NationStates Jolt Archive

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

I think it should only be used to weed out birth defects that make a person different abled, or to prevent a child from being born with an incurable illness, otherwise, no way; no enhancements if the fetus is fine.

people have been altering themselves for years with steroids, comsetic surgery, etc. that would be just one step ahead. not much difference. the same vain people looking to be perfect.

I think it should only be used to weed out birth defects that make a person different abled, or to prevent a child from being born with an incurable illness, otherwise, no way; no enhancements if the fetus is fine.

I believe in exactly the same thing. It should only be used to help, not to improve, otherwise, (for mucular people) what would be the glory of not working for your strenght? Basicaly cheating other harder-working people who are being fair and actually working for it.

I believe in exactly the same thing. It should only be used to help, not to improve, otherwise, (for mucular people) what would be the glory of not working for your strenght? Basicaly cheating other harder-working people who are being fair and actually working for it.
It would be used to give the disadvantage a slight chance at life. It would also make it eaiser on the parents who would have to shoulder the medical expenses if the child had costly medication or required frequent visits to the doctor/hospital.

same as above - fine to prevent debilitating birth defects but not for cosmetic uses

".......KHAN!!!!!!!!......." *echoes*

"Khan, I'm ... LAUGHING ... at your ... 'superior' intellect." ;)

".......KHAN!!!!!!!!......." *echoes*

"Khan, I'm ... LAUGHING ... at your ... 'superior' intellect." ;)


Kirk: You're going to have to come down here and kill me! you're going to HAVE to come down here!

Khan: I have done far worse than kill you...I have hurt you...and I wish to go on...hurting you. I shall leave you as you had left me...as you left her...stranded at the center of a dead planet...marooned for all eternity...burried aliiiiiiive

Kirk: KHANNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;)

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice.

Wow, your idea of few must be much longer than most.

Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)?

If it makes it through FDA regulation as safe and effective, sure.

Of course, imortality can be crossed off, as can resistance to all disease, as both are pretty much the stuff of fiction and always will be. Genetic manipulation will not grow an organ or gills - those would have to be surgically placed there.

Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

I think it can be very useful in curing diseases, but should be used sparingly due to the inherent dangers involved.

It should be as unrestricted as plastic surgery. Hey, if your allowed to shove massive bags of saline into your chest, why not a couple more nucleotides into your DNA codons?

Indeed, I would take as much as would be going. I'd love to see what the military could do with this technology and would cheerfully sign up for as many upgrades as I am feasiby permitted. Toxic fangs and voluntary metabolism control... <dribble>

".......KHAN!!!!!!!!......." *echoes*

"Khan, I'm ... LAUGHING ... at your ... 'superior' intellect." ;)

Oh - this is just great!!! Very good thinking - after reading the first post I was gonna answer in only one word: Khan!

Good to see that someone already went there!

I don't see a problem with manipulating genes as long as we take care not to threaten the long term survival of our species or our planet's biodiversity. The ability to control the direction of evolution is one day going to be ours. We shouldn't fear that power, we should harness it wisely.

same as above - fine to prevent debilitating birth defects but not for cosmetic uses
If it doesn't threaten the survival of the species why not allow people to use it for cosmetic purposes?

It should be as unrestricted as plastic surgery. Hey, if your allowed to shove massive bags of saline into your chest, why not a couple more nucleotides into your DNA codons?

Plastic surgery doesn't have the potential to create and spread new mutations of viruses that will affect countless other people, now does it?

I have no real problem with it being used for repairing birth defects, but cosmetic applications...

Any voluntary cosmetic change, be it surgery or genetic, should be preceeded by several meetings with a professional counsellor to make sure they understand exactly what they're getting themselves into. Cosmetic changes will not solve all your problems, and the chances are good that you won't end up looking exactly as you had pictured, not to mention the fact that implants and the like are a health risk at best.

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

Genetic manipulation is already in practice, and has been for a long, long time. People selectively breed livestock for certain traits. Tree grafts are used to produce hybrid produce. Certain people don't marry people of other types due to preference of features...

Genetic manipulation has been going on since the days of Gregor Mendel...

All you're talking about is the ability to go directly to the specific quality that is to be altered and doing it then, rather than using the hit and miss method of breeding, and it's a lot further away than you believe, in my opinion.

If some of the recipients of cosmetic surgery arn't mutated viruses, I don't know what is.

All for it but i think a similar situation as in gattaca would appear.

Genetic manipulation which you describe is fine by me. If people want to enhance their bodies genetically, why not? It's a great advancement for the human race, and could creatively solve many problems. Genetic manipulation could virtually eliminate almost all causes of death and suffering. If somebody chose to make themselves immune to disease, resistant to extremes of heat and cold, effective enough at digestion and homeostasis to require very little food or drink - well they'd be sorted. Possible fuel crisises looming wouldn't be a biggie, people could just fly around on genetically enhanced wings.

The only kind of genetic manipulation which gets a bit morally sticky for me is the actual creation of life (not for religious reasons or anything - I'm pro abortion/pro choice), but here's the reason. If someone were able to create an intelligent, sentient animal or human, would it be their property or would it be entitled to recognition as a person under human law? Where do you draw the various lines between property, livestock and sentient person? It's very tricky.

I can't see a reason to forbid uses for improvement. Of course, it should be controlled fairly tightly at first, as we won't want to acidentally kill off a bunch of people.

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

I see no reason to place restrictions on properly tested and demonstratedly safe genetic procedures. If someone wants to be smarter or stronger and they're going about getting there without harming anyone what business does anyone have telling them they're not permitted?

I think 'a few years' may be a bit optimistic for the development of this technology; a few decades is probably closer to the truth. Even if we had a usable vector for humans (we don't) that could insert genes into specific sites into every cell in a human being/foetus (no such vector known, some pretty sophisticated molecular engineering required here), it would still be extremely difficult to determine exactly what genetic material to replace and when and where to replace it, given that we still don’t know much about the workings of the human genome.

As an example: there are estimated to be around 10,000 membrane proteins (1/3rd of all human proteins). We know the structure of 30 of them, (after years of research) and determining the structures of the rest could take a hundred years. If the defect you wish to correct with genetic modification is with one of these unknown proteins you would find it very difficult to find the gene without knowing the structure, and vice-versa. Even if you determined all the structures it might not be immediately obvious what each protein does under what conditions. And even if you can get through all of THAT you'd still have a devil of a time getting it licensed.

So you won’t have to worry about engineering people who are already alive or foetuses for a long time yet; we may all be dead before it happens (thought it is certain to eventually be possible). Selecting zygotes to eliminate common genetic diseases and mutations however; that is a different matter. It's possible NOW and is already being done for some things (breast cancer being proposed as something you can select against in the UK right now).

The film Gattaca (see it!) suggests that allowing selection of zygotes will create a genetic underclass (of 'natural' humans) who will be treated as inferior to their physically and mentally superior counterparts, conceived from only the most genetically sound zygotes. But if the procedure was easy, cheap, and standard practice for conceiving a child who would want to conceive the natural way when it could be fraught with so much risk? As a doctor in the film says: 'This child is still you. It is just the best of you.'

Fears for biodiversity, the creation of killer viruses or mutant-zombie supermen through genetic technology are entirely unfounded. If the procedure went wrong or didn't work, nothing would happen! New genetic material would simply be inactive or rejected, and the same technology that put it there could take it away just as easily. If you wanted to create a killer virus or a mutant-zombie superman you certainly could, but you'd have to be crazy to want to do so.

As for biodiversity, genetic engineering will be vital to protecting the biodiversity of this planet. Engineered coral will withstand rising ocean temperatures, engineered trees will repopulate the Amazon basin, and engineered crops will increase food output so we need less land for farming. And of course engineered humans will live longer, breed less and only when the want to, and consume fewer of the planets natural resources.

Given the option I think I'd choose to have a child with no genetic defects, or if possible have a child naturally and allow it to choose whether or not to eliminate its genetic defects at a later date (say age 18). I’d like that child to grow up healthy in a world free from disease and the ravages of age. It's a long way off but I would definitely opt for genetic restructuring myself. I could eliminate my asthma, change my hair/eye colour and skin pigmentation if I didn’t like it (I’m not that bothered really), confine hair growth to aesthetically pleasing areas of my body...

And of course I could be Better. Stronger. Faster. Smarter.

Who wouldn’t want to make such a positive change? Only the technophobes, the righteous, the humanists and the foolish.

Come join my brave new world...

If it doesn't threaten the survival of the species why not allow people to use it for cosmetic purposes?

because some nut job will always abuse things like this

because some nut job will always abuse things like this
But 'some nut job' will surely abuse any new technology. 'some nut job' does abuse technologies. 'some nut job' writes damaging computer viruses, 'some nut job' stabs people to death in an alley. Does that mean the technology should be banned?

Realistic Thinkers']The film Gattaca (see it!) suggests that allowing selection of zygotes will create a genetic underclass (of 'natural' humans) who will be treated as inferior to their physically and mentally superior counterparts. But if the procedure was easy, cheap, and standard practice for conceiving a child who would want to conceive the natural way when it could be fraught with so much risk? A doctor in the film says: 'This child is still you. It is just the best of you.'

That is one of the best movies ever made, IMO. It really is a shame so few people have seen it.

As to Gene Manipulation...

I say have at it. As long as it is a safe procedure, anyone should be aloud to have it. Just don't touch any animals. Imagine if a genetically engineered super-fly got out into an otherwise balanced ecosystem...

at least those nut jobs dont run the risk of permanently altering the genetic make up of mankind

don't pick on meh I am knackered and need sleep :P

Alterations to the genetic code will spread to the genepool, and if care is not taken it will cause unforseen new, possibly highly deadly, genetic disabileties...
The genome is not a simple, and I am convinced that we still do not fully know how all parts of it interacts.
Until the day when we can create a normal healthy human genome from scratch, I will urge caution to genetic alterations. However, if we can with 100% accuracy tell that someone will have an unhealthy disability from looking at their their genome abortion should be free, though not mandatory.

Just don't touch any animals. Imagine if a genetically engineered super-fly got out into an otherwise balanced ecosystem...

Fortunately if we had the technology to genetically engineer a super-fly and it got out, we would also have the technology to knock it back down to 'regular fly' or sterilise it with an engineered virus or other molecular machinery. And there is absolutely no risk involved; the technology we would have to use would be very advanced molecular technology; it would probably not even be of conventional biological composition (think tiny, inorganic machines - nanorobots if you will). It could be targeted exactly, with almost no possibility of error, and easily de-activated in the very unlikely event that things go wrong.

We have already unbalanced the planet's ecosystem to a disastrous degree. According to the latest report we have about 10 years to get our act together before permanent, irreparable damage is done. It is extremely unlikely that any governments will have done anything but sit around blaming each other by then. It will therefore be crucial that this technology be developed and used to fix up our environment. Instead of shielding the environment we must saturate it with this technology. The focus should not be on engineering animals, particularly (unless all compatible environment for a species has been destroyed), but on engineering producers (phytoplankton, plant-life etc.) to ensure that the planet's key ecosystems receive as little damage as possible from global warming and pollution.

Alterations to the genetic code will spread to the genepool, and if care is not taken it will cause unforseen new, possibly highly deadly, genetic disabileties...
The genome is not a simple, and I am convinced that we still do not fully know how all parts of it interacts.
Until the day when we can create a normal healthy human genome from scratch, I will urge caution to genetic alterations. However, if we can with 100% accuracy tell that someone will have an unhealthy disability from looking at their their genome abortion should be free, though not mandatory.

Alterations to the human genetic code will indeed spread to the gene pool, but the chance that there will be any adverse effects is vanishingly small. Even if there are any adverse effects you can easily fix them with the same technology that created them in the first place. Most people seem to overlook this tenet of advanced molecular engineering. If it throws up any problems we can use the same technology to easily fix those problems. In addition, no one would allow anything dangerous out of the lab anyway. There has been little complaint at the vast store of lethal diseases and chemicals stored and worked on by governments around the world, and there have been no large scale accidents (i.e. tens of thousands of people affected), despite the potential for great destruction. Genetic technology is no more dangerous than stuff we already play with on a daily basis.

We could create a 'normal healthy human genome' from scratch right now. We already engineer amino acid sequences from scratch with precision down to the nucleotide. It would just take you a few thousand years at today’s rate to produce a whole genome (you could just copy an existing human genome - yours for example). If you were suggesting that we should be able to start from first principles and devise a human genome from theory alone, I'm afraid that will almost certainly never be possible. There are simply too many steps and variables in the process. It would not be useful anyway, and certainly not a necessary prerequisite for safe genetic engineering. No one would advocate the use of any potentially unsafe procedure in this matter, and as the risk of widespread problems is already very low (see above), genetic technology poses very little risk to anything if used properly. Anyone who tells you otherwise is scaremongering.

On a happy not for all those pro-lifers out there, advanced genetic engineering will mean the end of abortion. It will give us the tools to detect all sorts of genetic flaws in a zygote, but instead of aborting a genetically abnormal zygote as suggested by Jakonidom, we can repair it in-utero. In the very distant future the DNA of the human race will probably be so altered as to allow the woman’s body to do this automatically, or even under her control. We may well one day have personal control over every cell in our bodies, from the comfort of our own minds.

And on that note...

Of course, imortality can be crossed off, as can resistance to all disease, as both are pretty much the stuff of fiction and always will be. Genetic manipulation will not grow an organ or gills - those would have to be surgically placed there.


It is not safe to cross off anything where molecular technology is concerned. If we can manipulate matter on a molecular level, as we surely will be able to do within this centaury, everything you just wrote off is possible. You may not be immortal (you can't outlive the universe), but if your DNA copies itself with no mistakes, your telomeres don’t shorten, and your body repairs the effects of environmental stress with 100% efficiency (all possible with advanced molecular engineering) you can live a damn long time indeed. Genetic manipulation has already been used to grow foreign tissues in different species. Seen the pictures of a human ear growing on the back of a mouse? All you need to do is insert the genes for 'gills' into the correct sections of your neck and turn them on. This is very, very difficult I'll grant you; much harder than growing a simple cartilaginous ear on the back of a mouse, but if its not being done by 2250 I’ll be surprised. [EDIT] Actually I'll probably be dead, but if I was alive, I'd be surprised :) .

The future is filled with remarkable potential. I hope I live to see it realised.

The future is filled with remarkable potential. I hope I live to see it realised.


As do I, actually I find it rather disappointing that all these progressive, "for the good of mankind," thinkers are the ones who wish to hang onto the past tooth and nail. Personally I look forward to every scrap of technology that comes down my way.

I believe in exactly the same thing. It should only be used to help, not to improve, otherwise, (for mucular people) what would be the glory of not working for your strenght? Basicaly cheating other harder-working people who are being fair and actually working for it.

They could get the genetic manipulation and the hard work making for double the strength. Like a lion who doesn't work out is able to rip a person to bits, but a lion who spends his life fighting hyenas and other lions would kick that first lions ass.

That is one of the best movies ever made, IMO. It really is a shame so few people have seen it.

As to Gene Manipulation...

I say have at it. As long as it is a safe procedure, anyone should be aloud to have it. Just don't touch any animals. Imagine if a genetically engineered super-fly got out into an otherwise balanced ecosystem...

Then you just engineer some super dragonflies. If they become a problem engeneer some super lizards. Then some super owls. That should take care of it, right?

Fuck it, it would be easier to engineer people who think flies taste good.

Take your pick of GE dystopias:
-Gattaca

-Brave New World

-Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
^iChoose this one!

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

I want t be immortal...

Take your pick of GE dystopias:
-Gattaca

-Brave New World

-Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
^iChoose this one!

Talk about indoctrinated paranoia. :rolleyes:

Take your pick of GE dystopias:
-Gattaca

-Brave New World

-Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
^iChoose this one!
Yep, plenty to choose from.
But if we're talking books, want me to list a few where GE helps the humans live in a wonderful world?
I'm not going to point at the movie Rambo to illustrate my point about soldiers, either.

I want GE. It's a great idea. I want it to be safely developed, and controlled in a mature way, but I have no problem with people making themselves better, stronger, faster. I want to be smarter, I'd love to augment my brain. Heck, I want to be a brain *programmer*.
I want to be able to regulate my brain chemicals, so I don't get needlessly angry in situations where it would be better to remain calm.
I want to give military scuba divers gills, incase an accident should happen.

I'm not concerned about a super-fly escaping, we already manage to screw up things like that as it is, and I have much more faith in GE helping those problems more than it hurts.

I am concerned about an underclass of un-engineered people, or a superclass of engineered people developing. I'm concerned that only children born with the "beautiful" augmentations will be able to become actors. Only children born with "super-smart" augmentations can become scientists. Only children born with "super-strong" can become successful laborers. And, as I'd suspect at least at first, you need to get the augmentations added before birth...this well could happen. The super-strong child will be much more likely to end up in a heavy lifting job rather than a science career. Sure, s/he could still compete as a scientist, but really has a disadvantage.

I see the world becoming more specialized. The people that do their thing would be *really* good at their thing. And others would have an even harder time competing. I don't see this as a bad thing, though. Heck, if you do we should get rid of private education!

And, realistically, as something like this becomes more common, it will become cheaper, even subsidised, and almost everyone will be given super-smart, super-strong etc. - it would only be choices like gills that would set people apart.

I'm not sure birthing children with gills or similar augmentations for specific tasks is a good idea (who mentioned the concept of ownership?)

I'd be against people doing cosmetic augmentations on their children, if there isn't a demonstratable advantage. I can picture the average shmoe going "I like blue, I want my child to have blue skin. And fangs!" - and as such there should be child protection laws. But those laws really don't have to be that different to the laws right now (a parent isn't allowed to tattoo their child blue, either).

Give me gills, underwater eyes, and a waterproof computer, and I'll happily live underwater. Help solve some of the overcrowding issues we're currently facing.

Give me gills, underwater eyes, and a waterproof computer, and I'll happily live underwater. Help solve some of the overcrowding issues we're currently facing.
Hey, can I join you? I'd love to live under water!

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.
I don't think it's "wrong" per se, but I know it's dangerous as hell! :(

I don't think it's "wrong" per se, but I know it's dangerous as hell! :(
Yeah, you're right, it is dangerous.

But it's also dangerous to train and arm a large chunk of your population with military weapons. We do it because, should it be needed, it'll be *more* dangerous to be unprepared.

And, maybe I'm weird, but I'm willing to take a small risk for the hope of saving some of the worlds wonders, like the Great Barrier Reef. Or certain endangered animals or habitats.

I'd volunteer to be a guinea pig if the experiments had a good chance of reducing how much food we need to eat, and could therefore significantly reduce world starvation. (ok, I know distribution of the technology would be harder than distributing food...)

yes, it's dangerous. But think of the potential rewards! We're not just talking a few people that get to pretend they are superman, we're talking vast changes in the way humans interact with the world.

Hey, can I join you? I'd love to live under water!
Of course you can. We've got plenty of space down here, and I'll need as much help as I can get setting up the habitats.

Well, I dont mind it as long as it doesnt go overboard, Im fine with using it for medical purposes, but 'recreational' modification seems wrong to me, call me an evil fundamentalist, but if God had wanted us to live underwater He would have givin us gills :P
Great...now Ive done it >_<

Right now exercise can be put into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to exercise and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell metabolism, increased lifespan, resistance to disease, and even increased sex appeal)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

or should we be able to use microscopes?

ok, there's a difference to using microscopes and having them grafted to our faces...but still...as long as it's consensual...

I also think it's very different to say "I want this genetic enhancement" and "I'll get this genetic enhancement for my unborn child"

I have no objection to cosmetic enhancements for consenting adults. I think cosmetic enhancements for unborn or minors should be restricted, to stop the goofballs who'll abuse the system. Unless it can be undone, then..sure, do what you want.

In a few years genetic manipulation will come into practice. Do you think anyone should be allowed to get gene therapy and enhance anything about themselves(enhanced muscular density, accelerated cell regeneration, imortality, resistances to all diseases, and even gills or other extra organs)? Do you consider it to be wrong and do you think it should be restricted? If so please explain.

I'm okay with it. We already change our bodies in various ways, for health reasons or just aesthetic ones. This isn't really any different.

We hold life to be sacred, but we also know the foundation of life
consists in a stream of codes not so different from the successive
frames of a watchvid. Why then cannot we cut one code short here, and
start another there? Is life so fragile that it can withstand no
tampering? Does the sacred brook no improvement?

-- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
"Dynamics of Mind"

I think it should only be used to weed out birth defects that make a person different abled, or to prevent a child from being born with an incurable illness, otherwise, no way; no enhancements if the fetus is fine.

Ah...I was just thinking of people having their *own* bodies changed. Messing around with foetuses raises other issues.

I think it's a good idea to use it to prevent illness in unborn children. However, I'm not sure about 'enhancements'.
Not everyone will have the same idea what constitutes an 'improvement'. Where do you draw the line? If you want to make your child taller, is that ok? What about if you want to give it horns, or blue skin?

On the other hand, I don't know if anyone has the right to tell a parent that they can't give their child the best possible start in life (as they see it).

The child gets no say in it, but that doesn't really matter, since unborn babies don't usually get a say in anything.

I wish I could fly. Do you think fly's wings, or feather wings would look cooler?

It would be cool if I got eagle eyes to see far too. And I want my right hand to be a crab claw. Then I can claw little bastard neighbour's dog for keeping on barking.

Think of the possibilities! Then think of the consequences. Imagine human beings are no longer humans anymore. We have genetically mutated to become a sub species. Pretty scary. Bird people fight Fish people.



Hakartopia: Where's that from? Alpha Centauri?

I wish I could fly. Do you think fly's wings, or feather wings would look cooler?

It would be cool if I got eagle eyes to see far too. And I want my right hand to be a crab claw. Then I can claw little bastard neighbour's dog for keeping on barking.

Think of the possibilities! Then think of the consequences. Imagine human beings are no longer humans anymore. We have genetically mutated to become a sub species. Pretty scary. Bird people fight Fish people.


Feathered would definatly look cooler, but you'd never be able to fly on them. If they were giant wings yo could probably glide, but human beings are simply too heavy to fly under muscle power.
Maybe if your skeleton was hollowed out, your legs were shortened, your arms were cut off, and few unnecessary organs were removed along with most of your ribs.
ou'd be able to fly but not much else and the land people would be able to kill you with a single punch.

Genetic engineering adults won't cause much imediate improvement. You can't just program someone to be more muscular. A tbest you can program someone's body to produce more testestorone, which has about the same effect as taking steroids. It becomes easier to get more muscle and raises the urrer limits on how much muscle the body can have, but you still have to work for it.

On the other hand, you could just clone extra muscle tissue and implant it surgically with no need for exercise or genetic modification.

I think it should only be used to weed out birth defects that make a person different abled, or to prevent a child from being born with an incurable illness, otherwise, no way; no enhancements if the fetus is fine.
"Differently-abled?" What in the world does that mean?

Of course you can. We've got plenty of space down here, and I'll need as much help as I can get setting up the habitats.

It'll be fun - plus we can make it impossible for anyone to travel over the water without our permission!

Ah...I was just thinking of people having their *own* bodies changed. Messing around with foetuses raises other issues.

I hadn't been thinking that way (as you have probably guessed).

Oh, and warning: my ideas are very utopian. I know that due to the corruption of the minds of the human race, it would be subject to abuse and various exploitations and those who would truly benefit from it wouldn't have the same opportunities.

I think it's a good idea to use it to prevent illness in unborn children. However, I'm not sure about 'enhancements'.

I do quite agree. It would allow children to all have a fair start in life, free of genetic diseases and other defects (such as Downs Syndrome).

Not everyone will have the same idea what constitutes an 'improvement'. Where do you draw the line? If you want to make your child taller, is that ok? What about if you want to give it horns, or blue skin?

I draw the line at changes that modify the appearance gene. If they are trying to make the "perfect" and extremely "beautiful" child with specific requests such as that, I draw the line there. Genetic manipulation should only (ideally) be used to make humans a stronger species.

Yes, we will still get sick and everything, but it would be a good way to start getting rid of birth defects and incurable illnesses that burden members of human society and their families.

On the other hand, I don't know if anyone has the right to tell a parent that they can't give their child the best possible start in life (as they see it).

I fully agree. It should be applied when the doctors believe the child is not going to be perfectly healthy at birth (likely born with an illness). Case by case basis (but all parents get the same rights, but only those who have the unborn child with problems would get the extra help).

The child gets no say in it, but that doesn't really matter, since unborn babies don't usually get a say in anything.

That is true; appearance doesn't matter. Nothing else matters except survival. That is why genetic manipulation would be beneficial; it would assist in survival.

"Differently-abled?" What in the world does that mean?

A nice fancy euphemnism for "disabled". It takes into account all forms of disabilities.

Realistic Thinkers']Fortunately if we had the technology to genetically engineer a super-fly and it got out, we would also have the technology to knock it back down to 'regular fly' or sterilise it with an engineered virus or other molecular machinery.

Oh how very naive.

Realistic Thinkers']Alterations to the human genetic code will indeed spread to the gene pool, but the chance that there will be any adverse effects is vanishingly small.

You can't possibly be this naive. Even the top thinkers in the field of genetic engineering are aware that there are *huge* risks.

Realistic Thinkers']Even if there are any adverse effects you can easily fix them with the same technology that created them in the first place.

Oh how very naive. If only the world were really that simple.

Realistic Thinkers']In addition, no one would allow anything dangerous out of the lab anyway.

You assume all dangers are known ahead of time. They are not.

Realistic Thinkers']We could create a 'normal healthy human genome' from scratch right now.

Sure, if we chose the most healthy person in the world and copied theirs verbatim, we *might* end up with a healthy set of DNA. Of course, we can't build 2-stranded DNA, so we would just have to make both strands and hope they combined properly.

Realistic Thinkers']It is not safe to cross off anything where molecular technology is concerned.

Yes, it is. There are no magic bullets, not even molecular technology.

Realistic Thinkers']Genetic manipulation has already been used to grow foreign tissues in different species. Seen the pictures of a human ear growing on the back of a mouse?

The human ear was not pure genetic manipulation. It was the implantation of human cells into a mouse, along with a construct to help grow the tissue.

Realistic Thinkers']All you need to do is insert the genes for 'gills' into the correct sections of your neck and turn them on.

Incorrect. You would also have to have the developmental environment and tissue that was not yet fully formed.

just think we could have super soldiers!!!! :sniper:

Spartan117_RulerOfAll']just think we could have super soldiers!!!! :sniper:
The point of genetic manipulation shouldn't be so the war-driven agenda could have more people to die for it! It should be to strength the human race so that we can survive.

Oh how very naive...You can't possibly be this naive. Even the top thinkers in the field of genetic engineering are aware that there are *huge* risks...Oh how very naive. If only the world were really that simple.

I justified my points with explanation; perhaps you could do the same? Far from being naive I am well aware of the risks that are inherent in any form of molecular technology. It is my personal ambition to go into the field when I graduate (hopefully BSc in Natural Sciences followed by MSc in Molecular and Nanotechnology), and as such my knowledge of the field is considerable.

The top thinkers in the field are indeed well aware that there are risks, but are, I'm sure, rather fed up of people overstating them. Assuming we have the technology to screen a persons entire genome, find the bad bits and repair them, and add in exciting extra bits at will, anything that goes wrong with those bits can be easily identified (by the same screening technology) and easily repaired (by the same vectors that put them there in the first place). Even if it goes horribly wrong the worst that can happen is that the engineered person dies. And this is very unlikely too, because you can easily excise bits of the genome you added if things go wrong; you would put them in with markers especially for this purpose! Use of the technology in its early stages (over the next 20-40 years) will of course be more risky as procedures will not be perfected, and even when fully developed procedure wise (100-200 years time) there will still be a very small risk, and much refinement to be done.

But there will never be a widespread risk to the human population. Unless people with a genetic disorder could breed faster than you could treat them, (rather unlikely given the number of years between generations), that genetic disorder could never spread to the entire population. In fact this technology is by far the best hope for fighting the pandemics currently rampaging across the planet, such as HIV/AIDS. Sure you could engineer a killer virus, and let it go. Someone may well do so. But then, someone could take smallpox out of a lab tomorrow and cause millions of deaths. As I explained before, this technology is no more dangerous than stuff we already use on a daily basis. There are no 'huge risks', other than the risk that governments restrict the development of this vital technology.

There are indeed people who fear that 'Genetic engineering may have unleashed an uncontrollable, self-amplifying process of horizontal gene transfer and recombination that can sweep across the whole of the living world, with the potential indeed, of creating viruses and bacteria more virulent than nature's worst. It is time we call a halt to all releases of GMOs and to make sure that further research takes place only under strictly contained conditions.' [1] But they are misguided. If you read the article[1] you will notice that the writer blames, among other things, the increase in antibiotic resistant diseases to genetic engineering. Antibiotic resistance genes were not created in laboratories; they were evolved by organisms in the environment. These genes are already out in the environment, outnumbering their lab-bound counterparts by billions to one, as are the genes for everything else that goes into 'genetically modified organisms'. There is no way that anything we do in labs can affect the proliferation of antibiotic resistance in wild bacterial and viral populations, unless we are actively tying to, and in that case, all research is going to combat antibiotic resistance. Restriction, again, would be highly detrimental to the fight against disease.

Sure, putting some genes in the wrong place could create problems, but even the highest profile case; the damage to the Monarch Butterfly population in the US allegedly due to engineered crops[2], turns out not to be a problem after all[3].

We do need to be careful with the technology in its early stages, but the 'huge risks' are, as with any new technology in our mostly anti-technology society, rather less huge than you make out.

You assume all dangers are known ahead of time. They are not.

Indeed I do not claim to know all dangers ahead of time, but we have been messing around with the genetic code of bacteria and viruses for a very long time and are well aware of the risks. This is the only area really where something can go horribly wrong; engineering people poses no widespread risk at all (see above). I will state again; we already deal with far more dangerous stuff on a daily basis, and while in the future there may well be problems that arise once the technology is out of the lab, the added scrutiny afforded to this technology will always limit the damage they can do, and we should be able to rectify any problems that arise.

Preventing the use of the technology 'because there might be dangers out there that we dont know about' is as daft as restricting the development of all new drugs because one of them 'might be another thalidomide'.

Sure, if we chose the most healthy person in the world and copied theirs verbatim, we *might* end up with a healthy set of DNA. Of course, we can't build 2-stranded DNA, so we would just have to make both strands and hope they combined properly.

Every person in the world (without exception) carries recessive genetic disorders. You are likely to have 35 of them (average for a normal human). They wont matter unless you meet and breed with someone who has one of the same 35 you do, then your offspring have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the disease. There is no such thing as a 'healthy set of DNA', and as I said before, this is not a prerequisite for safe genetic engineering.

I don't know where you got the idea that we can't create double stranded DNA. It would be absolutely impossible to produce (randomly) the complimentary strand to the 3 billion bases long human genome. All you need to do is add in a supply of nucleotides and the same DNA polymerase enzymes that are copying DNA in your cells right now, and you get your complementary strand. We do this all the time; its how they do DNA fingerprinting for example, by copying and recopying to amplify up a small piece of DNA to a usable amount.

Yes, it is. There are no magic bullets, not even molecular technology.

Allow me to rephrase; you can rule out stuff like transmutation of elements and imaging of sub atomic particles (without a really big particle accelerator) or violation of conservation of energy. But in terms of using molecular engineering to alter our genetic code, you really cannot rule out anything. Look at the diversity of life on this planet; that was all produced by non-sentient molecular replicators. Imagine what we can do when we apply our intellect to our own evolution.

People have ruled out future technology as being impossible for a long time now (e.g. flight, satellites, antibiotics, computing). It may be nearer or father away than you think, but it is never safe to rule out any form of future technology. unless it violates some concrete law of physics (and even then, dont be too sure).

The human ear was not pure genetic manipulation. It was the implantation of human cells into a mouse, along with a construct to help grow the tissue...Incorrect. You would also have to have the developmental environment and tissue that was not yet fully formed.

You are correct in asserting that this is how the ear was grown, but the precedure still involved some considerable genetic manipulation of the mouse and ear tissue to get it to work. We do not nearly have the technology yet to do this by inserting genes for 'ear' into the mouse and turning them on in specific places, just as we do not have the technology to insert the genes for 'gills' into humans and turn them on. But this will be possible at some point. The developmental environment needed for any tissue to grow is controlled by chemical factors and Hox genes (I had a lecture on them yesterday). We can already identify chemicals and genes alike, synthesising them and putting them into cells would be a piece of cake...given the right delivery vectors (may be as simple as a needle). No tissue needs to be grafted on, just a complete sample of all the required genetic information to be inserted into every cell. Therein lies the problem; it will be extremely hard to determine all the required genes for 'gills' and which of the developmental factors are necessary. That’s why I don’t envisage it happening for a very long time. But it will one day be possible.

Hope you find this informative.

[1] http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews9-10.php
[2] http://www.checkbiotech.org/blocks/dsp_document.cfm?doc_id=83
[3] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0910_wiremonarchs.html

Spartan117_RulerOfAll']just think we could have super soldiers!!!! :sniper:
We already have those. They're called "special operations forces." :)

Realistic Thinkers']I justified my points with explanation; perhaps you could do the same? Far from being naive I am well aware of the risks that are inherent in any form of molecular technology. It is my personal ambition to go into the field when I graduate (hopefully BSc in Natural Sciences followed by MSc in Molecular and Nanotechnology), and as such my knowledge of the field is considerable.

When you actually start getting into your college studies, you will most likely become less naive. I promise.

Realistic Thinkers']The top thinkers in the field are indeed well aware that there are risks, but are, I'm sure, rather fed up of people overstating them.

And any credible scientist is just as fed up with people like you understating them.

Realistic Thinkers']Assuming we have the technology to screen a persons entire genome, find the bad bits and repair them, and add in exciting extra bits at will, anything that goes wrong with those bits can be easily identified (by the same screening technology) and easily repaired (by the same vectors that put them there in the first place).

This assumption requires that we have full understanding of the process, something very unlikely to ever happen.

Realistic Thinkers']As I explained before, this technology is no more dangerous than stuff we already use on a daily basis.

...which is a very silly and naive claim. The reason the things we use on a daily basis are safe is the fact that we have used them, we understand them fairly well.

Realistic Thinkers']There are no 'huge risks', other than the risk that governments restrict the development of this vital technology.

Again, a very naive view. There should always be restrictions on new, potentially dangerous research. Notice that I said restrictions, not banning. Why? Because we don't want the bad things to happen.

Realistic Thinkers']There are indeed people who fear that 'Genetic engineering may have unleashed an uncontrollable, self-amplifying process of horizontal gene transfer and recombination that can sweep across the whole of the living world, with the potential indeed, of creating viruses and bacteria more virulent than nature's worst. It is time we call a halt to all releases of GMOs and to make sure that further research takes place only under strictly contained conditions.'

This is, quite obviously, an overstatemnt of the possible outcomes.

Of course, I assume you are aware that genetic engineering techniques do use recombinant viruses. Sure, we remove what we think are the dangerous parts of the virus, but we don't fully understand the processes and are well aware that mutations happen in genetic codes.

Realistic Thinkers']We do need to be careful with the technology in its early stages, but the 'huge risks' are, as with any new technology in our mostly anti-technology society, rather less huge than you make out.

I haven't made the risks out to be anything. I have simply refuted your statement that there are none as silly, and very naive.

Realistic Thinkers']engineering people poses no widespread risk at all (see above).

And this is clearly an understatement of the possible risks. Nothing you have said clearly demonstrates "no widespread risk at all."

Realistic Thinkers']Preventing the use of the technology 'because there might be dangers out there that we dont know about' is as daft as restricting the development of all new drugs because one of them 'might be another thalidomide'.

I didn't say we should prevent use of the technology. I simply pointed out that your over-optimism is just as dangerous as being too cautious.

Realistic Thinkers']Every person in the world (without exception) carries recessive genetic disorders. You are likely to have 35 of them (average for a normal human). They wont matter unless you meet and breed with someone who has one of the same 35 you do, then your offspring have a 1 in 4 chance of getting the disease. There is no such thing as a 'healthy set of DNA', and as I said before, this is not a prerequisite for safe genetic engineering.

Funny, since you were the one who said we could create a perfect set of DNA right now.

Realistic Thinkers']I don't know where you got the idea that we can't create double stranded DNA. It would be absolutely impossible to produce (randomly) the complimentary strand to the 3 billion bases long human genome. All you need to do is add in a supply of nucleotides and the same DNA polymerase enzymes that are copying DNA in your cells right now, and you get your complementary strand. We do this all the time; its how they do DNA fingerprinting for example, by copying and recopying to amplify up a small piece of DNA to a usable amount.

I know you haven't gotten into the high level stuff yet, so I'll be gentle. It isn't nearly as simple as you think. When we do PCR, we are talking about small strands, and even those recombine incorrectly. Do you know how the process works? We put RNA into a machine along with reverse transcriptase. The reverse transcriptase copies the RNA into a double-stranded DNA. Of course, this isn't enough for us to measure. So we then put in DNA polymerase and a few other enzymes. We heat this up so that the two opposite DNA strands are pulled apart. Each is replicated separately. Then, we cool the mixture down. We hope that the two strands line up properly and reanneal. The longer the chain, the less likely that this will occur.

As far as "making double-stranded DNA from scratch", we cannot do it. We can make two separate complementary chains of nucleotides (a small one anyways) through chemical processes and then subject them to the process above, but again, it doesn't work perfectly.

Realistic Thinkers']Allow me to rephrase; you can rule out stuff like transmutation of elements and imaging of sub atomic particles (without a really big particle accelerator) or violation of conservation of energy. But in terms of using molecular engineering to alter our genetic code, you really cannot rule out anything. Look at the diversity of life on this planet; that was all produced by non-sentient molecular replicators. Imagine what we can do when we apply our intellect to our own evolution.

I can't rule out the possibility that my dog might suddenly sprout wings and fly away, but I can rule it as pretty damn improbable.

Realistic Thinkers']You are correct in asserting that this is how the ear was grown.

Then try not to overstate its relation to genetic engineering. People like you, who overstate things, simply make it harder on those of us in the scientific community by over-hyping.

Realistic Thinkers']The developmental environment needed for any tissue to grow is controlled by chemical factors and Hox genes (I had a lecture on them yesterday).

And all sorts of things (many as-yet undiscovered). Do not purport to know all there is to know about a process from a few lectures.

Realistic Thinkers']No tissue needs to be grafted on, just a complete sample of all the required genetic information to be inserted into every cell.

Oh yeah, "just" that, as well as all the necessary environmental factors mentioned above, and any factors as-yet unidentified and....

Realistic Thinkers']Hope you find this informative.

[1] http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews9-10.php
[2] http://www.checkbiotech.org/blocks/dsp_document.cfm?doc_id=83
[3] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0910_wiremonarchs.html

Thanks, but I've read much more in-depth information.

people have been altering themselves for years with steroids, comsetic surgery, etc. that would be just one step ahead. not much difference. the same vain people looking to be perfect.


Heh, Look how that turned out for those people. Steroids alone shrink... well you know, and something as easy as slapping in a bag of silicon gel used to get screwed up all the time. Something like this is a little more complex. How complex you ask? Here are the first thousand lines of code to the human genome

First THOUSAND lines of the human genome (http://www.sacred-texts.com/dna/hgp011k.htm)

Something like genetic immunities would only cause thge propogation of diseases that none are immune to, not the elimination of disease such as with antibiotic resistant virus's now.

Letting people experiment wiht genetics is the equivolent of giving a monkey a gun. And while the results may not be immediate, alterations will propogate through breeding. Natural evolution is a slow process for a reason it allows time to compensate for ecological changes across a large spectrum.

Genetic manipulation would also meandless death or prolonged life, this means less food, the need for greater living areas, and any number of other issues. Sometimes the he alternative to correcting something terrible is even worse.

Something like genetic immunities would only cause thge propogation of diseases that none are immune to, not the elimination of disease such as with antibiotic resistant virus's now.

Psssst. Antibiotics never have, and never will do anything to viruses.

Genetic manipulation would also meandless death or prolonged life, this means less food, the need for greater living areas, and any number of other issues. Sometimes the he alternative to correcting something terrible is even worse.

On the contrary. Unregulated genetic manipulation would lead to problems. Genetic manipulation to cure disease would be quite useful.

"Differently-abled?" What in the world does that mean?

If you can't walk but you use a wheelchair, you're a cripple.
If you can't walk but you can fly, you're differently abled.

Something like genetic immunities would only cause thge propogation of diseases that none are immune to, not the elimination of disease such as with antibiotic resistant virus's now.

Actually viral succeptability is a two way street. As viruses are exchanged between animals and people they go through mutations to enable them to survive in humans. First humans are totally immune to the virus, then people can be made sick by direct contact with the sick animals, then the virus might undergo a mutation that makes it plague material hopping from person to person. After that it usually either dies out because it killed all potential carriers, or it becomes milder as only the less lethal strains incubate long enough to be transmited.

If people tinker with their genetic code in many different ways then it would be almost impossible to wipe people out with a plague because there would always be a population that the virus finds just too wierd to prey upon. And if modification happens constantly then human evolution would be too fast (IE every generation would be too different from the last) for the viral mutations to keep pace.

Genetic manipulation would also meandless death or prolonged life, this means less food, the need for greater living areas, and any number of other issues. Sometimes the he alternative to correcting something terrible is even worse.

On the other hand, we could manipulate the genome so that people don't reach sexual maturity until they're about 25 years old, and women only menstruate once a year. That would cut down on the population growth rates and the pre-marital sex issue. Not to mention domestic strife.

If birth rates decline too much, no problem, modify it back :)

How many people in this discussion are aware of epigentic traits?

To Dempublicents1:

I have decided not use the quote function in this response, as the little boxes would take up an awful lot of space.

I am saddened to see that you have failed to attempt to refute any of the points I made (other than with a horribly flawed description of PCR), and that you continue to assume that I am some sort of wide-eyed futurist. Merely repeating 'You're very naive' does little for your appeal and credibility. And please don’t make the assumption that I am like every other person who posts to message boards with the immortal 'im smart and i know what im tlaking about becos im in college!!!1'. That would be very...naive of you.

I have not understated the risks of anything I have discussed. Are you a creditable scientist able to comment on the risks involved? Given that you did not believe it was possible to create double stranded DNA, I doubt it. I am well aware how the polymerase chain reaction works, and it does not involve any re-annealing of separate DNA strands.

PCR, Simple version:
-Take DNA fragment to be copied.
-Place DNA fragment in a mixture containing variously RNA primase, RNA primers, DNA polymerase complexes, stabilising enzymes, lots of nucleotides and a bunch of other stuff I won’t bore you with here.
-Heat to 95 degrees to separate strands.
-Cool to 50 degrees; RNA primase anneals RNA primers to the separate strands of DNA,
-Heat to 72 degrees. DNA polymerase enzymes use free nucleotides to build complementary strands. RNA primers excised and replaced with DNA.
-Heat to 95 degrees to repeat process, or cool to room temperature to keep your nice, perfectly annealed complementary strands.

Note that the complementary strands are built next to the template strands of DNA; each new nucleotide is attached immediately by Watson-Crick base pairing and bonding along the phosphate backbone, and mistakes are usually corrected by the polymerase complexes proof reading ability. One strand is simply a complementary copy of the other, so even though normally only one strand has usable information it doesn’t matter which strand you have to copy, you always end up with usable DNA. Whether you start with DNA or RNA doesn’t really matter, if you have DNA polymerase you'll end up with double stranded DNA in the end. You wouldn’t try to PCR up many copies of RNA (using RNA polymerase), as it’s not as temperature stable as DNA. [EDIT] Try typing 'polymerase chain reaction flash' into google for some simple, animated movies of this procedure.

It is possible to engineer single strands of DNA one nucleotide at a time. This is done already, though it is tough and takes time, and isn't done for long strands. We could do it for an entire genome, but it would take the thousands of years I stipulated. Subjecting one of these single strands to the process above would yield many copies of double stranded DNA, all perfectly complementary to each other, though not all identical, as some errors do creep in during the process; after 35 generations there may be one error in every 300 bases. Of course you could do it only once and get one (nearly) perfect copy. The only modification to the process is that you wouldn't need to do the first heating procedure, as you only have one strand.

Your atrociously bad description of the process along with the accompanying insult to my intelligence is not appreciated.

There are risks involved in this technology, but where I stated that these risks do not apply they do not apply, as I took great pains to explain. I never stated that there was no risk, as you claim, which, coupled with your lack of providing any form of reasoned argument, makes it rather hard for you to have refuted this claim.

Again, this technology is not more dangerous than anything we already use on a daily basis, because we ALREADY use it on a daily basis. Viruses have been engineered for years now. In 2001 some Australian researchers working on a mouse contraceptive accidentally produced a virus that had a 100% infection rate and killed everything it infected (fortunately only mice).[1] Similar killer viruses could be produced with ease in many labs right now. Viruses and bacteria are engineered in a building just 500m from where I'm sitting. Any one of these micro-organisms could cause untold disaster if they got out into the ecosystem, and were able to survive. Thus far, we have not seen a single incidence of engineered organisms escaping from a lab and causing widespread damage. The risks involved are known, and are compensated for, which is what makes me feel justified in asserting that this technology is no more dangerous than stuff we already use.

You missed the point I was trying to make regarding the issue of this technology. If we had the technology to the kind of advanced engineering I discussed, then we would also have the technology to fix any problems we create. The first kind of technology that will BE developed will be the kind for fixing errors that occur naturally. You can believe that it will never be possible if you want, you would not be alone by any means. I personally give it a 50/50 chance of advanced engineering showing up in my lifetime, and unless I live to several hundred years old, zero chance of seeing the complete process understood. Assuming some form of technological civilisation continues to persist for the next few thousand years the probability that we will eventually understand everything there is to understand about how human genetics work is exactly 1. The iterative process of technological advance and the known limits to the operation of molecular machinery (just look at all the biological stuff that already exists) make this a certainty.

Understanding the complete process is not necessary for safe genetic engineering. Just as you do not need to know and understand the subatomic physics and molecular interaction of every part of a car and its fuel source to make a very safe car, so you do not need to know absolutely everything about a cell to safely engineer it. Total knowledge is desirable, but will only be obtainable through many decades (or centuries) of research.

Note that I did not advocate restriction-free development of this technology. You even QUOTED me as saying we need to be careful with it. I merely was suggesting that it would not be in our best interests if governments were to close certain avenues of research. I did not suggest for a moment that these avenues of research should be pursued without consideration of the risks involved, only that they should all be pursued. And I didn’t say that you advocated banning them either, though you did allude to a '*huge*' risk.

The first article I quoted was intended to convey the point that you can overstate the risk involved. Yes engineered bacteria and viruses could kill us all. We could make one that could do it tomorrow. But for one to be produced by accident and cause widespread damage is very, very improbable. Yes mutations happen, but no mutation is ever going to change (say) a retrovirus to improve muscle tissue density into one which is going to kill you. Added to the fact that such a virus would not be designed to replicate, it would just deliver its payload as a vector and disintegrate, the risk of widespread human fatality is 0 from this kind of human genetic engineering. And no, the hypothesised virus cannot mutate up the ability to replicate, because it doesn’t carry any of the genes required to do so. A virus that makes you ill could well mutate into one that kills you, but this kind of engineering is not going to be using any virus that could make you ill. If you know of some hard science suggesting how this technology can cause the problems to which you allude, I suggest you share you knowledge with us.

You do seem to know that we use viruses as vectors. However your statement that 'we remove what we think are the dangerous parts of the virus, but we don't fully understand the processes' is absolute rubbish. Viral genomes are tiny. We know exactly what each part of them does and we remove EVERYTHING apart from the copying mechanism. Because we need to keep a certain molecular weight of RNA in the virus we fill up everything that isn’t our desired material with junk. And usually we don’t do that, as engineers jump for joy at having more space to play with.

On to your perfect set of DNA point. I never said we could create 'a perfect set of DNA'. I said we could create a 'normal healthy human genome'; quoted from Jakonidom. I thought about bringing up the 35 recessive mutations back then, but decided it would complicate the issue. You have missed the point I later made that a 'normal healthy human genome' HAS 35 mutations in it.

The argument about your dog is a wonderful example of the straw man fallacy[2]. This is a great way not to win debates, just so as you know.

I did not mean to overstate the ear on a mouse as an example of genetic engineering. I merely presented it in response to your assertion that you could not grow 'an organ or gills'. Yes some tissue had to be grafted there, but some pretty sophisticated engineering was required on both the tissue and the mouse to get it to work. I intended this as an example of what our fledgling technology can do now. When we can do this sort of simple demo without tissue graft (maybe 5-20yrs time) will you believe then?

I did not purport to know everything about developmental biology by a long way. I know almost nothing about the 'chemical factors' I mentioned, and only a little more about Hox genes. What I do know is that they are what controls the development of tissue types. Simulate the environment and stimulate the cell and you can grow any tissue you want. How do you think they made that ear?

Criticising my statement 'No tissue needs to be grafted on, just a complete sample of all the required genetic information to be inserted into every cell.' is just ridiculous. Did you bother to read the surrounding sentences? Or do you just find it more fun to take things out of context and attack them? Despite the fact that the statement you are criticising is true, you decided to critique it because I made it sound too easy, despite my stating that this would be 'extremely hard' in the very next sentence! Yes you need the chemical factors for development too, but look! I mentioned them in the previous sentence! And guess what usually controls those chemical factors? Why yes! It’s the DNA!

Which part of the scientific community are you in, exactly? It can’t be an area relevant to this discussion, as I'm sure you wouldn’t have made such a woefully poor showing in your attempt to explain the polymerase chain reaction. Or is your 'us' just referring to people in general? As far as I'm aware, over-hyping is an absolutely vital part of securing adequate funding for research, and it is in part due to the very successful hyping of the biological sciences in recent years that biology departments command the budgets they do. Over hyping never did anyone any harm, unless you're in physics or chemistry and you're miffed about losing your funding :rolleyes:

[EDIT] And I wasn’t over hyping. Everything I have posted is accurate, though I wish I hadn’t used the mouse ear as an example, given that you seem to have misunderstood what I intended by it. Much of the detail behind what I've posted is more complicated, but that doesn’t make my simple statements and explanations as to what is possible and why, wrong. Somewhere along the line you have to decide how much detail you want to include, and I think I've included ample for a public forum such as this. You cannot seriously expect me to be willing and able to write out the equivalent of hundreds of research papers on a public forum. I've been as verbose as I can, but if you want further detail, go look it up for yourself. It's all out there.

I’m sure you have read many far more in-depth articles than the ones I posted links too, but it sure as hell doesn’t show. I would not dream of citing these pages in a serious paper, they are simply the results of 30 seconds on google to find simple material to illustrate my points. I would not cite proper research papers on a forum like this either, as to the layman (and even the scientist) they are often horrendously dull.

My apologies if I come over as snappy or sarcastic in this post. Possibly if you had done anything other than attack me personally, or provided some coherent and detailed arguments other than 'you are wrong because it’s more complicated than that', I might respect your opinion more. Possibly explaining why it's more complicated or suggesting stuff I haven’t taken into consideration (you have done neither) would be a good idea.

If you are going to post a reply to this, please read it all and think about it first. It is tiresome to have to deal with so many inaccurate assertions in so small a space of time. I hope to see some intelligent contribution from you in the future.

[1] http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn311
[2] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Realistic Thinkers']
I have not understated the risks of anything I have discussed. Are you a creditable scientist able to comment on the risks involved?

Yes. The risks are the same that you have supposedly "debunked", as well as things we may or may not have yet discovered. You are right to downplay these risks, as they are very unlikely, especially with controls. However, they are not impossible, and to state, as you have more than once, that the "probability is 0" is understating them. If there were no risks, there would be no need to regulate or control it.

Realistic Thinkers']Given that you did not believe it was possible to create double stranded DNA, I doubt it.

And I was correct. From scratch, we can create a single-strand of DNA, as you admit below. After that, we must use enzymes, the action of which we do not fully understand, to copy it, and hope that they produce a proper complementary copy.

Realistic Thinkers']I am well aware how the polymerase chain reaction works, and it does not involve any re-annealing of separate DNA strands.

You are correct that the entire strands do not have to reanneal. I was incorrect in stating that (hey, it's finals week, give me a break).

However, the primers do, as you point out, have to anneal onto the DNA. They do not always do so properly. You also failed to mention the fact that there are no enzymes included in a PCR reaction for checking errors, which would lead to a much larger number of errors in the copied DNA. Of course, we only do PCR with short segments, usually no longer than about 500 base pairs, so it isn't usually a problem.

Realistic Thinkers']each new nucleotide is attached immediately by Watson-Crick base pairing and bonding along the phosphate backbone, and mistakes are usually corrected by the polymerase complexes proof reading ability.

All of the proofreading enzymes are not included in a PCR reaction. DNA polymerase has *some* ability to proof read, but does not complete all of it.

Realistic Thinkers']One strand is simply a complementary copy of the other, so even though normally only one strand has usable information it doesn’t matter which strand you have to copy, you always end up with usable DNA. Whether you start with DNA or RNA doesn’t really matter, if you have DNA polymerase you'll end up with double stranded DNA in the end. You wouldn’t try to PCR up many copies of RNA (using RNA polymerase), as it’s not as temperature stable as DNA.

We also don't have a Taq RNA polymerase that I am aware of, so the temperature would destroy the enzymes themselves.

Realistic Thinkers'][EDIT] Try typing 'polymerase chain reaction flash' into google for some simple, animated movies of this procedure.

No thanks, I use the procedure on a regular basis.

Realistic Thinkers']It is possible to engineer single strands of DNA one nucleotide at a time. This is done already, though it is tough and takes time, and isn't done for long strands. We could do it for an entire genome, but it would take the thousands of years I stipulated.

Unlikely, there would be too many mistakes in the middle. The procedure also requires easy access of the nucleotides to the end of the chain, which would become less and less likely as the chain itself got longer.

Realistic Thinkers']There are risks involved in this technology, but where I stated that these risks do not apply they do not apply, as I took great pains to explain. I never stated that there was no risk, as you claim, which, coupled with your lack of providing any form of reasoned argument, makes it rather hard for you to have refuted this claim.

"0 probability" != no risk?????

Realistic Thinkers']Again, this technology is not more dangerous than anything we already use on a daily basis, because we ALREADY use it on a daily basis.

We do not ALREADY inject the viruses we engineer into human beings. Many of those we have tried have had disastrous results. Have you read about the SCIDS patients?

Realistic Thinkers']The risks involved are known, and are compensated for, which is what makes me feel justified in asserting that this technology is no more dangerous than stuff we already use.

All risks are never known. And widespread use of such viruses in humans would add all new variables to the equation.

Realistic Thinkers']You missed the point I was trying to make regarding the issue of this technology. If we had the technology to the kind of advanced engineering I discussed, then we would also have the technology to fix any problems we create.

I didn't miss the point, I just pointed out how naive it is. It makes sense, sure, until you start thinking about just how unpredictable biology is.

Realistic Thinkers']Assuming some form of technological civilisation continues to persist for the next few thousand years the probability that we will eventually understand everything there is to understand about how human genetics work is exactly 1.

And you claim you aren't naive? What a silly thing to say. Science aspires to fully understand things, but we realize that we will never actually get there. We just keep moving closer and closer.

Realistic Thinkers']Understanding the complete process is not necessary for safe genetic engineering. Just as you do not need to know and understand the subatomic physics and molecular interaction of every part of a car and its fuel source to make a very safe car, so you do not need to know absolutely everything about a cell to safely engineer it.

You do for the kind of risk-free treatments you seem to be pushing.

Realistic Thinkers']And I didn’t say that you advocated banning them either, though you did allude to a '*huge*' risk.

There are huge risks in many technologies that should be pursued. The point is not to downplay these risks, and not to overhype the benefits to the community. My field has been overhyped to the point that nobody wants to hear it anymore and people are starting to yell "Why don't you have any results yet!!??!??!?" This is highly detrimental to the safe progression of the technology.

Realistic Thinkers']The first article I quoted was intended to convey the point that you can overstate the risk involved. Yes engineered bacteria and viruses could kill us all. We could make one that could do it tomorrow. But for one to be produced by accident and cause widespread damage is very, very improbable.

...which is why I pointed out that it was an overstatement. It is possible, but improbable, especially with controls. It is, however, possible, and any attempt to state otherwise is just as counterproductive.

Realistic Thinkers']Yes mutations happen, but no mutation is ever going to change (say) a retrovirus to improve muscle tissue density into one which is going to kill you.

Incorrect. Such a mutation would be unlikely, but not impossible. Suppose you made your muscle stronger by altering a gene. Suppose that a single point mutation turned on an oncogene (very possible). Oops! You're developing cancer!

Suppose that the gene you were altering, if not strictly controlled, could cause heart problems. It mutates. Oops! You just had a heart attack!

Realistic Thinkers'] Added to the fact that such a virus would not be designed to replicate, it would just deliver its payload as a vector and disintegrate, the risk of widespread human fatality is 0 from this kind of human genetic engineering. And no, the hypothesised virus cannot mutate up the ability to replicate, because it doesn’t carry any of the genes required to do so.

It would not be designed to replicate, but could find a way to do so. For instance, your cells could be infected with another virus that *does* have the ability to replicate and the two could combine. Improbable? Yes. Impossible? No. The more you learn about biology, the more you will see that almost nothing has a probability of 0 when it comes to life.

Realistic Thinkers']You do seem to know that we use viruses as vectors. However your statement that 'we remove what we think are the dangerous parts of the virus, but we don't fully understand the processes' is absolute rubbish. Viral genomes are tiny. We know exactly what each part of them does and we remove EVERYTHING apart from the copying mechanism. Because we need to keep a certain molecular weight of RNA in the virus we fill up everything that isn’t our desired material with junk. And usually we don’t do that, as engineers jump for joy at having more space to play with.

Any statement that we "fully understand the process" is actually rubbish. Any credible scientist would never claim to fully understand it, as there are always new things we could discover. There are always things that happen which are as-yet unexplained. We have a good understanding (we think), yes. But we do not have a full understanding, and to state otherwise would be very irresponsible.

Realistic Thinkers']The argument about your dog is a wonderful example of the straw man fallacy[2]. This is a great way not to win debates, just so as you know.

It isn't a straw man fallacy. You can never state, especially in science, that the probability of being wrong is 0. Things may be highly, highly unlikely, but we can not prove them to be impossible. Even if we try it 1000 times, we might get new results on the 1001th try, and we must acknowledge that fact to be honest.

Realistic Thinkers']I did not mean to overstate the ear on a mouse as an example of genetic engineering. I merely presented it in response to your assertion that you could not grow 'an organ or gills'.

I didn't state that you could not grow and organ or gills. I stated that you could not do so purely through genetic engineering.

Realistic Thinkers']Yes some tissue had to be grafted there, but some pretty sophisticated engineering was required on both the tissue and the mouse to get it to work.

Yes, I know. Tissue engineering is my field.

Realistic Thinkers']I did not purport to know everything about developmental biology by a long way. I know almost nothing about the 'chemical factors' I mentioned, and only a little more about Hox genes. What I do know is that they are what controls the development of tissue types. Simulate the environment and stimulate the cell and you can grow any tissue you want. How do you think they made that ear?

To make that ear, they provided human cells and a construct to grow on, as I pointed out before (they were also growing it in athymic mice, I believe, but that is another matter).

Realistic Thinkers']Criticising my statement 'No tissue needs to be grafted on, just a complete sample of all the required genetic information to be inserted into every cell.' is just ridiculous.

Because the statement itself is ridiculous.

Realistic Thinkers']Yes you need the chemical factors for development too, but look! I mentioned them in the previous sentence! And guess what usually controls those chemical factors? Why yes! It’s the DNA!

It is a very rare occurrence that a process is completely controlled by the cells involved in it. Many, and in some processes, even most, of the chemical factors are controlled by cells very far removed from the ones in question.

Realistic Thinkers']Which part of the scientific community are you in, exactly?

Bioengineering.

Realistic Thinkers']As far as I'm aware, over-hyping is an absolutely vital part of securing adequate funding for research, and it is in part due to the very successful hyping of the biological sciences in recent years that biology departments command the budgets they do.

It is also for this reason that viable technologies are losing funding. The hype promised incredibly quick, miraculous results. The reality is very different. Investors get upset and want results now. The funding stops. People who overhype are a huge detriment to the scientific community as a whole, both its funding and especially its detriment. If you would like to overhype things, go ahead, welcome to being part of the problem.

Realistic Thinkers'][EDIT] And I wasn’t over hyping. Everything I have posted is accurate,

Every time you have said "0 probability", you were overhyping. Your statement that we will ever fully understand the processes involved is ludicrous and an extreme overhype of what the scientific method entails. Your assertion that it will definitely be possible to control all of these traits is equally ludicrous. It may be possible, but we won't know until we get there.

Realistic Thinkers']I’m sure you have read many far more in-depth articles than the ones I posted links too, but it sure as hell doesn’t show. I would not dream of citing these pages in a serious paper, they are simply the results of 30 seconds on google to find simple material to illustrate my points. I would not cite proper research papers on a forum like this either, as to the layman (and even the scientist) they are often horrendously dull.

If you will not cite actual papers, then do not purport to be having a scientific discussion.

Realistic Thinkers'] Possibly if you had done anything other than attack me personally,

Demonstrate an attack. I am not the one engaging in personal attacks here.

Realistic Thinkers'] Possibly explaining why it's more complicated or suggesting stuff I haven’t taken into consideration (you have done neither) would be a good idea.

I don't have to suggest things you haven't taken into consideration. You have already brought up many of the possible problems and then naively assigned them a probability of 0, something no biologist should ever do.

Sorry for the delay in reply, I've had a busy weekend. Thank you for a more constructive post. I hope it didn’t take too much of a toll on your finals week.

Again, I won't quote you with the quote function, as I really don't like the way the quote thing looks.

Just to clarify, I have stated only twice that something has a probability of 0 (or no risk). I assigned this probability to the chance that altering the genetic makeup of a single human being (that’s what this thread is about after all) could cause widespread human fatalities. Allow me to explain my reasoning. As you have pointed out (just as I did) engineering a person could go wrong and give them cancer, or cause a heart attack, or any number of things, the worst end result of which would be to kill the person involved. When I suggested that mutation would not turn a vector designed to improve muscle tissue density into one that could kill you, I meant one that would rapidly and virulently attack you (apologies for confusion). Fortunately this is rather unlikely, particularly with well tested vectors. You suggest that the formation of a recombinant virus from a wild virus and an engineering vector could in theory, despite its infinitesimal possibility, produce something dangerous and infectious. But our vector isn’t likely to lend a wild virus the ability to be more deadly, as the vector will be carrying genetic material that will have been carefully tested for safety prior to use on humans, and the probability of rapid, lethal side effects in a recombinant virus will be extremely low. The vector will not lend the virus the ability to be more infectious as it won’t have any of the genes necessary for replication and propagation. We can conclude that the probability of forming a lethal, infectious virus from this already unlikely recombination event is very, very small. For the reasons given above, it is very unlikely that this virus, even if it formed, would be lethal to people who get infected in a very short space of time. Therefore we would have time to isolate and treat people who are infected, and assuming we had the technology to create our advanced engineering vector in the first place, we will probably have the technology to fight off any potential mutant virus.

If you multiply together the approximate probabilities of all the extremely unlikely events required to create, by accident, a virus that could cause widespread human fatalities, any calculator you use will need to run to an awful lot of decimal places to display the result at all. This is as near to zero as makes no odds in my book. The number of trials of all the different engineering vectors likely to be used before we develop something to which even this tiny risk of recombination does not ably may run in to the tens of thousands at most. Given that the likelihood of the event is many, many orders of magnitude below the total numbers of trials to be carried out, the probability that this will happen is effectively zero.

You can assign a probability of zero to something if, even with a very large number of trials run until the end of the material universe (proton decay in approx 10^40yrs time), you still would not expect it to happen (finite number of trials, multiplied by an infinitesimal probability). As above, even if the probability of this event is not exactly zero (e.g. 10^-100), it is as near to zero as makes no odds.

And again, even if we do throw up a nasty virus, despite the infinitesimal probability, a further set of very low probability events (such as we let the infected person go without noticing, the virus spreads too rapidly to contain, the virus cannot be fought with the same technology we used to accidentally create it) have to be fulfilled. Given the paranoia surrounding this technology, and the strict safety legislation likely to surround any use of it in this fashion, I feel entirely happy in assigning a probability of 0 to this event.

That is not to say that genetic modification will never throw up a lethal virus or bacterium that will cause widespread loss of life. It is quite possible that someone somewhere will mess something up and let something unintendedly lethal out of the lab. But this isn’t going to happen from altering the genetic code of an individual human being (particularly given the level of technology we would need before we can do that).

I’ve just noticed that I also suggested that there would be no risk involved in using molecular technology to eliminate a theorised ‘super fly’ created by the same technology (my first post). I still don’t think there would be any risk involved if the technology was used properly. Decent targeting to specific proteins or genome sequences would give a non replicating, anti-fly vector the same chance of causing problems as the vector discussed above, i.e. very little. Given that we would know exactly what inserts went in to make the ‘super fly’, we could target those inserts with no risk to anything else. Even if we a recombinant virus were to arise, it wouldn’t be any more dangerous than any other virus that currently kills flies.

I have not tried to downplay any of the risks involved in this technology (though I may inadvertently have done so), nor have I suggested that it go unregulated (only that governments do not close avenues of research because they are deemed ‘too dangerous’). My enthusiasm for the technology does not preclude a healthy respect for the risks involved. I still think the greatest risk is that, fearing the improbable, we fail to achieve the possible. And I think you feel the same, as you agree that the risks are very small (your previous post, top paragraph). Even though you claim point mutations activating oncogenes as ‘very likely’ and cite the SCIDS patients as an example of where genetic engineering has had ‘disastrous results’, only 2 of the SCIDS patients developed leukaemia, and they ‘received a particularly high number of genetically modified stem cells’[1]. Given that this technology is in its infancy, extending paranoia about the current, ill defined risks into the future, when more will be known and we will be better able to combat these risks, is not constructive.

I still think that we use technology just as dangerous as genetic engineering, if not more so, all the time. There are lethal chemicals and diseases all over the planet subject to the same level of controls that potentially harmful genetic engineering vectors require. Yes we cannot know all the risks, but I never stated that we did. If we are doing all we can to combat all of the potential risks we can foresee, worrying about other risks that we cannot foresee is not worthwhile. You could justify not crossing the road because you might get hit by a car (it might happen). But if you can predict the risk of being hit by a car, and every other risk associated with crossing the road, and take action to reduce those risks (e.g. cross at a crossing), to still not cross the road because something you could not predict might happen is foolish (you made a similar argument in a thread on safe sex).

I still think that arguing that we cannot create double stranded DNA from scratch is odd. We have to use enzymes ‘the action of which we do not fully understand’ (according to you) to make single stranded DNA too. How come using them to make a complementary strand doesn’t count as making double stranded DNA? That seems like arguing that you can’t make a table ‘from scratch’ because you have to saw up the wood AND stick it together.

No worries about the PCR mistake, nobodies perfect. I didn’t know at the time that you were studying bioengineering; I suspected you were an anti-technology troll who had read something and not understood it properly. If I had known otherwise my response would not have been quite so scathing. Forums do not make for the most representative form of communication do they? I didn’t think the primers not annealing properly was a problem. They are just short chain oligonucleotides, surely if they don’t anneal properly they just drop off again? They are all excised from the finished molecule anyway, and mostly designer primers are used so you can be sure they will anneal.

As far as I’m aware you don’t ever get a non-complimentary copy from polymerase enzymes (unless you were using some dodgy ones). Taq polymerase lacks good proof-reading ability (though it has some), and any other proof reading enzymes would denature at the high temperatures, but I quoted the standard expected error (1 in 300 bases after 32-35 cycles) so I didn’t think I was understating anything. My bad on the Taq RNA polymerase (or lack thereof); my temperature stability point should have mentioned that the enzyme as well as the molecule is not temperature stable. Good job we don’t need to do it anyway.

My apologies if it sounded like I was patronising when I recommended PCR flash movies on google. Again, I didn’t know whether you knew what you were talking about at the time.

We do engineer strands of nucleotides one at a time; I believe you can send away to specialist labs for them, they’ll charge you an arm and a leg, and you get a population of molecules with the exact makeup you specified. The procedure is horrible by all accounts; you add a nucleotide, multiple-PCR up some samples (so you can crosscheck errors), then once you’ve confirmed you added the right nucleotide, you do it again. Hideous, but it works. It has a lot of problems, and is only really good for a few hundred nucleotide chains I think. I don’t think there’s any reason you couldn’t do it for a whole genome, (in segments anyway), other than the fact that the cost would be monumental, you would derive no benefit from doing so, and it would take thousands of years.

Regarding vector genomes, I was under the impression that common ones like lambda have been studied enough that we know exactly what each bit is for. They only have a small number of genes; by taking them out one at a time you can see what those genes do. Interdependence of genes means that even if we left in one of the genes that has a hand in making a viral vector deadly, it probably wouldn’t cause a problem. But as far as I’m aware we haven’t missed any.

I still don’t understand why you see my statement that 'No tissue needs to be grafted on, just a complete sample of all the required genetic information to be inserted into every cell’ as ridiculous. Sure it’s a gross simplification, but it’s much easier to type than: Given the correct vectors with good targeting technology, a good working knowledge of various human and nonhuman genomes, and the developmental triggers required for tissue development, we can fuse animal DNA with human DNA in such a fashion as to produce humans with gills, fur, tails or the ability to purr. This may be done to a zygote or blastocyst more easily than to a foetus or grown human, but given sufficiently sophisticated vector technology it is achievable at any stage of development. I hope this demonstrates that I understand the requirements for this to be possible (yes I’ve left a whole load more out, but I’m not going to type a thesis just to make a point), and my statement was a simple statement of those requirements. If we never meet those requirements then sure it won’t ever be possible, but I think we will meet them.

I can see how over hyping technology can have a detrimental effect on research funding. I had not considered that anyone would expect immediate and rapid progress towards future possibilities and withdraw funding if they were not met. I still don’t think there is any harm in saying ‘this is where we can be in 40 years time’, provided you couple it with a ‘this is what we can do by next year’. I imagine that people who stressed the future possibilities without mentioning to investors how long it was likely to take are the ones who lose out through over hyping. I do wish I’d never mentioned that dratted ear-on-a-mouse, but that’s the closest I’ve come to over hyping the significance of current research, and I didn’t intend it like that. I certainly don’t think there is any harm in me posting what may eventually be possible here, and nothing you have said makes me believe any of it is any less likely. I also do not understand how you can consider talking about future potential as over-hyping. The possibilities that future technology may afford us are what keeps people coming to science. The more people who get enthusiastic about those possibilities the better. I don’t think people who are enthusiastic about science are a detriment to the scientific community.

Much of the rest of the stuff we disagree on concerns the limits of what is achievable. Really, we are looking at this technology from exactly the same perspective. We both understand the risks and processes involved, and obviously both feel quite strongly about where the technology should go. You believe that we will never have resistance to all disease, immortality, or a complete knowledge of the workings of the human genome; I believe otherwise. Given long enough, I don’t think there is any problem the human race cannot crack. I don’t expect ANY of these technologies to be developed very soon, and I would be very surprised if genetic modification of humans was being done on a large scale within the next 50 years. But I would also be surprised if it wasn’t being done within the next 200 or so years. I imagine immortality may well be a lifestyle choice by the year 3000 (not that anyone would actually live for ever of course; you’d get bored after a few hundred years). And I see no reason why we will not eventually understand completely all of our sub-cellular processes. Just because it is very complicated, or very difficult, or very risky, doesn’t mean that it will never eventually be done (I think a few thousand years is a good guess for how long it will take). You think it’s ‘ludicrous’ to suggest that we will definitely be able to do all of this; I think it’s ludicrous to suggest that we wont be able to do it. I don’t think this belief is ‘naive’, and I think that anyone standing around today saying ‘we will never have resistance to all disease or complete understanding of this technology’ will, with hindsight, be classed among those people who objected to flight, spaceflight, computers, antibiotics etc for the same reasons. You said that ‘Science aspires to fully understand things, but we realize that we will never actually get there. We just keep moving closer and closer.’ Don’t you think complete understanding of human genetics could be another step in a greater process? To mark it as something we can never achieve seems a little premature.

This does not mean I disagree with your reasons for believing we cannot achieve these things. I completely understand your objections; I just do not see them as insurmountable obstacles. They will be tough to deal with I’m sure, but I think there is nothing we cannot achieve if we put our minds to it. You yourself stated that ‘almost nothing has a probability of 0 when it comes to life.’

On a final note, you said that ‘If you will not cite actual papers, then do not purport to be having a scientific discussion.’ How many scientists do you know who, in passing conversation, are able to cite papers to support a range of divers points? I’m sure it’s not many. Citing papers shouldn’t be necessary for us to discuss ideas on a forum like this; I notice you didn’t bother to even link to simple stuff. If you go around calling people naive, (‘Oh how very naive...You can't possibly be this naive’) belittling them, and insulting their intelligence (‘I know you haven't gotten into the high level stuff yet, so I'll be gentle’) I would call those personal attacks (‘Demonstrate an attack. I am not the one engaging in personal attacks here’-there you are). From what I’ve read of the rest of your posts in the forums though, you are as opinionated as I am, so I don’t hold it against you.

It seems that our position could be summarised thus: we both know a lot about this technology. I believe the risks are a lot lower than most people make out; you believe that there are potentially huge risks. I believe that there is very little we will not eventually be able to do in terms of molecular engineering; you believe that there are more restrictive limits to what is achievable. We both agree that the technology requires proper controls; I factor such controls into my risk analysis. Properly used and regulated, I think both of us would agree that there is enormous potential for this technology. It will be interesting to see where it actually goes over the next 50 years. I am sure we will see some exciting developments.

I probably won’t have time to write another long response to this topic (I have my own exams to worry about), so I hope I did a good job explaining my point of view, and trying to reconcile it with yours. If you still disagree with me about the risk posed by this technology, just leave me to my folly. I don’t have time to deal with another long list of all the points on which your opinions differ from mine.

I wish you luck with your exams.

[1] http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040223/pf/427779a_pf.html - you've probably read it already, but it might be of interest to anyone else reading this topic.

What are your views as regards the creation and marketing (to freshwater aquarium hobbyists) of GloFish™ (http://www.glofish.com/)?

[NS]Realistic Thinkers,

Ok, that was a long post, so I won't use the quotes either.

We have much more in agreement than it may have seemed at first. Do not think that I am a detractor of the technology - I am very much in support of it, as I think that it may be the best technology we may find to cure many genetic diseases. I have simply seen too much overhyping of technologies, usually among those overexaggerating the risks, keeping the two sides from ever seeing eye to eye (and thus slowing progress).

As for eventually understanding everything - From a scientific perperspective, even in the unlikely event that we ever fully understood anything, we wouldn't know it. The scientific method always holds everthing, no matter how accepted, up for questioning. If we reached a "full understanding", we would still be questioning - as that is how science works. If we ever stop and say "we fully understand this," we will have become arrogant enough to destroy ourselves by ignoring the evidence otherwise. I read papers all the time that challenge long-held ideas on what a given enzyme or receptor does. This, of course, goes for viral vectors as well. We believe we know what every gene does and which are potentially a problem. However, we must always leave room to acknowledge that they may have uses we have not yet discovered. This is how we progress.

As for engineering "immunity to all disease", the idea ignores the fact that there is an entire ever-changing world around us. If we somehow managed to engineer resistance to all known disease, other pathogens would eventually creep up in their place. And if all human beings had been genetically altered to have the same immunities, the new pathogen could be disastrous.

Finally, I mention the SCIDs patients to demonstrate to those who say (as the original post did), that there will soon be widespread use of this technology, that they are wrong. There are still huge problems and risks associated with the technology. Will we work around these? I am certain we will - with most of them. But they are there, and, in its early use, the technology should not be used on those who are not already at risk.

Edit: One more thing. My reference to your level of education was not meant to be an insult. I apologize if it came off that way. With you having mentioned it, I felt that I should not come down on you too hard. When I was in high school, I was much the same way. I was overly enthusiastic about my chosen field (tissue engineering). I now know more of its limitations and the milestones we need to meet to come up with clinically relevant therapies. While I am still very enthusiastic, I am also careful not to get too excited. Seemingly promising technologies fall by the wayside (often not due to any problems with the actual technologies) all the time.

What are your views as regards the creation and marketing (to freshwater aquarium hobbyists) of GloFish™ (http://www.glofish.com/)?

GFP (green fluorescent protein) is fun! Of course, the muscles out of GFP mice tend to look a bit like snot (even without strong UV light).

Seriously though, GFP has been in use for quite a while in mice with no problems. Also, if the FDA has explicitly stated that they don't need to regulate it, the chances of there being too much risk. The FDA is incredibly cautious.

Genetic manipulation now & forever!

It is what God intended, dammit!

Thanks for the debate Dempublicents1, it’s nice to have your ideas challenged once in a while...

I see your point about scientific knowledge and progress. I had never really thought that, given a long enough period of time, we wouldn’t know pretty much everything about the human genome. Given the vast amount of study the subject is likely to receive, I felt sure that we would arrive at some sort of examination for everything it does. These explanations would of course be subject to constant revision and refinement, and even complete change, but the time between each refinement would increase as we moved closer to the truth. Eventually each refinement would be so minor (and the time between them so long) as to be unimportant compared with the explanation as a whole, and wouldn’t affect the way we used it. Given automated labs and AI I felt sure we could do it in a few thousand years at the most, maybe a few tens of thousands without them.

You have made me reconsider my ideas about what is possible, and the size of the task ahead. I'm not quite so sure about complete understanding of the human genome but I still don’t seriously think that it will never be achieved. Guess I’m just the eternal optimist :rolleyes: I just cant think of any limiting factors in this case that could not be eventually overcome (e.g. objections to controllable molecular machinery; humans are stuffed with it already, and its all controlled by dumb chemicals! of course its always more complicated than that, but...).

Of course science will always have something to do; the universe seems to be a rather complicated place, and every piece we unravel gives rise to more complexity. Even when we can explain and link everything from the quantum foam all the way up to gravity and the large scale structure of the universe (if this is even possible), there will still be stuff we don’t know. There are limits to things we can test; e.g. it seems unlikely we will ever be able to probe anything happening in less than 10^-35 seconds, as that’s the shortest time it takes anything to happen in. Also we will never be able to see anything 'outside the universe', as that would defeat the definition of the word 'universe'. Even if we can show that we live in a brane universe as part of a multiverse stack, we will probably be unable to show what lies beyond the multiverse (and even if we can, what lies beyond that?).

I had an idea that resistance to all disease could be accomplished by sitting a molecular computer with attached machinery in every cell in the body (occupying about 1/1000th the volume of each cell, replicated at cell division and powered by ATP or similar). The computer and machinery could store multiple backups of the genetic code (and even cross-check with multiple other cells to correct errors arising from damage by, eg, ionising radiation), in addition to storing information on every type of molecule that was supposed to be in the cell (again shared between cells if necessary). If the machinery (molecular probes connected to the computer by carbon monofilament) encountered anything that wasn’t supposed to be in the cell (eg cyanide, a virus or DNA damage) it would break it up into safe bits which could be expelled from the cell, or repair any damage done. As it works on a molecular basis, you could tune it quite accurately, plus it wouldn’t have any trouble dealing with stuff not encountered before, as it identifies what its supposed to keep, and removes the rest. There would of course be problems with identifying pathogens very similar in structure to normal cell contents, but scanning enough of the pathogen should allow positive identification. Again I oversimplify horrendously, and there are so many difficulties with achieving this sort of thing I wouldn’t know where to start, BUT there is no reason why it isn’t actually possible (eventually). And if you could do it, you have a pretty much infallible artificial immune system and anti-aging device.

I understand what you mean about the risks associated with gene therapy at this very early stage. It's a shame that risk analysis is often based on either how scared the public are about a technology (risk hugely overplayed), or how scared the scientists are that someone else will develop it first :rolleyes: (risk underplayed). I thought that nature article about weighing up the risks wasn’t bad; I wish most of the legislation wasn’t in the hands of poorly informed and politically motivated politicians. I think your cautious optimism is the best way forward for now; I too recognise the milestones this technology has to meet before it is really usable. But I still like to dream about the far future, and what may eventually be possible :) .

Gutta Percha; I think the fluorescent animals for fun and profit idea is a bit silly, but i think it would be cool to have a fluorescent mouse :D . Id buy one if it didn’t have any adverse effects on its quality of life. Guess there’s no harm in fluorescent fish either; I’d want ones that glow blue or white though, reds not my colour :p .

Dempublicents1; where are you graduating from, out of interest? I’m currently an undergrad at the University of Bath in Avon, UK. I’m trying to figure out how to persuade my course director to let me do extra molecular biology units next year, but he isn’t having it...(damned mandatory units taking up my space!)

Ah well, back to the grindstone; tests on electromagnetism, wave mechanics and partial differential equations rear their ugly heads this week :confused: .

Realistic Thinkers']Dempublicents1; where are you graduating from, out of interest? I’m currently an undergrad at the University of Bath in Avon, UK. I’m trying to figure out how to persuade my course director to let me do extra molecular biology units next year, but he isn’t having it...(damned mandatory units taking up my space!)

I'm currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Georgia Tech (quals in a month - ACK!). They have two very good programs, one as a joint program with Emory University. You should look into it.