I mean this in a way to give a child the best start at life. Instead of having to worry about heart disease or addiction or something else. And if people have an immunity to one thing that the other does not. We take the gene from the first person to create a medicine for the other person. I think it gets a bad rap because Hitler. To put it another way. If a person who is 80 and has an immunity to diabieties or cancer or whatever. And we can take that gene and put it into a new born so the kid never has to worry about it.
EDIT: Maybe I mistyped. I meant Eugenics in the sense that without killing anyone or anything. We can take take a gene from one person edit it. So it does not cause heart disease or cancer or addiction or whatever. Case in point if a child has a family history on both sides that he or she will have diabetes or breast cancer, or heart disease or something. Why not take that gene from myself or anyone else (without killing anyone) to give the kid a shot at a decent life since the gene will stop the diabetes or heart disease…I really really need to reword this question in a couple days. But hey at least it’s getting interesting answers.
EDIT 2: This post was supposed to be altruistic. No harming anyone else. Or killing kids or whatever.
EDIT 3: Since the downvote brigade has come. Downvote the most. All this to a missed knowledge part on myself. But you guys and gals have been great for the discourse. Cause at this point there is no getting out of downvote hell lmao.
Who decides what genes are best?
People who have the genetics for sickle cell anemia have a greater chance of surviving malaria.
Forget the ethics for a moment: Eugenics is flawed from the very premise that putting all our (genetic) eggs in one basket is somehow a good idea.
Technically evolution decides what genes are best… Eventually.
Shouldn’t this be constantly instead of eventually? Genetic changes are happening all the time
Most mutations are irrelevant or don’t impact anything until they’re duplicated enough times to matter.
For example, every human has 6 to 24 copies of the genes that let us digest wheat: AMY1 (salivary) AMY2A / AMY2B (pancreatic).
If any one or two of those mutate in the next generation, it won’t be noticeable or make any sort of impactful change.
This is why changes from one species to another take hundreds of thousands of years (many generations). A whole lot of people will need to accumulate the same mutations and survive (or just reproduce) with those changes (when others don’t) for speciation to occur.
About 70,000 years ago, nearly all humans on earth died, leaving behind just a few tens of thousands (maybe up to 200,000) that had just the right combinations of genes to survive. When that happened, humanity lost nearly all of its genetic diversity. It’ll be a long time before we diversify again (if we ever make it that far).
I was more thinking like Gattaca where they take the part out of the DNA that causes heart disease and other stuff to give kids the best start at life. Then why can’t we use the gene for sickle cell to create a cure for malaria?
If you watched Gattaca and thought, “This is a good blueprint for the future”, you missed the point the movie was making.
That’s the thing about sci-fi, it’s a warning about potential horrors but that doesn’t mean horrifying things can’t have a positive.
I wholly understand that the point of gataca is oppression that comes from giving humans another metric to oppress. It’s spelt out plainly. Unfortunately, like the main character, I’m also the product of people who didn’t think about what they’d be passing on. Now in my thirties, I’m in the early stages of arthritis, my eyes are failing, and if family tradition holds I’ll have less than a decade before a sudden and undetectable heart condition kills me. If that doesn’t get me I have early dementia waiting in line.
I’m three quarters through the life I was given and I knew the name of my killer before I was ten. To me, Gataca is a world where some forethought on my parents would mean never having to do weekly injections so that my flesh does not consume itself. A long and ordinary life without pills every morning or regulating my diet for inflammation.
SciFi isn’t about the dangers of science, it’s about the dangers of science misused. The moral of gataca is that people are more then the sum of their parts and to value them on such is cruel and unjust. It’s that parents have a responsibility to their children, regardless of their own feelings on it. But it’s moral isn’t that correcting bad genetics is wrong. No one deserves to be born broken.
Ok lets say you have a child. And they tell you he or she won’t last past 25 years old, but they can make an “adjustment” so he or she can live a full and happy life.?
That’s not eugenics, it’s gene therapy. Eugenics is when the policy is compelled by the state, for its supposed benefit to society instead of the affected individuals.
woah woah woah. I thought Eugenics was about curing disease’s and not about policy or anything doing with the state. And to benefit society. I have way way way misspoke… Thanks for catching me on that…no sarcasm.
But that is not what you are talking about.
I know now I mis spoke well typed.
Because the mutation that causes anemia is the one that prevents malaria. You can’t have one without the other.
You didn’t finish that movie, did you?
I think a big problem is it becomes a slippery slope. We can all agree that heart disease and cancer are bad. What about asthma? Ok, probably bad, let’s get rid of that. Near-signtedness? Hmm. Being short? Not having a strong jawline? Male pattern baldness? The “wrong” skin color?
Watch better films.
Do not believe all that they tell you.