Could this be a start to a eugenics program for the United States or something less clandestine?

Good day,
I was reviewing a news web site I read often and found this story quite interesting.

babies by design

It has to deal with fertility clinics picking and choosing specific genetic traits for babies being born by in vitro fertilization.
This is a situation which I feel torn on for various reasons.

• This reminds me of the medical experiments that were being conducted by the Nazis
• By picking and choosing genetic traits we are not letting the natural process of life occure
• The possibility of being able to isolate and remove the genes which cause so many horrible and debilitating dieses is a truly a fantastic and wonderful achievement in medical science.
I’m not here to debate any major issues but to simply provide some information that I have found.

Thank you all for your time,

Arcticnull

I would be ok with removing genes that cause inherited disease and deformities, but I draw the line when it comes to hair color, eye color, and sex.

Eugenics programs were around long before the Nazis.

This program seems alright to me, although I'm sure there will be much controversy.

I am pretty much over worrying about this. I mean, if we don't change the genetic makeup of humans, what are we going to have? Idiocracy?

Let's face the facts. This global meltdown we are experiencing now is the result of the most advanced country in the world having a population not able to rule itself. Democracy does not work because the human race is simply too stupid to behave responsibly. If eugenics brings us closer to actual sentience, then that is the way things must go.

To grumble: What if the make us dumber with it so we will not struggle to obey laws? Not dissagreeing with you or picking an argument, but the plausability is there.

I dissagree with it totaly, and i know im going to get shot down for this, because it isnt a nice thing to say, but we shouldnt remove desiesed genes. In the future yea, we defently should! But only when we have enogh room. Like Hawkins said, "If the human race wish's to expand, we will need to collanise other planets".
If we start taking away desiesed genes, 2 scenarios will happen.

Scenario 1: The amount of people on this earth would make it a living hell hole. Seen 5th element? We would be all living in tiny rooms, stacked up sky high, hardly being able to see the pavement when walking to work (if you manage to have a walk)
The food would be so processed to manage with feeding all the people, its bound to cause problems. So many people packed in small places = a huge wide spread of anything contagous, and these virus's will mutate at such a rapid pace, they would be untreatable, imagen living in these conditions?!

Scenario 2: Something goes wrong. It's happend, mankind came up with something great with nature, tried it, "hey this is great", 10years down the line, "Uh oh, whats happaning here?" If we alter genes, we are technicaly mutating mankind ourselves, and thats a territory we should never go down.

A possible 3rd scenario (and a bit sci-fi): 2 species of human: 1 being the natrual, and the other "designer" (for lack of a better word). The designer could end up becoming the "slave" species, mande by us, for us. These would be so common and we would be told that they do not matter and have no feelings so that we perchase them and create bigger profit without thinking about ethical implecations (slave trade anyone?? history does repeat itself). Do we have any right to bring a human into the world to purposley give it a life like that??
Or the sides could be switched. The natrual humans could be looked down upon for not having "clean genes" and be second class citizens (like the segregation)

Sorry for being so doom and gloom, but just some thoughts pondering around.Good thread, S&F

Originally posted by Trolloks
To grumble: What if the make us dumber with it so we will not struggle to obey laws? Not dissagreeing with you or picking an argument, but the plausability is there.

It could happen. But if nothing is done we will never progress as a race. Which may not matter -- perhaps we are not meant to progress. But the idea that the human race, as it is currently constituted, will colonize the stars, is laughable.

The argument is irrelevant. That genie is not going back into that bottle.

www.geocities.com...

Thats just one of the sites that poped up when i searched "terraforming mars" into google.

As progression of humans, we have been here for very little time, and seemingly came along way. Even if we have sunk back considerably, at one point we were better, and it could go back to that.
I think you are on about the way in which we live, not the race as a whole.

I don't normally need to start a post by stating I AM NOT A NAZI but it's probably best this time,

We got; Post codes, Jet plains, Nukes, The olympic logo & flame, shock and awe (blitzkrege), propaghanda, submarines and a dozern other things from the Nazi's -most were invented by nice germen's who got mixed up in a bad system.

We really need to stop worrying about weather things remind us of the nazi's - the important thing is weather they are morally ok or not.

Let us not forget, Concentration camps, chemical weapons (gas), mines, carpet bombing and forced labor camps for POWs were all invented by the allies!

Genetics is a vital science if we're going to survive and keep growing as a race, a few possible ways of surviving exist to us;

1-go on as we are, sick people will suffer their entire life then some pandemic or global crisis will cause billions to die at some point, the faulty genes will carry on spreading until a large portion of our planet is on critical life support or requires others to look after them, a point will be reached at which society can't cope and chaos and suffering will reset our civerlization again.

2-Treat humans like farm animals and only allow 'strong' stock to breed, this is eugenics and exactly what the nazis did -it's also kinda evil.

3-Discover how DNA works and fix the translational problems which can cause someone terrible, terrible pain their entire life - hemophilia being an example, a single defective gene ruins the persons blood but by selecting the cells which don't have the faulty DNA when reproducing no one need ever suffer again. This won't cure all illness but some of the worst, lest treatable problems can be avoided. -A set of parents might have had say a 50/50 chance of having a heavily disabled and unhappy child born to suffer then die young but with screening they could be assured of a healthy child - surely this can't be a bad thing?

yes genes are scary and new[ish] but it's going to help a lot of people.

Good day,

I want to thank everyone who has posted in my thread so far. I'm happy to contribute something where people can express their opinion.

I've been doing some thinking after I posted this thread and realized that there is a lot more to this topic than what I initially realized.

As with any topic we can always dive deeper into the subject matter.

One topic that I did not consider when I posted this thread was that there is a huge population of United States citizens who are deeply devoted to a religion.
I"m not going to start naming them I just want to make it clear that I recognize that their are many faiths and many people who follow those faiths.
I think it would irresponsible of me to not recognize that many people various faiths with disagree with this as well as those people who do not believe in organized religion.

That large population, not just in the United States but in Canada as well, (I"m Canadian by the way) would express their negative opinions that human beings can not and should not experiment with genes and "designer babies". That fact leads me to ask the question:

Where is the money coming from for this research?

Who is supporting this type of IVF?

Is the municipal, state or federal government providing funding?

If any level of government is providing funding does that not create a conflict of interest by showing favoritism for bi-partisan groups?

Grumble makes the point that if we don't experiment with gene manipulation the human race will stagnate.

On the other side of the argument Trolloks believes that we need to let nature run it's course.

I do not have an opinon on the topic yet but I hope that there can be more discussion about this topic as time passes.

Thank you for your time,

Arcticnull

Originally posted by Grumble
I am pretty much over worrying about this. I mean, if we don't change the genetic makeup of humans, what are we going to have? Idiocracy?

[devil's advocate]

it's survival of the fittest, your personal opinion of the survivors is of no significance.

[/devil's advocate]

oh, btw:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 2009.3.3 by Long Lance]

Originally posted by Trolloks
Scenario 1: The amount of people on this earth would make it a living hell hole. Seen 5th element? We would be all living in tiny rooms, stacked up sky high, hardly being able to see the pavement when walking to work (if you manage to have a walk)
The food would be so processed to manage with feeding all the people, its bound to cause problems. So many people packed in small places = a huge wide spread of anything contagous, and these virus's will mutate at such a rapid pace, they would be untreatable, imagen living in these conditions?!

5th element is not the best example my friend. We had colonized other planets in that movie. But i do agree with parts of your opinion.