Eugenics: Chinese researcher claims first gene-edited babies

[Icelandic]

Might be in part my provocative titling of the topic that helped rouse such thoughts, but I think it's still good to acknowledge the more nefarious scenarios as well as the most likely one. If nothing else it has added some nice varying viewpoints to the discussion.

Eh. It seems like eugenics was already on some people's minds here anyways, so perhaps it was not so provocative. One other thing I will mention too. If a nation does use this kind of technology as incentive to kill off living members of it's society deemed as 'inferior', then I think that would speak volumes for that government, rather then the technology itself.

Like, I cannot imagine the availability of genetically engineering tech to cause places like the US and the EU to suddenly, or even gradually, become more in favor of 'culling the weak' in any way, shape, or form. North Korea on the other hand? Absolutely.

That's kinda like nuclear power. I can trust Germany with a nuclear power plant. Iran? Not so much.

Thinking of it as a preventive medicine really is the best way and likely what most of the world will adapt it as. Of course, it's good to remember that being able to modify genes with CRISPR is not really a breakthrough for most hereditary diseases. In most cases with tube inseminated embryos you can screen for the disease and pick only embryos that don't have it. The technology to screen for diseases is available already. Seeing that an embryo has some specific disease related gene and then deciding whether to use it for insemination or not is already available. You have clinics in US offering the service. CRISPR editing is not massively changing that paradigm, but rather opens a whole new avenue of preventative medicine by allowing genes changed in a way that are not naturally occurring in the human population, or are very rare but beneficial mutations.

But yeah, like HannibalBarca mentioned, it's not so straightforward to determine what is actually a beneficial quality. And, furthermore it's kinda hard to determine which genes would increase person's aptitude for intelligence or productivity in a meaningful way. It will require genetic screening on a whole new level to try determine the actual meaningful qualities or predispositions and a whole bunch of careful application of ethics so as to not overlook some traits that might be more important than we realise. In the end I imagine getting the thing anywhere near reliable would take few generations, but that's probably not going to stop people from trying. In the worst case the kids could end up with some unplanned disability or other side effects.

Hopefully one day the technology will be more developed with proper guidelines to handle it. Would be neat to make sure that your own kids are better than you even before birth.

I definitely do think that it will take a while for genetic engineering to become commercially viable. It's already proven itself, but for it to become regularly available, and to then see it's effects in the gene-pool overall, that will indeed take generations. But I do think that this kinda tech has no upper limit, even if it takes it a while to properly become a wonder-tech.

[Conundrum]

The University of Hong Kong organized a forum on the topic at hand and He Jiankui was present to answer questions.

https://youtu.be/cH57-YO9Eso

He begins at 1 hour and 9 minutes.  He has a rather think accent so can attempt to interpret if anyone would like me to.  There are some technical questions but much of the focus was on ethics.

There did not seem to be many doubters or questions on the validity of the method he describes.  There are 6 other pairs of potential parents in his study.  One may become pregnant soon.

As the CCR5 is effectively unheard of in China the children and parents will likely be tested within a year or so.  Is the parents lack the gene but is present in the children it will be a confirmed success.

One ethical concern raised by one scientist at the forum is that the CCR5 gene has some correlation with increased intelligence.  If the procedure was a success it is possible this doctor did genetically engineer more intelligent children.

[Tolvo]

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/419462-chinese-scientist-who-claimed-gene-editing-success-now-missing-report

Apparently He is now missing.

[Sain]

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/419462-chinese-scientist-who-claimed-gene-editing-success-now-missing-report

Apparently He is now missing.

Whoa... Well, not entirely unexpected in a sense. Doing something like that is bound to paint a HUGE target on your head.

[Tolvo]

Yeah. And I'm wondering what did happen.

He might have fled.

He might be in hiding.

He may have been killed, by a person or a group/mob.

The government may have him detained.

The government may have "disappeared" him.

But basically, most countries around the world would have people wanting to do the above to him after what he did, Dr Frankenstein is an apt comparison in regards to how people view eugenics experiments on babies, typically in the "Crimes against humanity" realm. He's lucky it isn't a Christian majority country, they'd have brought him out into public and ripped him apart.