Sooooo H.G. Wells....
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
That's *woot.* I always wondered whether that was possible.
Although - "We're not trying to alter them, just swap some bad ones for some good ones." Um. Call me stupid, but doesn't that constitute 'altering' them? Swapping out bad for good is changing them, alter is a synonym for change...Of course, I support genetic engineering and most people don't, so I guess it was probably just to sound "politically correct" or non-alarmist.
Oh, and "setback for human dignity"...I *hate* hearing about "human dignity." It's like we haven't made any progress at all in the last few hundred years. I'm tired of people thinking they're something "special" or "dignified" or "divine" about humans. There isn't. Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Cool, now we can create Xavier:Renegade Angel
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Were are special alright, just like K.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
My ignorance is hanging out again. K who? (or K what?)
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Cousin to Fruity Pebbles, wife of Bam Bam, sister of Loops.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Hehe. Dan really is special, isn't he? Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: Um. Call me stupid, but doesn't that constitute 'altering' them? Swapping out bad for good is changing them, alter is a synonym for change...
He's highlighting a subtle point. When he refers to "altering them", it actually means taking certain alleles for those genes and mutating them, creating new alleles which may potentially not exist in nature. When he refers to swapping out genes, that really means swapping out an allele and replacing it with a different allele, naturally occurring in this case.
Its just a matter of being specific and in this case you're correct, he's trying to minimize what he's doing to sound less threatening to others.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
So, the genes aren't being altered themselves, but the DNA strand is. Well, that is okay then.
I am also puzzled by what they may have done with the contents of the emptied egg shell, and, why they used a women that could pass along diseases to her kids and not just have the healthy one get preggers. And people say I over complicate things.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
As I understand it, and the article is a bit unclear (or I'm parsing it wrong), the issue is that two people want to have children but the mother has genetically linked diseases in her mitochondria (these are organelles that are outside of the nucleus where the majority of your DNA lies).
1) The couple create embryos from the first couple, they take the embryos out from the egg 2) The scientists take a second egg, "hollow it out" and stick in the embryo from the first couple 3) Somehow (and I'm unclear how), the result is that the resulting child will incorporate normal nuclear DNA from the first couple and mitochondrial DNA from the second couple, bypassing the diseases.
If they simply had the second couple get pregnant, all the DNA would be from the second couple. This way, the child has the vast majority of DNA from the first couple, a much smaller less important amount from the second couple.
In the Star Trek tradition, I'll create a simple analogy. Imagine that a new embryo is like a hybrid Ford. There are two engines, one gasoline and one electric. The one that is electric has problems so while they create the blueprints for the car, they swap in a new electric engine from a Honda. The resulting car is still a Ford, it just happens to use a second electric engine from Honda.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Why, that's like giving a Klingon scout ship the nacelles of a Dominion Battlecruiser.
Humans special? Well maybe to a point. But I reckon the more people want to cheat death, the more you're going to see these kinds of experiments. The nay-sayers are just delaying the inevitable.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Well, I think we're not that special at all. Every time we name some quality we think is unique to humans we find it in some other animal to a lesser degree. There might be a quantitative difference, but not a qualitative difference, in things like intelligence, metacognition, empathy, etc.
Edit: More gene jockey stuff. I'm going to use the term "gene jockey" from now on because Xeni Jardin did.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"2) The scientists take a second egg, 'hollow it out' and stick in the embryo from the first couple "3) Somehow (and I'm unclear how), the result is that the resulting child will incorporate normal nuclear DNA from the first couple and mitochondrial DNA from the second couple, bypassing the diseases."
I would assume that, rather than "hollowing it out", they just remove the nucleus and replace it with the other one. The second egg's mitochondria are still in it, so that's why they stick around when the cell starts dividing.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Nobility? Mercy? Love? I know these seem to be rapidly disappearing qualities, but they DO still exist.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I am not an animal! I am a human being! Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: Nobility? Mercy? Love? I know these seem to be rapidly disappearing qualities, but they DO still exist.
Greed! Anger! Lust!
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: Nobility? Mercy? Love? I know these seem to be rapidly disappearing qualities, but they DO still exist.
Define them.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Nobility: Honorable, morally upright etc.
Mercy: Quarter to a defeated enemy, desire to give aid to one in a time of affliction.
Love: willingness to lay down ones own life for the preservation of another's,
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
The latter two are covered by altruism in animals, nobility could probably use a better definition or at least a definition of what is considered "honourable" or "moral."
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Is it not honourable for the fox to raid the hen house? For the fox it is.
Is it not honourable for the panther to quietly stalk it prey? For the panther, or other felines, it is.
It is like when people say the pet can act so human like. Don't they mean humans can act like their pet? Going back to the fox, is it sly or clever like a human?
It isn't our opposable thumbs that have done much for us, it is our concepts of what we think is right and wrong, nothing more.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
While you may indeed point to instances of these ideals appearing in the animal kingdom, can you point to any one particular species other than humanity that can so easily display ALL of them?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Define easily Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
How about a wolf.
A creature noble in it's instincts to survive while trying to avoid the scourge of humanity, while noble humans continue to eat away at their habitats. Shows mercy when the other wolves or creatures turn tail and run, while humans have shown the mercy of gunning people down that were running from them, just for a few dollars in a cash register. The instinct to protect ones offspring is an unconditional love where a wolf will fight off any and all predators, or die doing it, trying to eat her young, but our Mrs. Smith parked her car full of kids in a lake.
Humans have an air of nobility and/or self righteousness while launching attacks on other nations because they have felt it was their right.
Humans have shown mercy as the example I have pointed out above, or, killing people for being in a different ethnic group, colour, religion, or because they have something we think we want or need.
Love is like mercy, for we love things more than we do each other.
Humans can display all three, and their mirror images, which is what makes us such a nasty beast. You won't see an animal break in to another's den to steal a stereo so they can sell it for money for drugs.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(This seems a little silly. Obviously(?) consciousness and the whole scheme of mental actions therein described are located on a continuum encompassing, say, planaria and people. And it is equally obvious that much of human behavior is unique to the species. ((For instance, slightly pretentious message board posts like this one.)))
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
That was my point - we're not special. There's no "line in the sand" beyond which you're a human. Every quality we think is special is a point on a continuum.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Sol, why does your post make me think of Shakespeare and monkeys?
Other than that I have to think this is a bit more than a little silly, although, in our defense, we do need, in our uniquely human behaviour, something to babble on about in the absence newly designed lego castles, bits and pieces lightsabers, pencil sharp derby racers, decay, death, and other Flarite endeavors.
Dan, what about K?
On the minus side Omega and First have not rendered their opines on this subject.
After proofing this a bit it seems some of this post could be construed as being slightly sarcastic, even though no sarcasm is intended.
Just to move on I concede to Wiz. Someone start a new thread.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ritten:
Just to move on I concede to Wiz. Someone start a new thread.
OH MY GOD!
I actually WIN one? Now I KNOW the universe is about to come to an end.
So, I guess I've been filling the shoes of Omega and First? It would seem that I have now become firmly entrenched in the far right. Perhaps I should start the requested new thread as "Ritten Capitulates to Wiz". Whereupon I would naturally assume that I would immediately receive the "Hiroshima Treatment" Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
SPECIAL K! I just freaking got it. And my mom eats a box of that nasty shit a week. With those disgustingly tart freeze-dried strawberried.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
(This is a little silly. But I'm just trying to point out practically why biologists do not (anymore) classify species using a grab-bag of poorly defined characteristics )
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
And now, Page 3. I'd prefer the Nagasaki Treatment.
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: SPECIAL K! I just freaking got it.
followed by
quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: OH MY GOD!
would seem to fit.
Now you see how I earned being terrible and sick Dan.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Actually, I think you have fallen behind Jason for that prestigious honor.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
mmmm, I am Jason
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Abbadon's gonna get you for that blasphemy Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
No, I leased the name to him.
Which I guess makes me the Jason.... I better be careful, I'll end up feeling like K.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Jason the First...
Or....
JASON PRIME Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
So Ritten can be Jason: The Prequel.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Yeah, as long as I am not ENT type prequel I will be all right, gotta keep the continuity.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Speaking of Jason, he hasn't posted in a couple weeks.... *summons Abbaddon*
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
OR.....is Ritten just a J.J. Abrams "reimagination" of Jason?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
That is a scary thought. That anyone could have this bad of an imagination.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Amazingly, this even made the news in Italy. And they're about to have an election, so the only other non-Italian news I ever saw was about the US primaries.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Oh, I apologize for that Lee, we are trying to keep those hush hush, no sense in airing our dirty laundry like that.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Mark of Flarization - it took me 10 seconds to figure out that you meant the original "threesome" gen-en thing and not Ritten being a reimagining of Abaddon...
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