Abandoned Forum

[Bomadeno]

Is it right to tamper with the human genetic structure?

Is it right to tamper with the human genetic structure to cure disease?

Is it right to tamper with the human genetic structure to get a beautiful baby?

Get thinking!

[nowhere man]

I think you should let nature take its place. If my doctor told me my child was going to have a deadly disease and they wouldnt live long unless we did some kind of genetis altering, i would wnat to do anything to help the problem. And you should defintly not do anything with genes just to get a good looking baby.
But if the baby was born attractive that wouldnt be a bad thing. But ytou should let nature take its place. This is a very very very tough question.

[Bomadeno]

Tub if your baby is ugly, they may be bullied and live a worse life than a child who died early due to an inherited genetic condition...

[nowhere man]

yes, but that is preventable.

[Math_nerd]

But is it? This would assume that human nature is preventable. There is this move about how humans master genetic enginering and in order to have children, you submit your genetic material and they (who knows who "they" are) take it and take the best geens from both parents. I this way, the child is still yours, but it has the best pssable outcume. Is this right?


P.S. I have not seen the movie myself ... yet

[nowhere man]

If a child gets bullied because of thier looks it depends on there personality weater their effected by it or not.Thats why i said its preventable. I was often bullied and i just didnt let it bother me. And about the movie you mentioned, that dosnt seem that bad, but it is still tampering with nature. I am undecided on weather i think thats wrong or not.

[Math_nerd]

On the bullying, I have to dissagree. The old saying, "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me"? It is all lies. Words are more powerful than any other wpon on the planet.

Words are so powerful the should only be used to help, to heal, and to porosper.

I abosolutly agree with him.

[Bomadeno]

I this way, the child is still yours, but it has the best pssable outcume. Is this right?

What is the best possible outcome defined as?

[nil]

Like it or not, we are already tempering with babies. That's how we get such low infant mortality rate, which is unnatural in a natural world.

We don't have famine because we genetically modified our food, our cows and our shampoo. We use antibiodtics, and all kinds of weird thingys, to cure disease or to grow hair.

We don't live in a natural world. We live in a man-made world where the law of evolution doesn't apply.

The only problem for genetic modification of a baby (or anything) is--no one is very good at it. And it's a very complicated process; its result is unpreditable. It's also totally against natural selection to give unfair advantage to the inperfect genes. It'll take hundreds of years before we test everything thoroughly, until then, it's better to have a natural (kind of) baby.

[Guest]

If man was created by nature, anything man creates is man-made, tub also natural surely?

[nil]

Mankind, as a being is natural, the big clockwork. However our consciousness is the only thing that's not natural. It doesn't belong to this Universe. It's against any (lot's anyway) physical laws. (that's what you would call the "free will"), but that's fine, because our consciousness have nothing to do with physic anyway.

[Insanity test]

Hi, im a bit late joining thos post, but I feel i can contribute.

I think Math_nerd was reffering to Gattaca (the movie) In it they perfected genetic programming so that they could create 'the best of you'. However, this led to poor people or natralists being unable to afford it, and being discriminated against.
Plus, the richer you are, the better your baby, so the rich end up being better and getting more money for being better.

One of the characters is really depressed because despite being the best he could have been - and having been brought up to believe he was the best, he got a silver medal. He later tried to comit suicide.

I realise this is just a movie, but i agree with it's extrapolation.

-rant over-

[Insanity test]

PS. sorry if i spoiled any of the movie! i dont think i gave much away

[GoodGrief]

First of all, if it's for medical reasons I agree entirely with doing it, like how older women have a higher chance of having babies with birth defects and IVF is used to reduce that risk. What I don't agree with is the whole 'designer baby' issue. I mean, ick. That's just degrading in a way I'm not even going to try and explain. That's like the ultimate form of consumerism. Ick ick ick. And another thing:

Imagine, this would have to go through fads like everything else, right? So you'd get a generation of blonde surfers followed by a generation of tall dark musicians (okay maybe not entirely that extreme but you get what I mean, in each generation there would be a trend towards certain sorts of people who were desireable at the time of their birth or anticipated to be desireable at the time of their coming of age). Then as people aged they would not only be physically old but 'dated'. How many people do you know called Muriel who are under 50? It would be like that, only instead of having a dated name you'd have a dated face, a dated predisposition to painting or whatever if that's even possible (nature/nurture) but if it started at genetic enhancement it would spill over into early childhood anyway.

Then there's those countries where parents choose the sex of the child and almost always choose male. They're gonna have problems.

[Math_nerd]

and what about the hundreds of embros creted and then destroyed in the prosses of getting the perfect baby? (iverto fertilisation does the same thing)