whatsoever. That could be an issue for genetic diversity.
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That only happens if people all go crazy over one phenotype. If you read this story you will see that is not the case scientist study and often know about tradeoffs in specific alleles. In this case they admit that there is a trade off to HIV resistance so they aren't throwing this into everyone they are going to offer it as an option to HIV positive people the idea being its worth the tradeoff if you already know one of your parents has HIV. The same would be true for aesthetic preferences like blonde hair or blue eyes. Remember a core part of human attraction is a desire for something outside of your tribe, IE its why we find accents sexy, or people from other ethnicities. So if everyone in society starts picking one phenotype we start to crave the opposite. This will keep genetic variation going, and what this really does is allows people from inbred populations to actually start fixing specific problems or to grab a gene from another population. Lets say your some white guy who moves to a desert climate, maybe you can say hey, I want my kids to have darker skin to protect them from the sun.
 
Surprisingly I, who am vehemently against abortion unless it is for few very specific reasons (rape victim, mortal danger to mother etc...), have technically nothing against this as long as it is about improving human race as a whole, having immunity to sickness, slow down aging and so on. Genetic engineering is the next logical step in the evolution of human race, either that or cybernetics or maybe even both. But the scientist better know damn well what they are doing, no blind experiments resulting in mutilated mutants and abominations who have a short, painful existence. Toying around with babies is a massive responsibility and the cost of failures is very high and horrifying emotionally so punishments for carelesness should be very high too. This is a slippery slope we are taking, we should tread it carefully.
 
rudy said:
Remember a core part of human attraction is a desire for something outside of your tribe, IE its why we find accents sexy, or people from other ethnicities.
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most people still prefer people like themselves who look like themselves.
 
In theory , I think I'm for genetic modification.There is a lot of potential.

In practice , we need to put a leash on this.Fast.
There is also a lot of potential for catastrophic,irreversable failure.

I think I'd rather be Borg than Cthulu , but I mean, the jury is out on that one.
 
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