World's First Baby Born From New Procedure Using DNA of Three People - Polidicks

Isn't this basically just gene therapy? The article makes it sound like three people fucked and made a baby.

[QUOTE=false prophet;51120388]Eugenics kind of sparked WW2[/QUOTE] is there uh a difference between tailoring genes for the betterment of an individual (cosmetic, or more likely, to remove negative traits and risks of gaining certain diseases) and [i]removing peoples from the gene pool proactively[/i]

[QUOTE=da space core;51118012]This isnt gene splicing of human genes, this is adding mitochondrial dna that is healthy. Still cool though[/QUOTE] Have you learned nothing from Parasite Eve [img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1fwkLHjhf5g/Tj8sFIuX9RI/AAAAAAAABgU/qqYK9xgldJ4/s1600/Parasite%20Eve%202.jpg[/img]

wasn't this already done way back in 2001?

[QUOTE=Butthurter;51118363]clearly progress should be put to a halt if it leads to classism[/QUOTE] Yeah, if it only benefits some of us in the first world while harming the rest it isn't progress. It's this line of us-centered thinking that has led to ever-worsening inequality and environmental destruction, who cares about the rest? We have ourselves to serve!

[QUOTE=bastian-07;51118290]that it becomes the dominant form of creation; it's not so much that it's a bad thing inherently, but if we basically make it a 'normal' thing to do, we'll risk defining people in poverty and wealthiness by physical appearance and well-being. eg someone ugly must OBVIOUSLY be someone who can't afford to get their embryos engineered that's my fear, anyway[/QUOTE] You'd have a bitch like Miranda Lawson running around.

[QUOTE=phygon;51119510]Thanks to private doctors, private education, and more, that's already happened. Also, related [IMG]https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/blogger2wp/Methods-Zagorsky00-RelationshipbetweenIQandIncome.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] Could also be reverse correlation - intelligent people become rich. Obviously these rich, intelligent people would then have kids that have the same beneficial genes, on top of that the children will probably receive better education and have a more stimulating environment, adding to the IQ divide between rich and poor, but I don't think it's wise to discount the factor of social mobility founded in merit.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51121279]Could also be reverse correlation - intelligent people become rich. Obviously these rich, intelligent people would then have kids that have the same beneficial genes, on top of that the children will probably receive better education and have a more stimulating environment, adding to the IQ divide between rich and poor, but I don't think it's wise to discount the factor of social mobility founded in merit.[/QUOTE] Look at that chart and tell me where this "intelligence divide" is. The vast majority of plotted points lie within the $0-60,000 range. I'm not sure what the criteria for wealthy is, but I would start at 100k. Even with more generous criteria, that bar is still low.

[QUOTE=Revenge282;51121449]Look at that chart and tell me where this "intelligence divide" is. The vast majority of plotted points lie within the $0-60,000 range. I'm not sure what the criteria for wealthy is, but I would start at 100k. Even with more generous criteria, that bar is still low.[/QUOTE] Let's not call it a divide (I wasn't trying to say that all people who earn less than X amount a year are dumb or that everyone above that point is Stephen Hawking - 'divide' kinda implies a sharp cut off, and that wasn't the right word to use), and I mean there isn't an actual trend line drawn through that data set (that may be of dubious quality, I don't know), but to me it looks like there's slight linear trend through that cloud of data. As far as I know, education is oftentimes used as a proxy for intelligence in research, and most well-educated people earn more than people with less, little or no education. I honestly don't see how it's controversial to say that income is probably and at least weakly correlated with IQ. That's not to say that very smart people can't be poor and that all rich people are smart, because that's not how it works. But if I were to enter a wager of who, between two random people from above and below the 50K bracket, would score higher on an IQ test, I'd go with the person from the >50K bracket. Again, I want to stress that my post was about pointing out that I think a large part of the IQ/income correlation is due to merit - intelligent people, even if born into poor families, will end up doing better than a less intelligent person born into the same family. This way you end up with a graph where people at the higher income brackets do better at IQ tests - at least some of this would be due to smart people moving from the poorer brackets to the richer ones. Obviously not all intelligent people become economically successful, and being poor doesn't mean you're stupid. About the definitions of rich and poor - let's just keep it at "there's a correlation between IQ and income". I'd assume there's a much stronger correlation with having rich parents.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51121590]Let's not call it a divide (I wasn't trying to say that all people who earn less than X amount a year are dumb or that everyone above that point is Stephen Hawking - 'divide' kinda implies a sharp cut off, and that wasn't the right word to use), and I mean there isn't an actual trend line drawn through that data set (that may be of dubious quality, I don't know), but to me it looks like there's slight linear trend through that cloud of data. As far as I know, education is oftentimes used as a proxy for intelligence in research, and most well-educated people earn more than people with less, little or no education. I honestly don't see how it's controversial to say that income is probably and at least weakly correlated with IQ. That's not to say that very smart people can't be poor and that all rich people are smart, because that's not how it works. But if I were to enter a wager of who, between two random people from above and below the 50K bracket, would score higher on an IQ test, I'd go with the person from the >50K bracket. Again, I want to stress that my post was about pointing out that I think a large part of the IQ/income correlation is due to merit - intelligent people, even if born into poor families, will end up doing better than a less intelligent person born into the same family. This way you end up with a graph where people at the higher income brackets do better at IQ tests - at least some of this would be due to smart people moving from the poorer brackets to the richer ones. Obviously not all intelligent people become economically successful, and being poor doesn't mean you're stupid. About the definitions of rich and poor - let's just keep it at "there's a correlation between IQ and income". I'd assume there's a much stronger correlation with having rich parents.[/QUOTE] If you were to draw a line showing the trend in that plot it would look something like this: (you could probably raise that line in the chart, but either way, its going to max at $60k) [img]https://puu.sh/rqFzR/7b7258dddc.png[/img] This looks relatively tame and acceptable. Here is data that supports the argument that wealth = IQ a bit more clearly, granted it is nothing drastic enough to warrant any alarm personally. [img]https://i1.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-EX022_SAT160_G_20141007151935.jpg[/img] According to this chart, there is roughly a 4% increase in intelligence measure for every $20,000 earned. I, personally, do not find that to be enough proof that wealth directly increases intelligence.

[QUOTE=Revenge282;51121629]If you were to draw a line showing the trend in that plot it would look something like this: [img]https://puu.sh/rqFzR/7b7258dddc.png[/img] This looks relatively tame and acceptable. Here is data that supports the argument that wealth = IQ a bit more clearly, granted it is nothing drastic enough to warrant any alarm personally. [img]https://i1.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-EX022_SAT160_G_20141007151935.jpg[/img] According to this chart, there is roughly a 4% increase in intelligence measure for every $20,000 earned. I, personally, do not find that to be enough proof that wealth directly increases intelligence.[/QUOTE] So you just posted another graph showing there is a correlation, but you don't find that there is a correlation? The difference doesn't have to be stark, it just has to be statistically significant. Also wealth, through better education, a better, more stimulating environment when growing up etc., might increase intelligence, but the connection I'm suggesting is the reverse - intelligent people more readily achieve economical success than their less intelligent peers. I don't know, are we just talking past each other right now?

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51121646]I don't know, are we just talking past each other right now?[/QUOTE] We probably are. I can get on board with intelligence = money, but not vice versa. I suppose the point I was trying to make was that money does not *directly* correlate with intelligence. Rather money leads to other factors which then lead to intelligence. I suppose we aren't that far off base.

[QUOTE=Revenge282;51121658]We probably are. I can get on board with intelligence = money, but not vice versa. [B] I suppose the point I was trying to make was that money does not *directly* correlate with intelligence. Rather money leads to other factors which then lead to intelligence.[/B] I suppose we aren't that far off base.[/QUOTE] I don't think anyone would argue that giving someone $1m makes them smarter - a wealth-induced intelligence boost (probably to your kids) would be through better education and a more stimulating environment; that is, through effects derived from wealth. That still means that wealth is correlated with intelligence and vice-versa - but not causation of course. But I'm pretty sure that we agree on that.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;51121781]I don't think anyone would argue that giving someone $1m makes them smarter - a wealth-induced intelligence boost (probably to your kids) would be through better education and a more stimulating environment; that is, through effects derived from wealth. That still means that wealth is correlated with intelligence and vice-versa - but not causation of course. But I'm pretty sure that we agree on that.[/QUOTE] Then I suppose I yield. Good discussion, sir.

[QUOTE=da space core;51118325]Pretty much deus ex pins down why. People with money will benefit the most and the divide will grow larger.[/QUOTE] That's mostly a wealth inequality problem though, it's not really inherent to genetic engineering.

[QUOTE=BigJoeyLemons;51118436]Accidental eugenics, mostly[/QUOTE] "Why can't we eugenics?" "Because its eugenics"

[QUOTE=da space core;51120249]We have this mentality in the US that if you work hard enough, a poor kid in a public city school can beat out a wealthy rich kid from a private school. Thats arguably untrue these days but that is the common ideal here. But now, with genetic engineering, we can make people far more capable intrinsically. How on earth does the poor kid compete when the rich guy is literally designed on the genetic level to be harder, better, faster, stronger? Thats a possible future, and it is something to be VERY careful of[/QUOTE] Not to mention super soldiers or genetically engineered soldiers. [editline]28th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Kljunas;51122387]That's mostly a wealth inequality problem though, it's not really inherent to genetic engineering.[/QUOTE] Its inherent to technology developed in a Capitalist system. We have people who are completely cut off from the internet or have very little access and with most jobs including introductory jobs now requiring online applications many poor people are left out of the circle.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Everyone that wouldn't be fruit of genetic engineering would be considered inferior. That alone is awful.

Honestly, genetic engineering should be used to prevent terrible diseases from occurring in children and that's it.

[QUOTE=Sims_doc;51118276]I don't really get why we can't engineer people, what are the dangers?[/QUOTE] Watch Gattaca. Imagine not getting a job because you don't have "perfect" DNA.

Imagine not having perfect DNA because some fuckup can't get a job

[QUOTE=phygon;51119510]Thanks to private doctors, private education, and more, that's already happened. Also, related [IMG]https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/blogger2wp/Methods-Zagorsky00-RelationshipbetweenIQandIncome.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] Nothing to do with any of that. It is almost entirely due to heritable IQ (and the divide most likely increasing over time due assortative mating combined with differential fertility of high IQ and low IQ people). Coming from a private school, I know my school, like most other private schools in the UK, has very low 'value added' (ie. progress above the expected from IQ-like tests in earlier years, which is measured in all schools the UK) despite extremely good results. This suggests it isn't the school itself which is causing the excellent results (the reason why I will not pay for private education if I have children even if I have the money barring unforeseen circumstances), but it is the pupils themselves. [url]https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/09/fall-meritocracy/[/url] -- A very interesting article by somebody who most people hate (Toby Young). I don't agree with his conclusions or solutions to the problem, but good reading for anyone who doesn't understand this issue. [QUOTE]However, there’s a problem here—let’s call it the challenge posed by behavioural genetics—which is that cognitive ability and other characteristics that lead to success, such as conscientiousness, impulse control and a willingness to defer gratification, are between 40 per cent and 80 per cent heritable.[5] I know that many people will be reluctant to accept that, but the evidence from numerous studies of identical twins separated at birth, as well as non-biological siblings raised in the same household, is pretty overwhelming. And it’s probable that in the next few years genetic research scientists will produce even more evidence that important aspects of people’s personalities—including those that determine whether they succeed or fail—are linked to their genes, with the relevant variants being physically identified. The implication is that a society in which status is allocated according to merit isn’t much fairer than one in which it’s inherited—or, rather, it is partly inherited, but via parental DNA rather than tax-efficient trusts. This is an argument against meritocracy made by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971): You’ve done nothing to deserve the talents you’re born with—they’re distributed according to a “natural lottery”—so you don’t deserve what flows from them.[6][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]However, there’s a practical difficulty with meritocracy that I think is harder to deal with than any of the philosophical points made by Rawls, and that is the low probability that meritocracy will produce a continual flow of opportunities over the long term. On the contrary, it may eventually lead to them drying up. Suppose we do manage to create the meritocratic education system referred to above. It would produce a good deal of upward and downward social mobility to begin with, but over the long term, as the link between status and merit grows stronger, you’d expect to see less and less inter-generational movement. Why? Because the children of the meritocratic elite would, in all likelihood, inherit the natural gifts enjoyed by their parents. In time, a meritocratic society would become as rigid and class-bound as a feudal society. Let’s call this the ossification problem. This is precisely what happens in the dystopian future described in my father’s book. The sociologist narrator writes: [I]By 1990 or thereabouts, all adults with IQs of more than 125 belonged to the meritocracy. A high proportion of the children with IQs over 125 were the children of these same adults. The top of today are breeding the top of tomorrow to a greater extent than at any time in the past. The elite is on the way to becoming hereditary; the principles of heredity and merit are coming together. The vital transformation which has taken more than two centuries to accomplish is almost complete.[/I][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]At the bottom of American society, according to Herrnstein and Murray, is a class of people they describe as “very dull”. Members of this group possess IQs of 80 or below, often struggle to complete high school, and are either unemployed or working in low-paying jobs. They analyse the data thrown up by the National Longitudinal Survey of Labour Market Experience of Youth (NLSY), a study of 12,686 people, 94 per cent of whom were given an intelligence test, and conclude that IQ is a better predictor of low socio-economic status—and the associated problems of poverty, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, criminality and drug abuse—than any competing variable, including parental socio-economic status. According to their analysis, someone with an IQ of 130 has a less than 2 per cent chance of living in poverty, whereas someone with an IQ of 70 has a 26 per cent chance. At the pinnacle of American society, by contrast, there is a “cognitive elite”. Typically, members of this group possess IQs of 125 and above, have postgraduate degrees from good universities and belong to a handful of “high-IQ professions”, such as accountants, lawyers, architects, chemists, college teachers, dentists, doctors, engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, natural scientists, social scientists and senior business executives. According to Herrnstein and Murray:[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]And Murray returns to this theme in Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 (2012). “The reason that upper-middle-class children dominate the population of elite schools,” he writes, “is that the parents of the upper-middle class now produce a disproportionate number of the smartest children.” By way of evidence, he points out that 87 per cent of college-bound seniors who scored above 700 in their SATs in 2010 had at least one parent with a college degree, with 56 per cent of them having a parent with a graduate degree. He concludes: “Highly disproportionate numbers of exceptionally able children in the next generation will come from parents in the upper-middle class, and more specifically from parents who are already part of the broad elite.”[16][/QUOTE] His proposed solution is 'progressive eugenics' - ie. Some countries will legalise eugenics when it is possible. Therefore, rich elites will pay to get their kids there to boost their IQ and life chances. We know this is likely given how much middle-class parents love to do to help their kids, doing stuff that has literally no proven effect (like making kids listen to Mozart), and paying literally hundreds of thousands of pounds for education (despite the already described low value-added effects). Why would they not do something that is actually proven to work like eugenics? As such, he argues, unless we too legalise it and offer it free of charge to low-income (who are also usually low IQ) families, there will be a widening gulf in IQ inequality. As such we can boost low IQ children from those struggling to pass high school to perhaps being able to get a degree, reducing inequality and boosting life chances. I disagree with this propostition, but I can't deny it is interesting and needs more thought to it.