This topic was suggested to me by Dan following an article in the Telegraph in Britain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9480372/Genetically-engineering-ethical-babies-is-a-moral-obligation-says-Oxford-professor.html
In the article, an Oxford ethics professor said that since we know that genes affect someone's personality that it is our ethical responsibility to ensure future generation be better persons through gene manipulation.
After all, we already screen for Down syndrome and other disabilities as well as some illnesses, why not go one step further and ensure we have a future generation full of well tempered, intelligent, and patient people? Why leave things to chance? Or, at least, why don't we improve the odds of success towards a better next generation?
Predictably, all the response are negative if you take a look at the comments to the article.
We genetically manipulate pets do get dogs of a certain characteristic, we graft plants to get better fruits or flowers, (seedless watermelons!) but it is a taboo subject when it comes to humans.
There is already a lot of anxiety about genetically modified foods so perhaps there is a segment of society that is uncomfortable with genetic manipulation of plants even though the practice of grafting to combine plant species have been practiced for a long time. (Apples are genetically modified from crabapples and some say that apples did not exist in the era of Jesus Christ, never mind the garden of eden)
What is the argument in favor of a random genetic process as we have now? Is randomness a fundamental requirement for evolution and selection of the fittest?
Maybe we just do not trust anyone, never mind parents to take on the crucial decisions of genetic manipulation. So we are not doing something worthwhile because we cannot decide who should be doing this?
Or is the whole genetic manipulation thinking tainted by people like Hitler trying to develop a superior race? When can we shake off the horror of eugenics from Hitler and science fiction ?
Sperm banks in the artificial insemination business already advertise sperms from donors who are graduates or students in famous universities. Women are attracted to intelligent man who are good providers to be their life mate. Men are attracted to good looking women and some believe that it is an indication of good health. These are all traits that positively affect their children. So we are already doing genetic selection in a basic fashion. What is wrong with improving the process?
And now to poison the well totally ... Surely we are practicing eugenics already by allowing people prenatal genetic testing with the option of abortion. How gene pool is currently being drastically altered. Should this be decided by expectant mothers' and or fathers' only? What is the future place of the family in these discussions? Can families ever be overruled?
ReplyDeleteOh, and remember there are four kinds of genetic testing: test for being a carrier, prenatal test, test for potential genetic illness, and test for confirmed genetic illness.
How can we tell whether a "defect" is on the leading edge of evolution or on the trailing edge of evolution? Can some "defects" have useful social functions? CL
Hi there, I would have like quite much to come today, however my stomach is unfortunately playing higgledy piggledy with me (please excuse me for my terrible semantics). I have quite a few objections to the Telegraph article personally, and I have outlined them below:
ReplyDelete1. Professor Julian Savulescu, I believe, is greatly misleading on the research, risks, and reliability in the success of ‘genetically engineering ethical personalities’.
Here are two articles from the Environmental Research Foundation on Human Engineering:
Part 1: http://www.rachel.org/?q=en%2Fnode%2F5284
Part 2: http://www.rachel.org/?q=en/node/5294
There are two general fears regarding the practice of genetic engineering, one is purely psychological, the other is a legitimate health concern from science and experiment based results. Sometimes the genetic risk involved is perceived higher as an indirect negative feedback to the lack of government and regulator trust, as people are generally more afraid and reactive to what they are exposed to involuntarily than voluntarily. The scientific evidence against genetic engineering is however, far more convincing.
Professor Julian Savulescu was likely referencing to Germline Manipulation – a form of permanent change to the inheritable characteristics passed from one generation to the next, by altering sperm, egg cells, or an embryo. Like Somatic cell manipulation – the adding of genes to existing cells in some part of the human body, both Germline and Somatic cell manipulation run the risks involved in ‘horizontal gene transfer’, the introduction of foreign and unrelated genetic material cross species barriers. Horizontal gene transfer can carry transgenic material from bacteria, viruses and other genetic parasites, of which has the potential to originate and create new viruses and bacteria and diseases, disseminating drug and antibiotic resistance genes among pathogens. Another potential risk is genetically modified “gene silencing”. In experiments of plants and animals, foreign genes often behave unpredictably, and most are ‘shut off’ in response to stress from changes in surroundings or as the organism matures. Mutagenesis, deformity, and severe abnormalities are also frequent in test experiment organisms and in their progeny of succeeding generations.
There is infinitesimal, if none, of legitimate evidence that gene manipulation can positively affect personalities. Further more, a single gene does not usually control a single characteristic, and a single characteristic may be controlled by multiple genes. Changing a gene is likely to produce a diversiform of consequences, and controlling for a single characteristic is likely to involve a myriad of difficulties.
2. In screening out personality flaws, rendering children less likely to "harm themselves and others" – by subjecting children to an aseptic environment, we ironically decrease their immunity. Like the analogy of antibody development from introducing the germ of disease, through sequester and not exposure, a child is ineffectively developed for the outside world. Few diseases, in fact, are strictly determined by genes – disease, like personality peccadilloes, is produced or prevented through interactions between genes and social/physical relativism; genetic mutation increases the likelihood, but not the necessary development of disease, considering those affected may not have a family history of the ailment. Genes are only one of the many necessary qualities for survival. Nature works with Nurture. Integrative system conditions such as the interaction of nutrients, water, light, and warmth has not been fully researched by biologists. In the example of selective breeding, cross breeding, and habitual management versus genetic modification, the former considers gene exchange in the multiplicity of an environmental context, whereas genetically modified organisms are focused on genomes within a laboratory setting, oblivious of the repercussions in being extrapolated into ‘real life’.
ReplyDeleteDavid Suzuki, in his book, ‘The Sacred Balance’, makes a very poignant and pragmatic point on ‘Severing the Connections’:
“Whereas traditional worldviews see the universe as a whole, science produces information that can never, almost by definition, be complete. Scientists focus on parts of nature, attempting to isolate each fragment and control the factors impinging on it. The observations and measurements they make provide a profound understanding of that bit of nature. But what is ultimately acquired is a fractured mosaic of disconnected bits and pieces, whose parts will never add up to a coherent narrative.
…Far worse, different parts of the real world interact synergistically when placed together. As Nobel laureate Roger Sperry points out, new properties that arise from complexes cannot be predicted from the known properties of their individual parts. These “emergent properties” only exist within the whole. So we can never learn how whole systems work simply by analyzing each of its components in isolation.”
3. By ‘taking evolution’ or ‘the future of humanity into our own hands’, the topic falls precariously into the mindset of Nazi eugenics – the compulsive obsession to eliminate ‘undesirable traits’ in creating a ‘superior race’. Parallel to wildfires, in giving way to new growth, as an integral mechanism by which boreal ecosystems are continually regenerated through the removal of accumulating dead vegetation, human error in history contributes to the progress on ‘survival of the fittest’. In a controlled environment like democratic cultures today, securing the welfare of every individual requisites the need of an ‘intelligentsia’ and ‘perfect breed’ in offering protection from macrocosmic caprices – an attempt at supervising the cycles of destruction and creation. Such an attitude quite often falls into the fallacy of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where the substitution of reality for rhetoric, is akin to supplants of medically unnecessary ‘improvements’ in genetic engineering goals, in exchange for its credibility, practical alternatives, and prudence of external negativities:
ReplyDeleteQuoting Wikipedia,
“Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.”
The ideal about a superior division of humanity diverts the quintessential and much urgent obligation, to investigate fundamental contributions of illness and defects, upon the extensive social/environmental topography of causes and effects. Richard Dawkins and Douglas Adams presented a wonderful satire on the issue here:
Youtube Link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ygqJ5ZA5ss
4. I believe Professor Julian Savulescu’s “designer humans” is missing the point between what is quantitative, and what is qualitative in moral ethics. For instance, according to the ideas of Michael Sandel, author of What Money Can’t Buy – The Moral Limits of Markets, he offered a quasi – Aristotelian argument against the licensing, patents, and royalties from the commercialization, commensurability, and commodification of certain “goods”. Sandel differentiated between a situation of ‘coercion’ and a situation of ‘corruption’; coercion deals with extrinsic unfair bargaining conditions and ‘the ideal of consent’, whereas corruption debates the intrinsic moral importance or worth of a subject regardless of background conditions. The ‘moral good’ of the subject is similar in allegory to Aristotle’s ‘Eudaimonia’, meaning ‘happiness’, ‘well living’, ‘human flourishing’; the highest good and end, that is, a good that is desirable for itself, that is not desirable for the sake of some other good, and all other goods are desirable for its sake. Sandel believes that certain modes of valuation are appropriate to certain goods, and corruption alienates these appropriate modes of valuation, social practices, and emotional bonds; the adherence to extremist essentialism, conventionalism, or the ‘laws and economics’ of sperm, surrogacy, and genetic engineering industries were unrealistic to the love, intimacy, and responsibility of “natural” scenarios. Moral ethics should seek to experience, not estrange.
ReplyDeleteWilliam James Sidis (1898 – 1944), the notable American child prodigy, I believe, was a tragic case of such a “designer human”. His parents, Ukrainian immigrants Boris Sidis – a psychologist, and Sarah Sidis literally ‘cultivated’ their child’s precocious capacities from an early age. William grew to display phenomenal, almost savant syndromic curiosity. After several embittering social mishaps, William withdrew into the seclusion of his ‘perfect life’ – an ostensibly ascetic renunciation of social pleasures for the pure pursuit of knowledge. Later in life, he favoured the Okamakammesset tribal philosophy of “anonymous contribution” – the belief that one’s values are not measured by one’s visible contributions to society. He passed away at the age of 46 from cerebral hemorrhage. Like his father, he had a great deal of ‘sense’, yet unlike him, William also possessed great ‘sensibility’. I believe, quite painfully, William never had the opportunity to piece them together. For the reason, he retreated to menial tasks and avoided all sense in society, as he could not find its inner sensibility. Adults and children alike should learn to find the sensible in the sensitive, as I sincerely hope, no more children like William will turn out to be a “designer human”.
5. The target of our development goals should worry less on future offspring, and more on those who are currently living. Planning is good, healthy child-rearing is imperative, yet all itineraries are obsolete unless they have intention; preparation must come with purpose. The Dalai Lama once beautifully remarked, “The past is past, and the future is yet to come. That means the future is in your hands – the future entirely depends on the present. That realization gives you a great responsibility.” Like the parental enforcement of sexual abstinence on children, often stems from living vicariously, to offset sexual uncertainty and dissatisfaction in the parents’ own adulthoods, parents hoping for the improvement of future generations should not impose their own standards vicariously, but improve themselves first before calling the kettle black.
ReplyDelete6. Lastly, imperfection must be accepted, not avoided. By continuously circumlocuting intelligence from stupidity, logic from emotion, reason from intuition, we’re not only playing God; we forget the allure in ‘learning from our mistakes’. Some believe in a perpetual permanence and infallibility, yet it is the perceptibility and instinct to commit human error which tunes our adaptability to the changes in situation. As Seneca pithily remarked, “Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum” – “To err is human, to persist in it, is diabolical”.
ReplyDeleteLike women suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), the problem lies in a detachment between the ‘inner and outer mirrors’. There must be an affirmation between how one sees oneself, and how one expresses oneself to the world. As with the style quote from Euripides: Know first who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. I remember when I was younger, due to rather awful problems with dermatitis (which I still have), I would spend the entire lunch break at secondary school piling on makeup squeezed in the washroom stall (and yes, it was entirely unsanitary). I do not blame myself, as quite honestly, there is nothing beautiful of imperfections. Yet, there is the will, the audacity, and the compassion to take care of ourselves, to accept who we are, and most importantly, to hope that others will accept you as well. There is no need to laugh about imperfections, simply accept it. Yet, still seek, the beauty in life. Accept the bad and the ugly, and still seek the good. This is what makes life so very perfect.
There is an ample array of insightful discussions and details into the debate of genetic engineering. I hope that everyone had a lovely conversation, and I hope to come the next time!
Kind regards and wishing everyone a wonderful week,
Sandra.
I wonder if people would want to have kids that could be who they never could be? Or make them more money? Or would anyone really be interested? Actually I think its only a slim few that would be. Mostly people are so busy with their own lives, whatever it may be, that if genetics was an option they'd probably only do it if there was something in it for them. Otherwise, what would be the point? Sure parents who nurture their kids well turn out well, but, being uptight in the process doesn't "produce" better kids. The perfect genes wouldn't produce perfect kids either.
ReplyDeleteSince the time of Plato everything's so mixed up that nobody can say they know it all for certain. And uncertainty has kept Science going but the news it brings ain't so well recieved. Maybe we got a lot of answers about the universe but not about ourselves. That's the trouble, and I guess it could "get solved" if we only could find that missing piece of the puzzle. But I don't think it works that way--- that the missing piece is genetically perfect human beings.
This reminds me of Professor Richard Feynman's witty chapter, "Alfred Nobel's Other Mistake", in his autobiography, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"
DeleteHere is the Link:
http://www.chem.fsu.edu/chemlab/isc3523c/feyn_surely.pdf
(It is 5th chapter from the last.)
It is reported that Feynman once said, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." The fun lies in the very fact that we don't know a thing.
From Dan
ReplyDeleteIn Ideas cafe we talked about genetic engineering.
In Ideas book club we are talking about what money can't buy.
So here is a ?business proposal" that brings the 2 topics together.
Get starstruck: Fertility service to offer celebrity sperm
WENCY LEUNG
The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Oct. 17 2012, 9:06 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/get-starstruck-fertility-service-to-offer-celebrity-sperm/article4617681/