Actually, only Queen ants breed…
The rest of them exist for her protection.
:wink:
… if blue eyes were such a good trait then there would be more blue eyed than brown people. its called natural selection. …
I guess the human race in modern societys has already left the path of natural selection. Because the highly developed medicine sector allows for all kinds of severe genetic traits in one beeing and it will probably still be able to reproduce itself.
IMO there would have to be a huge amount of pressure from the outside (something like a big epidemic) to start this process again.
I’m not saying that blue eyes are superior to brown eyes. What I’m saying is that parents who have traits for BOTH blue eyes and brown eyes, between them, should be allowed to choose which they want their children to have. I see no harm in this whatsoever. It’s not like I’m talking about having a bank of government approved genes for all children and you must select from that pool.
I’m just arguing that it is perfectly ethical for parents to chose from their own genes which their children will have and to have medical science correct any mutations or birth defects or genetic diseases passed along from parent to child. What harm is there in correcting asthma or ADHD or anemia or AIDS before the child is born? Deviated septum, no digits on your toes, etc also correctable.
Wouldn’t it provide more happiness to the parents and to the child to have a child without genetic defects, mental or physical disorders then to have a deaf child who was born without legs and with AIDS?
when is it okay to intervene in another’s life? If it meant that I would rather have 11 toes than to being genetically altered. I think only life threating diseases should be corrected. and maybe blindness and severe handicaps. but alot of famous people were genetically defeated like einstein and lincon. imagined if they were messed with and made “normal”. what is normal anyway? its really just an arbitrary standard set by society.
If you offspring is gonna come out as a monster or Richard Simmons, then its probably a good idea to abort it before it grows. That would not be Euthanasia. But to tell a doctor "i want only a boy with blue eyes and good hair or what not then thats the road to disaster. That ugly Albert Einstein will never be born again.
That’s assuming you genetically modify his brain… I thought we were talking about merely modifying “external” body parts…
GG
I am strictly limiting this to chosing genes available from BOTH parents. Thus, two Africans cannot have a blond haired, blue eyed boy. However they can chose gender. Also I’ll include repair of genetic diseases and mutations and birth defects. I don’t think there is a person alive that would stipulate that a boy be born with down syndrome if we could alter one gene and restore him so he, and his parents, will not have to deal with the problem.
That means if you want a child with blue eyes, you’d have to find a mate who had blue eyes and then the doctor could select that gene from your genetic material.
Thus, there is no playing god and creating the super race. You cannot engineer the child to have 20% more strength or be able to use more of his or her brain simulatansouly to make a super brain, etc.
If you have it in your eggs or your sperm, and you two are the parents, those are the genes you may select from.
@Cmdr:
I am strictly limiting this to chosing genes available from BOTH parents. Thus, two Africans cannot have a blond haired, blue eyed boy.
Not necessarily true. They could both be carrying recessive genes and thus be able to have an Aryan child…
Yes, but how much of the African population do you think are carrying those genes? Thus, the odds are so ridiculously low, we can exclude it from the discussion.
Suffice it to say, the engineered children could not have any physical attributes that they would have not have had a chance to acquire by chance.
I am simply pointing out the POTENTIAL.
@Cmdr:
Yes, but how much of the African population do you think are carrying those genes? Thus, the odds are so ridiculously low, we can exclude it from the discussion.
actually my eye trait is Bb. (mom had blue eyes and dad is black) so i don’t think its that ridiculously low unless your talking about real africans who can’t afford enough food to not starve let alone paying for genetic reengineering. there is also a .4% that a couple with a blue eyed great-grandparent each and the rest being black could have a blue eyed child without knowing. so its not impossible and genetically .4 is not that small. but what gives you the right to intervene in another’s lilfe to make them look how you want.
your talking about limmited abilitys to modify, but yet we know from history that when you give some, then more is taken and expected. if you compermise and allow miner alterations then with in a few years more will be allowed and then by the end of around 20 years we will be allowed to make any alterations that science will allow.
all that aside, you run the risk of diversity being striped from sociaty atleast as we know it and people will find new traits to discriminate or find “wrong”.
Slippery slope arguments are inherently flawed. We’ll keep this within the frame of the discussion as presented.
If money was no object, and everyone had the SAME access to the technology and equal medical providers, etc, etc.
Would it be unethical to choose what attributes your child had from the gene pool of his or her father and mother (and no one elses), repair any genetic mutations, cure any genetic diseases and repair any birth defects?
Or, another way to think of it is:
Is it more ethical to allow nature to produce children with brain damage, who are born addicted to drugs and/or are born with serious physical handicaps just so that you can say that medical science had nothing to do with it? Or is it more ethical to allow medical science to fix these problems at a very early stage, but allow them to also give the child his Mother’s eyes and his father’s chin?
so basicly your argument is “you must make your point with out your argument”. i can’t use facts that are given from other nations that in China they can only have one child and that by culture boys are preffered so boys would be the only ones made in effect killing a generation.
i can’t use the logic of slipery slope as that argument isn’t one you want to hear.
so half the argument against is in your opinion not relavent even though history and current events prove other wise.
so i am left with 2 arguments. 1 is religion and i don’t find this to be the place for a religous debate, and 2 is that by doing this you are destroying tolarance. if you take away adnormalities then people will find new traits to descriminate against or at the vary least will re birth the “freak show” as there will always be those who will not take the treatments (unless your advocating government forcing it) and as such the rare dwarf will now become so rare that it will be a freak again.
there is also the argument from cyan that i forgot, What right do you have to decide what some one else looks like? Is it ethical to force your child to play football, or go to medical school? if that is ethical then comunisam is ethical in practice as the state makes those decisions.
You can use other nations if they currently have this program in place. You cannot use other nations that have dynamically different cultures to demonstrate how our culture will work.
Even if we pretend that there would be a premium on boys in this nation, all that will do is make women more valuable and the pendulem will swing in the opposite direction resulting in a balance between males and females.
I just want to try and nip a lot of these extreme examples in the butt before they are proposed with seriousness. We are not talking about a single governmentally approved list of genetic codes, nor are we talking about allowing people to select from a bank. I’m talking about a mother and father going to the doctor, having the child screened genetically for abnormalities and, at the same time, having the doctor tweak certain features like having the child have the mother’s eyes or the father’s chin, etc.
No body sculpting. No brain enhancements. No eyes with reflective surfaces like cats to provide for night vision. No third lungs so they can stay under water longer. No extra 4 arms to make them spiderlike.
but where will it stop? this year we allow medical treatment, next year we allow eye and hair color changes. in 10 gender selection and sexuall prefrence. it will progress further and further with each passing advancment untell you can go to the doc and say, “I want a tall genious who can be an all star quarterback.”
what right to you have to chose what your child dose for a living or even what they look like? lets say you chose your chin for your kid but they don’t like it. you chose it directly, so you take the blame for it as you should. what if your idea of what would look good is not in keeping with what your child thinks looks good? this line of thought is the same as you forcing your child to dress up so they are popular even when they don’t want to, or forcing your child to take 4 years of math even if they only want and have to take 2 years.
you are the parent, but it is not your right to live there lifes for them.
ahh its no use anyway. Eventually they will have pills that make brown skin white, change your hair color while your alive to any color you want, and probably swap out your eyes for blue ones. Then you drink something and your brain is able to sponge up memory like it did when you were 5 years old, allowing people to learn things quickly.
When people die they just remove the head after making it young and stick it on a 16 year old body that was grown like a KFC chicken fryer in a laboratory.
good times.
@Cmdr:
Is it more ethical to allow nature to produce children with brain damage, who are born addicted to drugs and/or are born with serious physical handicaps just so that you can say that medical science had nothing to do with it? Or is it more ethical to allow medical science to fix these problems at a very early stage, but allow them to also give the child his Mother’s eyes and his father’s chin?
was einstien or lincoln or any of the savants like rain man a problem? they would of been fixed and the world would of be a worse place. You can not change anything in the brain though artificial selection or we will have a society of complete idiots starving who shout out Hail Big Brother. Also if never said why parents should have the right to have a custom designed child. this isn’t a car but a human. unless you have a life threating disease or a severe handicap like being born without your spine fully closed you should not intervene in another’s life. I would rather have 11 toes and made from natural selection than be a artificial selected drone. How do you know that baby would not grow up like me and prefer that choice? Also allowing custom designed children will decrease diversity and make us more prone to pandemic and the like.
Perv:
That’s a slippery slope argument and the problem with those are that you can basically make any action or inaction seem unethical with them.
Let’s just stay within the confines of the scenario.
Cyan:
Considering we have no problem with aborting savants and individuals who are inconvenient or deformed, I cannot seehow that argument really holds much water. Unless you want to say that abortion is less harmful then tweaking an individual to make their lives easier.
IL:
I understand your position, but it would be easier to adapt a single cell then an adult body, right?
I am not sure but now the Frankenstein idea seems more fascinating. I am now for creating monsters. They would be fun to have around and perhaps we can use one of them to play the new Herman Munster in a new reality series on MTV. Capitalism at its best.
good times.
