Russians tried it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Ivanovich_Ivanov#Human-ape_hybridization_experiments
That does not surprise me. Some of the stuff that the Russsians, Japanese, and Germans did back then was terrifying. I’m sure other places did some pretty messed up stuff too but it’s just not as known.
25% survival rate and a 50-50 on if they end up as you describe. Of course sub 32 weekers were screwed until there were advances on the lungs/respiration. Pretty much at any time where you seems bad, until they work out the issues and run into the next problem. Maybe we should never have done C-sections?
Have you seen the baboon shoots that Tubb put online?
Just as with many, many other areas of science and medicine, the ethics will adjust to the new frontiers and new capabilities. It is absolutely commonplace throughout history that what had been previously unethical becomes completely ethical as science marches on. It is also absolutely commonplace for some people to decry the “ethics” without really even understanding the technology or its possibilities. http://creatingminds.org/quotes/by_experts.htm
I like this one. Seems like something one might have read on an internet discussion forum at one time back on the threshold of modern medicine. As we today are on the threshold of modern genetics.
‘The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.’
— Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873
Don’t think it can’t happen today. The US deliberately infected black servicemen with syphilis and let them go untreated from 1932 to 1972 simply for a clinical study. This is what the US government and our military is capable of doing to our own servicemen in our lifetimes.
I also remember the early failures of gene therapy when people thought they finally had it all figured out and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. All it takes is one guy who is convinced he’s right and is just missing some small detail and he will send endless people through an agonizing treatment program trying to crack the code. And this is a person who is idealistically trying to help everyone.
If you get somebody with less than noble ideas, the dark path goes on forever. I’m all for modern science and medicine, and this is something that certainly needs to be looked at, but with a lot of oversight and caution. We have a tendency to engage in things that get away from us.
I also understand there isn’t a “authentic human” in the intended sense and we are currently the product of a sometimes random evolutionary process and environmental influences. If we remained in Africa longer, went east rather than west on a different timeline or if the last ice age held strong another 5,000 years we would likely be very different people today.
So in an objective sense tinkering with the code by humans isn’t much different than our environment driving changes in the code. So if we were able to turn off the gene that causes cancer without significant repercussions that would be great. But we are just as likely to do something incredibly stupid like attempt to modify our ability to tolerate opiates so everyone could do drugs without fear of overdosing.
This is much bigger than messing with stem cells and all of the potential of abuse associated with obtaining stem cells.
Herein lies the problem(I think you already see it); plenty of evidence to suggests genes can control multiple pathways not just one.
Yep, we are groping in the dark for sure. Reminds me of those early nuclear tests where people are close enough to need a trench to protect them from the blast wave and seemingly oblivious to the reach of radiation and fallout.
My concern isn’t even what could go catastrophically wrong in the trial and error phase but what happens when a premature success is declared and upgrades become mandatory. Think of it as a reverse scenario to the “inoculations cause autism” hysteria that was for a time presented as fact.
Also I don’t think we would see cause and effect in a single lifetime. If you mess with the code, the scary shit might not even manifest itself for three or four generations, after all your kids and grandkids aren’t guaranteed to have the same eye color as you even though the gene is present.
I think I’d want to be in the control group for as long as possible. If it condemns me to a natural life span with the current health risks, I still think that is the safer bet.
This is kind of concern. I mean, I’ll be the first to go that gene splicing or manipulation are going to happen on a larger scale sooner or later, but the thought I have is to do so in a way that they don’t get used in ways that will be used to harm, kill, or oppress. Because, even if you go, “well all we want to do is to help mankind.” Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that, and before long that pill that rewrites cells from causing cancer goes from a one time pill to a weekly pill because the drug company needs to keep profits up. Not saying that is how drug companies work, but I inherently distrust mankind, an well greed. Sorry.
There is also the lovely paper on the study of how to rebuild the Defense infrastructure I read a number of years back that had the lovely line in it, “advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” If that doesn’t scare you to some degree then I don’t know man.
With thoughts like that coming from people, I would be inherently hesitant from going mad rush into any science like this. Not saying not to explore it, but do so morally with checks and balances. Like I said, I fully expect this, or cyborgs to become a thing in the future, where we are either engineering the genome to allow people to do things that are beyond the scope of today, or literally engineering/augmenting them to give them more abilities. I don’t see that not happening short of a extinction level event. But, putting tools in the hands of people who may will to wipe out large swaths of humans for no particular good reason gives me the willies, not taking into account the possibility of a weapon that might be designed to wipe out one group, backfiring and wiping out everyone. Or, as others stated Zombies, because there are legit books that some next gen miracle cure for cancer being invented, the US Gov, or world Gov going, wait we need to better study it, and some scientist going, “**** that noise, we will save people.” And releasing the stuff to the public, and curing cancer, and then it have a nasty side effect that ends up literally killing millions. Yes fiction, but…
Myself, I just want Wolverine’s healing factor. I’ll take the built in cutlery too, but now I just getting off topic.
I don’t believe the scientific and medical communities will sufficiently understand how to apply this technology without causing unforeseen mutations, cancers, etc. There is still so much we do not understand re: controlling genes, downstream effects, etc. I believe it will be far longer than 10 years before this is applied clinically.
Genes are not expression. Genes are the blueprint and cell structure are the building. There are about 5 levels of telephone and the impact of ‘building site’ between the two. Lots of chances for non-obvious or intended out comes. Then you get to ‘zoning’ of those cells.
We can’t even make sure the right kind of cladding gets on buildings…
Ah grasshopper…
Edit
Interesting stuff, definitely not an apocalypse, but a lot of potential, which is good.
Technology and AI will make the vast majority of Homo sapiens obsolete.
Vast majority already are? I watched a dude in India sweeping up a construction site with a twig broom…
“…ridding themselves of the herd mentality.” If I remember my philosophy from years ago, this was already considered by Nietzsche - the “Übermensch” or supermen.
Current medical advances to date have stymied evolution. If we are to evolve further, or even prevent de-volving, gene manipulation is going to be how that happens. The way I figure it, we’ve only got a relatively short amount of geologic time before the usual species-killing event takes us out. We’d better get crackin’.
It won’t.
Healthy people do not generate profit for Big Pharma and Big Insurance.
Oh I’m sure the elite class will get all the latest greatest med tech but it will be priced out the plebs grasps. Watch / read any 20th century dystopian work to see where this will lead as previously eluded to by some other members.
Every people group from all corners of the planet have a flood myth. This is precisely why the God of the Old Testament sent “Noah’s flood” according to the text.
Gray goo theory is a very possible reality.
That has more purpose than many others I can think of . . .
I have a friend alive now due to medication produced by genetically modified call lines. The odds are you do as well.
Most insulin is now produced via genetically modified organisms, and many of the hormones & antibodies went from high risk production techniques (hepatitis, etc from cadivers) to low risk GMO cell lines free of disease.
It’s here, it’s continuing. Yes, there are risks. But also rewards.
But they don’t, not always. I know I see docs slapping themselves on the back after delivering that 24-weeker; or, high-fiving after getting a pulse back after someone coding for an hour. It goes back to, we do it because we can, not because it’s always right; it’s a mindset thing, not a technology thing. I saw it in paramedics, and I see it in world-renowned neurosurgeons.
I know I am a knuckle-dragging troglodyte of the cro-magnon variety, but I have a pretty decent grasp of the evolution of medical technology/practice and ethics. To be certain, I am not anti-genetic engineering; but rather fully aware of both the good and the bad that can come from any technological evolution.
Fears of Frankenstein’s monster aside, we’ve been going do n this path for a long time. It was inevitable. Sure, there are very real concerns about society turning into GATTACA, and maybe a a Khan in there for good measure. But we are already st the point where someone with a masters degree, funding, and a space to work could develop a virus capable of wiping out the human race.
I know several people and kids with rare genetic disorders who would have their lives completely changed by this technology. It’s here, it’s not going anywhere, so let’s put it to good use.