Genetic Research

[hobbes]

Hitlers version of eugenics was a perversion of what it should mean to a scientist.

Height, strength, and speed are really not relevant to human survival. You only need a certain amount of each to lead a successful life and reproduce. The notion that the human race would be better if we could produce such physical specimens, seems to tell more about the issues Hitler had with his own physical imperfections than anything else.

I see eugenics as the ability to repair a rather degraded human genome. Why degraded. Well, how many of you could survive or would be dead without medical intervention.

Do you wear glasses, do you take insulin, has you appendix been removed. Did you get immunizations and boosters? Have you ever had pneumonia and needed antibiotics.

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions then you may have died in childhood had you been born just 500 years ago. I know I would have walked off a cliff with my poor vision.

You are now protected by a society that frees you from your genetic weaknesses and you have been removed from the pool of natural selection.

The goal of science is to restore your genes so that you may be healthy enough to survive to a reproductive age.

If you have cystic fibrosis, you make improper Chloride channels. Current therapy options do not treat the disease, but help to alleviate the symptoms.

With gene therapy, a proper chloride gene can be spliced into your genome, and the disease is completely cured.

That is the goal of genetic research, as I see it.

[clocker]

Originally posted by j2k4@21 February 2004 - 13:11


So, OK, the consensus is that eugenics is a bad subject, and we just won't talk about it. But — and this is what is peculiar — breakthroughs in genetics have people talking about tampering with people's genetic code to cure diseases and do other things.

OK, let's have a drumroll. Genetic tampering is the same subject as eugenics. Eugenics is about engineering a certain type of human being. It makes no difference whether it's done with selective breeding (a slower but more fun way) or by tampering with the genes in a laboratory. Frankenstein is Frankenstein, no matter which method you employ to create him.

Given the internal logic of this essay, I fail to see how he can discriminate between penicillin and genetic research.
If genetic research, with the goal of curing disease, is bad, then isn't penicillin equally as tainted?

[hobbes]

Originally posted by clocker+22 February 2004 - 21:55--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (clocker &#064; 22 February 2004 - 21:55)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-j2k4@21 February 2004 - 13:11


So, OK, the consensus is that eugenics is a bad subject, and we just won&#39;t talk about it. But — and this is what is peculiar — breakthroughs in genetics have people talking about tampering with people&#39;s genetic code to cure diseases and do other things.

OK, let&#39;s have a drumroll. Genetic tampering is the same subject as eugenics. Eugenics is about engineering a certain type of human being. It makes no difference whether it&#39;s done with selective breeding (a slower but more fun way) or by tampering with the genes in a laboratory. Frankenstein is Frankenstein, no matter which method you employ to create him.

Given the internal logic of this essay, I fail to see how he can discriminate between penicillin and genetic research.
If genetic research, with the goal of curing disease, is bad, then isn&#39;t penicillin equally as tainted? [/b][/quote]
Your support of microbial genocide is reminiscent of Hitler, how ironic.

Think about it.

[7th Elephant]

I&#39;m a clone, it hasn&#39;t done me any harm.

mirc

[j2k4]

Guys-

As I said, I only posted the column because I felt it relevant.

As an aside, it&#39;s author, Charley Reese, is a registered democrat.

My take on the whole issue is one of caution, and at this remove, I&#39;m not sure whether my caution is born of what has gone before (Hitler, etc.) or that I think it represents an overstep into a "reserved" territory; a little of both, probably.

My enlightened self knows it could be the greatest boon to medicine ever; I have a very good friend who suffers from Parkinson&#39;s whose life and family has been devastated by the toll it has taken.

The possibility he could be helped weighs greatly on my mind.

The upside possibilities are undeniable.

On the other hand, there are without doubt nefarious individuals and groups who could and would take this burgeoning technology in a very wrong direction.

This consideration cannot be overlooked by any National or International Authority, as it is not a question of "if" or "maybe"; I would presume it to be a "definite".

I am having a lot of difficulty dealing with the theological aspect of the question, though, and, personally, I don&#39;t feel I can pronounce one way or the other, though I am sorely tempted.

I am, as they say, flummoxed.

BTW-My thoughts are further complicated by the fact that the process, as it has been tried so far, apparently suffers from certain intangible circumstances (I wish I could remember what I&#39;ve read about it) when comes time to engineer a "human" experiment; there are one or two (or more) conundrums, and empirical knowledge, to this point, indicates no direction, or solution.

One wonders whether that door is intended to remain locked.

Edit: spelling

[3RA1N1AC]

there&#39;s a thread in Hardware World that might be relevant as sort of a flip-side or parallel to this discussion, for speculation re: genetics, dna, prometheus/frankenstein, the mixing of the organic and the synthetic, the impending obsolescence of our traditional notions about biology, etc.

i thought i&#39;d go ahead and bring it to the attention of World News denizens who don&#39;t make a habit of visiting the Hardware forum.

https://filesharingtalk.com/index.php?showtopic=104256

[j2k4]

Originally posted by 3RA1N1AC@12 March 2004 - 11:21
there&#39;s a thread in Hardware World that might be relevant as sort of a flip-side or parallel to this discussion, for speculation re: genetics, dna, prometheus/frankenstein, the mixing of the organic and the synthetic, the impending obsolescence of our traditional notions about biology, etc.

i thought i&#39;d go ahead and bring it to the attention of World News denizens who don&#39;t make a habit of visiting the Hardware forum.&nbsp;

https://filesharingtalk.com/index.php?showtopic=104256

Yup.

Another take on the same theme:

Prey, a book by Michael Crichton.

Nanotech, bio-engineering, DNA, all that stuff.

Pretty scary.