Genetically modified babies given go ahead by UK ethics body - Sensationalist Headlines

We coulda had universal healthcare in the 70s, but alas.

You mean the NHS currently being gutted by both staffing shortages(due to the inane measures taken with nurses) and funding in general?

Yeh, that one.

It's not really evolution. Evolving is something a species collectively does over time in response to an environmental change in order to survive. Giving oneself night vision eyes, for example, hardly constitutes as evolving.

This isn't entirely evolution either, although I actually somewhat subscribe to this. Darwin's evolution is a species changing over time due to natural selection. (I'm absolutely aware you know this Emperor I'm sorry) I do have an incling that your original statement is more true than is currently believed, I've argued about it a few times on FP. I'm really not sure natural selection is the sole factor or even perhaps dominant factor in the direction evolution takes. In response to the self evolving topic, it's interesting. If we found a self gene editing large organism, what would the terminology be? Or if something eats it's prey and absorbs it's "powers". Surely it's still evolution, we call it artificial but perhaps Aliens viewing us would deem our actions with technology natural. I've been awake for a long time.

It is evolution, just not by natural selection.

If I remember rightly it was you who I was debating this with. Unfortunately you just kept revising to me what natural selection was and it kinda killed the debate.

It was. I kept doing that because that's what the evidence says yet you kept going on about theories of evolution that completely contradict what we know.

Once was enough, but I understand. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and all I have are observations and inclinations, and I'm no Biologist. Discussing this shit is my bread and butter though, although nothing I say goes against natural selection, and I would never deny it's existence, I'm just unsure of it's significance when it comes to the progression and adaptation of bodily functions in relation to the environment. A smarter system makes more sense to me given the amount of time it took for us to change from a field shrew to a human being.

You realise this took place over quite literally tens of millions of years, right? That's hundreds of thousands of generations, if not more. Far more than enough time for the changes we observe to have occurred.

I'm rubbing my balls against your avatar right now.

I remember watching the movie Gattaca in biology class and not thinking much about it at the time, thinking it was a nice movie. Now that the sci-fi plot is becoming more and more realistic, I can see that the movie actually does bring up real points in the debates of genetic modifications. Sure, we start out eliminating genetic problems, but where do we go from there? Is there a line to cross on making children better through genetic modification? And what of the children made without genetic modifications, what will become of them? It's all a big blurry line that I can't answer. I have no problems with moving ahead, I just hope we make the right decisions when it comes time for them. Whatever those decisions may be.

We still have pinkies and little toes, we still have two internal organs prone to going bad very quickly (appendix, tonsils) (compared to expected lifespans) that will likely be replaced with a completely different system or just removed altogether eventually in the course of development. Our eyes are also really in a half assed state compared to a lot of animals and are likely to be up for changes along the line should exist for that long. Also the man makes the master argument is literally hinged on their being no other extinction events ever occurring in the span of human existence, which is patently false. Yellowstone is overdue at this point, and there are plenty of rock and ice balls out in the oort cloud, and one metric hyper fuckton of methane trapped in the ocean floor, and and plenty of old doddery stars nearby, and our own sun may caused Younger-Dryas to occur.

Whilst our physical eyes are pretty shoddy, the 'software' behind them in the brain that allows us to detect patterns is probably the best in the animal kingdom.

you must be very flexible if you were able to do that and type that post at the same time

the pinky makes up the majority of our grip strength, surprisingly enough

Is this evolution?

ehhhhhh i don't know if our intelligence will increase. sure, maybe because the sum of accessible human knowledge grows, but so far i don't really see any evolutionary pressures that will make greater intelligence a trait that will lead to a more fit species.

I can finaly have my child be the Solid Snake of procrastination!

I see the God emperor is starting early this time around.

There won't be any natural selection against this as we already have surgical procedures to remove those before/while they go bad, preventing death of those who have them go bad and thus prolonging it in the gene pool. How, when those with poor eye sight get to reproduce because glasses and contacts help them see and survive?

Evolution only cares about traits that keep you alive up until the point you reproduce. Organ failure, poor eyesight and most other conditions that negatively affect mortality tend to occur in later life when the person has either already reproduced or isn't going to anyway so they'll rarely matter to natural selection. Things like the appendix or tonsils are easily fixed with surgery so any genetic predisposition to failure will be passed down regardless of how early they occur. Unfortunately, in developing the technology to keep a huge number of people alive, we may have inadvertently prolonged the suffering for future generations, unless we fix it ourselves with genetic modification or something darker and unethical like eugenics.

i dont care about the babies can you make me a catgirl?????

Yep, All will take decades of make completely stable one.