Junk Science on Stage

[Cole Parker]

If coercion is forcing someone's will on someone else, then tampering with genes in utero is certainly coercion.

This is a terribly complex issue. It is so easy to imagine dangers to the human race resulting from these techniques. And what we're discussing here is doing so very often for reasons that are, for the most part, frivolous. You want your child to have blue eyes and blond hair, and to feel the same way about things that you do? Just tweak this gene and nudge that one, and there you be. $25,000 please, and the waiting room is just around the corner; she'll be out in a few moments.

I don't think we want a race of children all looking alike, all conforming to some present-day model of lovliness, all thinking the same thoughts because those are considered correct these days. Is todays PC gene, on sale through Thursday, going to be a the same exemplar in five years as it is today?

I just don't think we should be tinkering with future people because Father Knows Best. Are we really arrogant enough to believe we have the right and the inspiration and the knowledge to do that and so better mankind and our child?

Yes, if there are deformities that can be corrected or prevented in the womb, it is logical to do so. Tampering with the sexuality of an unborn child is stretching the limits, to me. Trying to create Mozarts as a way of improving all our lives doesn't seem right, and seems to be circumscribing the rights of the child. I don't believe we have this right. The child should be free from this sort of medical interference. Life, the world, everything in nature is comlex, and we don't know enough and don't agree on enough to play this game. We don't own our children to the extent that we should be making these choices for them.

C

[Trab]

I don't want to 'muddy the waters' but I think circumcision is an example of this type of manipulation of the child with no clear indicator of any benefits either way, but certainly a risk, each time it is done. I shudder to think what may be done in utero in the name of 'benefit'.

[DesDownunder]

I don't want to 'muddy the waters' but I think circumcision is an example of this type of manipulation of the child with no clear indicator of any benefits either way, but certainly a risk, each time it is done. I shudder to think what may be done in utero in the name of 'benefit'.

The circumcision example is most relevant, because it is one that has been done for reasons of fashion, religion and medical grounds; the latter now under dispute.

(Various people I have known, have reported their experience of having chosen to be circumcised as an adult. The results seem to be mainly one of an extremely small and inconsequential loss of sensitivity. Personal hygiene has also featured as easier to maintain.

On the other side there are various methods, including medical, to restore the foreskin. The benefits for these recipients seem to be both psychological as well as personal satisfaction.)

I have been hard pressed to find a man who did not want to be the governor of the state of his child's endowment so that it represented the same condition as his own.

However, men have been persuaded to allow their sons to be opposite to themselves for any of the above reasons.

That modern women have featured in this persuasion is interesting because on the one hand the circumcision does seem to allow a longer period of excitement before climax, while the intact prepuce may, in part, contribute to premature ejaculation.

(Medical intervention for painful erection symptoms due to constriction of the foreskin is not in dispute by most reasonable people.)

Mother's may then be influenced on the issue of circumcision of their sons by their happy (or not) coital experience from a number of male samples they have tried of the various prepuce forms.

The Australian Aboriginal along with many other cultures' custom was for circumcision to be performed, at or around puberty, in ceremonial conditions as a rite of initiation into manhood. See this Wiki reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision

Circumcision dates back to the ancient Egyptians at least. It's usefulness, purposefulness and aesthetic qualities being debated since those times.

Now who wants to make a genetic decision in regard to the foreskin?

Who can make a decisive valid argument, one way or the other without emotional attachment to this subject?

Similarly, who has the ability to even determine what makes up the genetic requirements of a musical genius. One slip of the gene pool, one dysfunctional environmental factor, and you could end up with Nero fiddling while the Earth burns, instead of a sublime Mozart symphony.

Thousands of years of circumcision has not persuaded nature to select circumcision as a viable alternative, neither has it done anything to protect the foreskin's removal.

The best we can say is that the foreskin is hard-wired, but its removal does not invalidate the function of an erection, which you will no doubt find is being directed by a gene (or two?) to a full and satisfactory climactic experience.

[Fun Tails]

Are we really arrogant enough to believe we have the right and the inspiration and the knowledge to do that and so better mankind and our child?

C

Certainly. If I didn't think I knew what was best for my children, why am I bothering to raise them myself?

I make the decisions about what school they go to, why can't I decided his or her intelligence? I make the decision about what sports to have them try out for (early on at least) so why can't I decide I want his physique to be suited for swimming?

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Re: circumcision. Studies indicate that circumcision significantly cuts the HIV transmission risk. That seems medically worthwhile to me.

[Cole Parker]

Because he may want to be a tight end, and that body you chose for him doesn't really work against a 220 pound defensive end with a mean streak.

Or perhaps because she turns out to be a girl who'd rather be a princess that a hundred meter sprinter. The science is good, but not perfect.

They're real people. We can guide them, but we have no right to live their lives for them or predetermine what their lives and interests will be.

C

[Trab]

I hope you're just 'kidding around'.

Certainly. If I didn't think I knew what was best for my children, why am I bothering to raise them myself?

I make the decisions about what school they go to, why can't I decided his or her intelligence?

There is a huge difference between deciding what school a kid goes to and deciding what attributes they will carry throughout their lives.

I make the decision about what sports to have them try out for (early on at least) so why can't I decide I want his physique to be suited for swimming?

Really? You don't ask, and they don't volunteer the information? You just tell them, "this is what you are going to do, and you are going to like it"?

Re: circumcision. Studies indicate that circumcision significantly cuts the HIV transmission risk. That seems medically worthwhile to me.

Try condoms, or abstinence. For that matter, who in their right mind is testing out transmission of HIV scenarios. I would guess it is all anecdotal statistical, and not a real study at all.

[DesDownunder]

Abstinence? What is that?

[JamesSavik]

Abstinence? What is that?

absinthe...

[DesDownunder]

Hic ~

[Fun Tails]

I would guess it is all anecdotal statistical, and not a real study at all.

The study is very real.

Gimme a little while and I'll dig up a link to it. (It's 2 am here right now and I'm not about to research it just this minute)

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So let me get this straight...

If I want to be a dancer, but my lousy genetics gives me the body to be a linebacker, then that's just lousy luck.

If I want to be a dancer, but my father gave me the body to be an NBA center, that's evil?

ANd no one's answered my question from before: If a parent uses in vitrio treatment to fix an unborn baby's blindness, is he imposing his will on the child?

[Trab]

Yes, he is, but it is unlikely the child will later object. If however, the kid wants to be a ballerina but has a line backer's body, there may be more objection.

[Cole Parker]

Actually, I did answer that, with my opinion. Fixing deformities and abnormalites, if it can be done safely, is certainly something that everyone would agree should be done. Well, not everyone. Some deaf parents who are about to have a deaf child want the child to be deaf. I personally think that would be tragic if science can intervene and make the child able to hear, but I don't claim to know the absolute right or wrong of it.

I do think if you want your daughter to be an ice skater for personal reasons and so genetically manipulate her cells when she's at that stage, that's wrong. Again, my opinion.

C

[Fun Tails]

I do think if you want your daughter to be an ice skater for personal reasons and so genetically manipulate her cells when she's at that stage, that's wrong.

C[/size][/color]

Would it be more wrong than deliberately having a deaf child?

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I wonder, suppose you doctor told you that your unborn child would probably be deaf but you could fix it easily, and you decided *not* to, because you're a deaf parent and you want a deaf kid.

Is that okay with those of you in the 'anti-tampering' camp?

[Cole Parker]

[Man, you're asking tough questions!

I guess to answer that one, I'd say the science is more rigorous and tested if correcting deafness at the embryo level. Changing body types is still in its trial stages. So, the chances for screw ups are greater doing the one than the other. A physician is charged to do no harm. So I'd approve the first, disapprove the second.

You can see a real world difference between the two, can you not?

C

[Fun Tails]

Ah, but the real world state of the science is transitory.

One day, there will be safe procedures for doing many thing in vitrio.

We need to deal with the philosophical framework that will guide this situation.

We can't put it off by saying 'we;re not there yet'.

[Trab]

Not true. We can put it off long enough to have it become a huge problem, just like global warming. We're human beings, and we can ignore anything that doesn't stick its nose right in our faces.

[aj]

One day, a casual reader will find this forum archived in some obscure server and laugh at our attitudes. He/she will have been genetically manipulated in vitro, along with just about everyone else on the planet who has the money in their family to afford such work, and will think nothing of it. The randomness that is part of the 'natural way' will only exist among the underclasses. The disparity that will exist between a genetically manipulated upperclass and their more natural underclass counterparts will be marked - fitness for all the better jobs will, at least partially, be determined by what a 'genetic passport' says about the way that the job candidate's intelligence has been tweaked, the superiority of his/her senses and physical abilities as a result of changes made while the person was in the womb.

I suspect that the world will not be a better place as a result of these changes. If there is a way for any new technology to be made to benefit the few at the expense of the many, that way will be found and exploited. It's in our nature to operate this way. While I would argue against such tinkering with people's destinies while still unborn, I fully expect that when the choice needs to be made because the science is viable, the decision will be made to proceed. The sheer potential for profit and the chance of curing such ills as cancer and Alzheimers, MS and Lupus, Parkinsons and a host of other gene-based diseases will simply prove too tempting.

cheers!

aj

[Trab]

AJ, while I agree with your point about this going ahead for pure profit if for no other reason, I think that curing cancer, and all the other debilitating illnesses is not profitable. I suspect, without any proof at all, that research into 100% cures are being stifled and misdirected, much like alternate fuels and energy source research and development has been sadly slow to happen. The profit is not in the cure, but in the continual maintenance of people at a level that keeps them purchasing, and never weaned. Ultimately, the real profit in genetic manipulation will be from making it possible to alter grown people, so that, instead of gyms and plastic surgeons, wealthy adults, and the not so wealthy, will be peer pressured into making body modifications on a genetic level. That is long term, as opinions about what is 'right' can be swayed over time, causing us all to search out the 'new and improved' body form.

[Cole Parker]

Can you imagine just how rich a person would become if he could invent a pill that would change your body type from having a propensity towards overweight doughiness to slim and hard? He'd have to hire a fleet of semis to haul the money to the bank, and they'd have to lease out some Self-Stor rental units to hold it while building larger vaults.

Getting thin on the genetic level with no exercising, no dieting deprivations, just a pill or two and go from a Teletubby to Twiggy.

The fortune to be made from would be staggering.

C

[DesDownunder]

My doctor says it would be enough to make us both rich if we could discover why my weight (60 kilos or 132 lbs.) hasn't changed for 46 years. I told him the answer was lots of sex. He didn't believe me.

If it is any consolation though, my hair and teeth have all but fallen out.

[Cole Parker]

Which of course forces one to ask, is there any correlation between the absense of teeth and the over-abundance of sex?

C

[Fun Tails]

The disparity that will exist between a genetically manipulated upperclass and their more natural underclass counterparts will be marked - fitness for all the better jobs will, at least partially, be determined by what a 'genetic passport' says about the way that the job candidate's intelligence has been tweaked, the superiority of his/her senses and physical abilities as a result of changes made while the person was in the womb.

I suspect that the world will not be a better place as a result of these changes.

aj

I feel that yourstatement ignores history.

All medical advances have reached the poor, even if it's been on a slight delay. There was a time when only milionaires could have facelifts. Now suburban women (and men) have facelifts and liposuction and any other plastic surgery all the time.

Same with stuff like Lasik eye surgery and gastric bypass surgery.

Hell, in my own lifetime I remember when only the rich had contact lenses. Go back even further in time and only the rich had *spectacles*. Go *forward* in time a little from today and I'm sure that you'll find that poor people quite easily have access to in vitrio treatment for short-sightedness.