Gene Eugenics

[Eugene]

If you had read properly, you'd see i mentioned both changing your child's sexuality and changing your own. When comparing it with things such as changing your eye colour or hair colour, i was comparing it to the latter. You mgiht also have noticed that almost everything in that post refers to changing something about oneself and not another person. It is the post i made before that that mentions changing someone else's sexuality.

Evidently, changing something that belongs to someone else requires that one consider whether it's necessary to do so without their consent. This standard, however, is not always applied. Take for example, circumcision.

Sure enough, but your argument is one of sufficient opaqueness in a thread about eugenics. There are certainly people who could read that point into what you wrote and I was pointing out that there was a disconnection between those points in your argument. Does what I said invalidate your whole argument? No, but it clarifies that there is a difference between those two scenarios (especially in terms of the topic of this thread, eugenics).

Additionally, the comparison between changing your own hair color, and changing your own sexuality, while not as distinct a separation, are separate issues as well.

Sexuality is an internal mental state that is one facet of an entire individual personality. Saying someone will devalue and wish to change their homosexuality to heterosexuality because its is more hip in the west, the same way someone will want to change their hair color because blond is more hip also is changing the content of the analogy. Sexuality, while variably mobile in different individuals is not comparable in any way to a hairstyle.

Is it possible that a homosexual man wish to be heterosexual, or a heterosexual women who wishes to be homosexual? I'm sure you could find a few examples, but not nearly on the scale of what people do to their external appearances.

[Meriandle]

Eugenics movement started in England by some dude named Galton? I believe, then blew up over here in the States. Obviously tapered off in popularity after WWII, but the Reich got all their ideas from us.

Yeah it was Francis Galton. Galton happened to be Darwin's cousin, much to Darwin's chagrin. I am fairly suprised to hear the term eugenics used in a contemporary conversation concerning genetics. Eugenics has a rather ugly connotation what with the terrible legacy of abuse stemming from US eugenic "research." In every lecture given on the benefits of a new age of eugenics you would see a couple German scientists in the back taking notes. Rather understandably, eugenicists laid pretty low after WWII as Isladar said until coming back into vogue as geneticists.

People should take some care in having this discussion about genetic counciling. We need to remember the past and the potential future dangers that can be realized once we start assigning value to genetic traits, or exploring whether certain traits are genetic.

[Eugene]

Well said.

[Rowe]

I tried to change the title of the thread, I filed in the title early based on the title of the extragoodshit article. Once I started typing the body of the OP I meant to change the thread title to something different.

Also reading the two articles, there really could have been two distinct questions posed. The first like I posted would you be open to genetic manipulation.

My other question is who is more ethically dubious in the LA Times article,

• The Doctors treating a prenatal condition that can lead to genital abnormalities which secondarily may lessen the likelihood a female child is homosexual
  
• The gay and lesbian group denouncing the treatment because it may lessen the likelihood a female child is homosexual and declare doctors should not treat the condition which could potentially cause genital abnormalities.

[Bluefrostie]

I'd like to genetically alter my future child's DNA so that s/he is less likely to get the diseases my (& the father) have in our DNA, I guess.

[BerenTebogo]

Not too distant future is a stretch. I'm not a bio-engineering expert but if I'm not mistaken, the level of genetic manipulation required for this to be a viable exercise would actually be far and above the level of genetic manipulation required to imprint a "limiter" on cellular regeneration and growth (in the form of overgrowth via mutation) thus preventing or curing almost all forms of cancer.

Yeah, you read that right, I'm fairly certain that limiting the ability of cellular overgrowth, or rather, limiting the ability of cells to receive instructions to replicate and never receive the instruction to stop (how tumors are formed afaik, it's just a bunch of cells that won't stop regenerating~ [not the best word]) is pretty much the essence of what cancer is.

The ability to manipulate genetic material to the point of selective I.Q. or sexuality, while it gets a lot of media attention because it is a heavily debatable and polarizing subject, is not exactly so "right up on the horizon" of medical science. I'm fairly certain it's a lot easier to work an "on/off" switch than it is to pick and choose the upper and lower boundaries of I.Q. via genetic manipulation.

And really, the term "easy" here is relative. I know there are articles left and right about how close we are to genetic manipulation, but really, the vast majority of reporters have zero knowledge of the science they are reporting on and zero knowledge of how the scientific community works. One overly optimistic guy in a lab claiming the entire scientific community agrees with him =/= the entire scientific medical community agreeing with him. Not saying that is 100% the case here, but it happens far more often than it doesn't happen when science meets journalism.

Shit's not as simple as we're led to believe, that much I do know. How "not easy"? Well, not my area.

[Khamsin]

A question...

A homosexual (or anybody with some label that would be too controversial to aim to eliminate via eugenics) person would not like the idea of "correcting" homosexuality because they feel they have a right to exist as-is, right? They are offended by the idea that it's something that needs fixing?

What I'm wondering is, how its any different for non-controversial things? e.g. baldness. Do bald people get offended, thinking they have a right to exist, too? Why are they not up in arms, too? Or, let's look at illnesses. Will autistic people, disabled people, etc. be fearful for their existence?

What people need to remember is, had people that are currently gay, bald, autistic, disabled, etc. been born with their genes altered, they'd still exist. Pretty much exactly like they are now, only without being gay, bald, autistic, disabled, etc. It can't be a right to exist issue, because they'll exist anyway.

So it must be a sense of pride in who they are, and fear that if society aims to eliminate these traits that they have, that society will shun them or aim to eliminate them, too?

I'm just trying to understand the real root of the controversy behind all this, aside from simple fear and people being offended that certain traits are undesirable (since you can't suggest using eugenics to 'correct' something without implying that everyone with that gene currently is unwanted).

I know that people with these 'undesirable' traits are offended and up in arms, because they take pride in themselves and can demonstrate they are just as healthy, productive, and successful as anyone else in society. As such, there's really no *need* to change anything. But will the children produced by eugenics care that they were altered? That's the real question.

[Rowe]

The reason I put not to distant in there is because we have people of varying ages here and I want people in there 20s 30s and 40s to contemplate the topic. Yes we are decades away from this but I do believe if humankind survives long enough it will become an eventuality.

I believe genetic manipulation is inevitable, just and population control will be. There is a finite amount of habitable land in the world and finite resources. We will crack genetic manipulation before we are able to terraform and colonize Mars.

[BerenTebogo]

The reason I put not to distant in there is because we have people of varying ages here and I want people in there 20s 30s and 40s to contemplate the topic. Yes we are decades away from this but I do believe if humankind survives long enough it will become an eventuality.

I believe genetic manipulation is inevitable, just and population control will be. There is a finite amount of habitable land in the world and finite resources. We will crack genetic manipulation before we are able to terraform and colonize Mars.

Been said before, by me probably, via quotes from people who do know what the fuck, but we'll be terraforming the deserts on this planet long before we terraform and colonize Mars.

Also, population control, good luck with that one. You're living in a V for Vendetta world if you think there will ever be any global population control from any source other than nature.

There are built in limiters in everything around us. See: Black plague and etc. Only since our medical advancements have come so far from then it won't be a situation like that as much as we'll be dealing with MR strains of viruses long before any mythical Mars terraforming or global China policy.

[wagon]

If we can identify the gene that is responsible for homosexuality, we can turn its expression it on and off (epigenetics) so anyone can choose to be gay on every Friday and Saturday just in time for weekend parties.

[Max™]

My chick wants to make a gay porn magazine called Boy Love, and she wants there to be an article section by a gay guy named Gene: The Gay Gene.

Makes this article a bit funnier to read it with a lisp, I gotta say.

[Narol]

What people need to remember is, had people that are currently gay, bald, autistic, disabled, etc. been born with their genes altered, they'd still exist. Pretty much exactly like they are now, only without being gay, bald, autistic, disabled, etc. It can't be a right to exist issue, because they'll exist anyway.

Depends entirely on how much these traits define someone's existence. Simple question: If we found the "gay gene" and turned it on for people, would this be as "bad" (an arguable thing—basically "would it be on the same moral level?") as turning it off for potential homosexuals?

[Restrat]

why not say, if we found the gene causing heterosexuality, would it be bad to turn it off?

[Eugene]

A question...

I know that people with these 'undesirable' traits are offended and up in arms, because they take pride in themselves and can demonstrate they are just as healthy, productive, and successful as anyone else in society. As such, there's really no *need* to change anything. But will the children produced by eugenics care that they were altered? That's the real question.

There are reported studies of reported gender switches (due to accidents) and alterations due to irregular genitals. While admittedly my professors were teaching at an angle, all the reported cases I read were concluded as the "patient" was unhappy with having their gender decided for them.

There are reports of doctors sometimes even making a decision about the sexuality of an ambiguous infant without even consulting the parents.

My point, while not a perfect analogy because you asked about awareness of genetic manipulation and my examples were ones of social and hormonal manipulation, is that when people decide to play god with development they don't fully understand they can royally screw things up.

To be clear, there is no "gay gene". There is no single switch to turn gayness on or off. If there is solely a genetic relation between sexuality and genetics, it will be an interaction between a spectrum of genes. That being said there's no conclusive evidence that sexuality is entire based in genetics, its just a convenient standpoint for many people in today's political discourse.

The complexity of genetics is so much so that there its taking longer than expected. I read an article in the paper recently about predictions of the genome project. Scientist initially thought at this point we would be curing genetic diseases left and right, but we've barely scratched the surface in understanding how genes interact. Playing god isn't as easy as it looks, and can have unintended consequences.

[OWS_Tonx]

why not say, if we found the gene causing heterosexuality, would it be bad to turn it off?

seriously?

[wipers]

Reminds me of the movie Gattaca. And to answer the question I have no problem with eugenics.

[Eugene]

Another thing on unintended consequences. To the guy who said we'd be terrafarming deserts b4 terrafarming mars, maybe as a test to see how well terrafarming works, but you can't terrafarm a whole desert. They play an essential role in local weather and global climate patterns. The whole planet could screw up weather if say the sahara desert disappeared from the planet.

Not saying that wasn't implied but using it as an example just furthers my argument.

[Meriandle]

Reminds me of the movie Gattaca. And to answer the question I have no problem with eugenics.

Yeah see... that there is a problem. If you don't have a problem with eugenics, then you need to know more about eugenics. This is not the type of issue that you can have a blanketly PRO stance towards. This is something that should seem fairly obvious, especially if the conversation is reminding you of the movie Gattava. The movie was intended to point out some issues that demand our attention when going forward with technology that is advancing faster than our philosophy.

[archibaldcrane]

Is it possible that a homosexual man wish to be heterosexual... I'm sure you could find a few examples, but not nearly on the scale of what people do to their external appearances.

Do a survey of 13-year old gay teenagers, and tell me you aren't finding a vast majority of them wishing they were like their straight peers.

[Eugene]

Yeah see... that there is a problem. If you don't have a problem with eugenics, then you need to know more about eugenics. This is not the type of issue that you can have a blanketly PRO stance towards. This is something that should seem fairly obvious, especially if the conversation is reminding you of the movie Gattava. The movie was intended to point out some issues that demand our attention when going forward with technology that is advancing faster than our philosophy.

Well said again.