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Genetic modification, what do you think about it GAF?

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Chrono

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Support, oppose, or neutral?

I'm talking about all the different uses - modifying crops/food/animals, programming bacteria and such to produce fuel or clean water, scanning for and curing disease in humans starting from before we're born to gene therapy as adults, and of course there's the 'non-necessary' things like tinkering with intelligence/stamina/etc...
 
Why not? We're "playing God"? We play God when we cure diseases and fight infection. Bring on Gattaca.
 
If the balance leads to less natural resources being used instead of even more people then yes.
 
Chrono said:
I'm talking about all the different uses - modifying crops/food/animals, programming bacteria and such to produce fuel or clean water, scanning for and curing disease in humans starting from before we're born to gene therapy as adults, and of course there's the 'non-necessary' things like tinkering with intelligence/stamina/etc...
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some of the things you mentioned have been used or in use for quite some time. modifying crops and programming bacteria for example. the question isn't yes or no because we (humans) tend to utilise every thing within our power to get ahead (i.e we are only thinking about the environment/animals only because we've learnt that it is ultimately to our benefit that we don't over exploit). the question should be how best it could serve EVERYONE while protecting those that are within and without it's embodiment, and, how far do you take it. (e.g genetically tampering at birth; ala a gattaca style segregation. it isn't to the best interests of humanity in general to have two tiers society as it will eventually come back to hurt you. yet we shouldn't place artificial restraints on ourselves simply because of orthodox beliefs. )
 
If it is meant not to happen, it would not happen.

So if you can do it, it means that you can have the choice to do it.

I suppose in the world's definition of "middle ground", gene splicing is ok. IF you take the average opinion of everyone. It is just the fanatics and zealots that make the most deal out of it, and dig their hands into modern politics.

Before gene moding is to be settled, I suppose the world would need to first get down on the facts of religion, what is moral and what is not depends greatly on it.
 
Crayon Shinchan said:
Knowing the collective personality of GAF, most would be in support.
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Really? The majority here are liberals/leftists, I'm surprised there aren't any hysterical white privileged posters advocating for the slow and painful death of starving Africans to satisfy their ideology/hobby crying about corporations and mother earth.
 
Chrono said:
Really? The majority here are liberals/leftists, I'm surprised there aren't any hysterical white privileged posters advocating for the slow and painful death of starving Africans to satisfy their ideology/hobby crying about corporations and mother earth.
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I think you misunderstand the conception of GAF.

Majority are liberal and leftist. But they are also technology and science geeks before that.
 
Support, but don't let one company make major money on it and thoroughly test it out first.
 
As long as it benefits humanity in some way there's no way you can oppose it. Nature is not perfect and we have been altering the natural way of things for thousands of years this is just a continuation of that.
 
Chrono said:
I'm talking about all the different uses - modifying crops/food/animals,
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Sounds great, if it results in more food for more people.

programming bacteria and such to produce fuel or clean water,
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Cool.

scanning for and curing disease in humans starting from before we're born to gene therapy as adults,
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So far so good.

and of course there's the 'non-necessary' things like tinkering with intelligence/stamina/etc...
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I have strong reservations about anything like this.
 
All for in the name of science, health and to provide food for countries in need. Also, although I see the controversies in it, I'm very interested in how far you can go, modifying the DNA of humans and animals. Should be proceeded with caution, though, but imagine making you immune to disease.

Same goes for cloning, as long as you don't use it like in "The Island".
 
Night_Trekker said:
I have strong reservations about anything like this.
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I think it will either be done through genetic modification, or we'll recieve the same benefits through mechanical modification (computer chips, etc). The real question, imo, is how it will happen, not if it will happen.
 
If it extends my life, why not?

Though I don't like a lot of companies which try to force 3rd world peasants to use modificated plants. Often things go worse, and the companies don't give a shit when they destroy the culture of these people (they often aren't even interested in "cash crops").
 
It's not really a question of playing God or not, although I guess it is for the religious set, but my concern is always going is that even though we can do various things, whether or not we should do them.

If they violate human rights, we should not do them. Of course, we already engage in various scientific protocols and medical procedures that violate human rights.

It's like genetic screening of your offspring - innocent in and of itself, useful information, but it can too easily be coupled with eugenics, and such is already, currently frequently encouraged by numerous members of the medical community.


GM food? Bring it on, whatever. There's really no reasonable argument for the other side on that one. Screening? Fine. Therapy that fixes a problem, great. The use of genetic screening to cull the undesirables is where I draw the line, and as I said, we already do this.
 
Against until we fully understand all the effects as far as crops are concerned. As for the rest, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it :P.

Although I've pretty much made up my mind that I'm against genetic modification of humans for any purpose other than preventing diseases. It would lead to some very very undesirable effects on society.
 
I noticed this when watching Gattaca - they don't have some magical fix to make people better. They just don't have natural children and they screen all possible IVF embryos and discard the ones that have undesirable traits; and yes, I find this disgusting.

But flip it back to sci-fi-esque gene therapy. If you could somehow change the traits of the child in utero, at no risk to them, is there still an ethical problem there? I'm having a much harder time seeing one. Of course, that's not realistic for the time being anyway.
 
JayDubya said:
But flip it back to sci-fi-esque gene therapy. If you could somehow change the traits of the child in utero, at no risk to them, is there still an ethical problem there? I'm having a much harder time seeing one. Of course, that's not realistic for the time being anyway.
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Well, you risk creating a society segregated between rich healthy people who have every advantage genetics could bring them and people on the bottom with little to no chance of ever getting to the top. Hardly something I'd wish for.
 
JayDubya said:
I noticed this when watching Gattaca - they don't have some magical fix to make people better. They just don't have natural children and they screen all possible IVF embryos and discard the ones that have undesirable traits; and yes, I find this disgusting.

But flip it back to sci-fi-esque gene therapy. If you could somehow change the traits of the child in utero, at no risk to them, is there still an ethical problem there? I'm having a much harder time seeing one. Of course, that's not realistic for the time being anyway.
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I don't see a big difference between your first (discarding those with undesirable traits) and the second (changing the undesirable traits), the effect is the same.
 
msv said:
I don't see a big difference between your first (discarding those with undesirable traits) and the second (changing the undesirable traits), the effect is the same.
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The second one isn't lethal.
 
JayDubya said:
Second doesn't involve anyone dying.
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It just involves creating a situation where one group of people feels superior to another group of people, and that's always worked out so well in the past.
 
Kabouter said:
Well, you risk creating a society segregated between rich healthy people who have every advantage genetics could bring them and people on the bottom with little to no chance of ever getting to the top. Hardly something I'd wish for.
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I think that's inevitable, we will be genetically engineered + bionically enhanced superhumans.

Not a fan of it, but it'll happen, with the genetic engineering that shouldn't happen being driven by sports competition at first and then expanding to intelligence, etc.

Screening for disease and genetic disorders would be great though, although you're making it easier for a bug to wipe us all out.
 
Hell yes. If we can eliminate some birth defect and deficiencies and improve our well being and life, why the hell not? Bring on Gattaca, indeed!
 
JayDubya said:
I noticed this when watching Gattaca - they don't have some magical fix to make people better. They just don't have natural children and they screen all possible IVF embryos and discard the ones that have undesirable traits; and yes, I find this disgusting.
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This seems it would be inevitable at some point down the line. If some rogue countries start allowing this and doing it, they will have a "better" population which at some point would become dominant over other countries, eventually forcing the issue for any country that wants to keep up. Manmade evolution. What would stop, say, North Korea from starting some 100 year plan if the technology becomes easy?
 
Timedog said:
This seems it would be inevitable at some point down the line. If some rogue countries start allowing this and doing it, they will have a "better" population which at some point would become dominant over other countries, eventually forcing the issue for any country that wants to keep up. Manmade evolution. What would stop, say, North Korea from starting some 100 year plan if the technology becomes easy?
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It's already allowed and done here, albeit the "discarding" happens at a later stage of life, and it's far from the norm.

And if North Korea gets all uppity, we can always hug their genetically superior children with nuclear arms.
 
JayDubya said:
It's already allowed and done here, albeit the "discarding" happens at a later stage of life, and it's far from the norm.

And if North Korea gets all uppity, we can always hug their genetically superior children with nuclear arms.
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do you think we'd really blow up a country because they were genetically engineering people so that they could be more prosperous? If they didn't initiate any sort of offensive action towards us? I just used NK as an example, but what if it was a country that we didn't have any prior reservations about?
 
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