So you think the more we assist the survival of the unfit (forgive that gross oversimplification of evolution theory) that leads to less diversity? It may lead to more dependence of the species on technology, but I don't see how it would lead to less diversity. And in a lot of cases, the genetics being changed, the defective mutation is not reproduced. In the example from the BBC article, that was an unsurvivable genome being assisted to survive.
None of this is proven, not the safety of the child from conception to birth to future years. I've been trying to see the 'unethical' side and the only people seemingly against this procedure are Christians with scare tactics http://pjsaunders.blogspot.fr/2012/09/three-parent-embryos-for-mitochondrial.html while others are talking about a slippery slide and were does this all stop? The fact is it will never stop until people are completely cloned and it may not be in our lifetimes but the experiments behind closed doors will continue. One concern that does pop up however is the legalities or the rights of the parents - all three! The technology is there at the moment for the sperm and the egg to be transplanted into a host womb. Right now in the UK and Ireland, neither the sperm or egg donor have any rights over that child - Law makers and running round like headless chickens trying to form some sort of legislation - this is gonna really screw with them!
No, that's not what I mean. When I brought up the whole Suntan deal, that was simply an example of eugenics in current play. My concern over reduced diversity has to do with the original conversation. We start to design humans on a pattern of "perfection", a perfection that is going to follow paths of trend, vogue, and fashion, we create a concept of what an 'ideal person" is and we are going to end up homogenizing the genome. Just as you said, and I well know, the randomness of change in the genome is where the money's at. Remove that and we remove the key driving feature that has lead from a dirty pool of chemical soup to this very conversation we are having today.
If we get the technology to "design" people's genome, then we might also have the technology to maintain diversity by keeping previous genetic samples. Thus, we could always "rollback the clock" on genome diversity by introducing old genes.
I can't help but see a parallel with intelectual property rights. It would be like fighting over parts of a software system. "I wrote the code!" "But I edited and compiled it!" "Sod the both of you. It's my ruddy bloddy mother board your running it on!"
I still fall back on my original premiss. We've known the alphabet of genetics for a while now, but we've only just now understood the syntax and grammar. I feel like this is kindergartners being depended upon to now write a constitution or a codex of law. We think we understand, but do we even know the questions to ask? How much of our genome is even ours? Lots of evidence showing that a lot of it is actually viral data (literal) left over from viral attacks of which we are the descendants of the survivors or that did not have a deleterious effect on us. Greg Bear delved into this at length, fictionally, in Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children. Obviously Science Fiction, but the questions he asks in those books are very valid and the same we are asking now. We think we know what we know, and then there's the rest of it that doesn't fit what we know, so clearly there are questions we don't know that need asking.
I agree. There are too many unknowns right now; before any kind of manipulations are attempted, we need to plump the mysteries of genetics.
Don't even get me started on the bloody rabbits! And foxes, and yes, we have rat problems too. The black rat has almost wiped out the native bush rat, and has done a lot of damage to the bandicoot population. And the feral cats, wild dogs [really they're ferals too], cane toads, bloody camels all over the outback, the list goes on and on. Even dingoes are an introduced species. The extinction of the Thylacine [Tazzie Tiger] on the mainland has been attributed to the arrival of the first Indigenous Australians and their subsequent introduction of, guess what, their dogs. In Tasmania, some people believe the Tiger is still out there, but there have been no confirmed sightings since I think the late 1820s. Onto the actual topic, I think that this technology could do a lot of good, but it's a gateway to technologies that could do a lot of bad. As with most technology, it's about the hands it's put in, more than the technology itself. Look at what electricity can do in the hands of an idiot or a madman.
I know what you meant and I was using the term as if we were computers because whether we like it or not that's the way we're going. It's another point to the New World Order, one race, subservient. In France through free satellite we get US, UK, and Aus TV channels as well as French and Belgium. Exactly the same programmes are on every channel, Undercover Boss USA, UK, Oz, France, Belgium, Pop Idol, X Factor, Come Dine With Me, Grand Designs, I'm A Celebrity, Big Brother, blah blah blah, tons of programmes lining us all down the same funnel. Go to any capital city in Europe, be it the most Westerly, Dublin from where I hail to cities in the East such as Riga in Latvia or Athens in Greece and they have all lost their identities, now filled with Foot Locker, Pizza Hut and McDonalds. Fashion is worldwide, all coming from Bangladesh and Xialing Province. American football is expanding, played now in every Euro capital while soccer is growing in America, as is rugby. We, the paying public, are all in debt that our children's grandchildren will still be paying off and that's the way they want us. Eventually we will be cloned and we'll behave ourselves like good little Sheeple. Everyday they convince me more this is just one small step for Uncle Sam, one giant leap for 'The Man'.
