Talk:Human genetic engineering

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Anyone who is interested in this sort of stuff should most definatly read the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. A classic and even though it was written in 1932, it makes clear connections to stuff happening in our world today. It is quite eerie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.180.150 (talk) 05:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


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Why were all of the body modification explanations taken out. You've made this entire article about gene modification without once mentioning what possible changes could be introduced. People reading it who haven't read much sci-fi or literature work will understand that there is a general process that engineers go through.

Let me put it another way, we've written an article about engineering, and we've explained to the reader about the draft board and that an engineer can make a change, while leaving out most if not all insights into what kind of changes could be made in the design of people. So far you guys have lost the point of this article, which is not just to talk about how the engineering is done, but also about what kind of changes could be made. -- fieryfaith.

Contents

[edit] Minor Change

Ok, I guess I should say something about it. I've made a slight change to the claim that germline engineering is "deemed inappropriate by most scientists." There is no reference to support this claim. The reference that does appear at the end of the article makes a considerably weaker claim: that it is not appropriate at present due largely to the unreliability of today's methods. If you want to claim that scientists don't find germline engineering appropriate at all, please at least give a citation that makes claims to that effect. Xezlec 16:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I changed the number of chromosomes from 46 to 23. Humans have 23 distinct chromosomes - 2 pairs of each resulting in a total of 46 chromosomes. However, it is inaccurate to say we have 46 - that implies they are all different from one another (i.e. - no repeated genes / multiple alleles), while each pair of our 23 chromosomes contain 2 alleles of a given gene (one each). Had we 46 separate chromosomes every mutation would be dominant and that would lead to a great deal more disease and cancer. - Jonn

[edit] The Process

The section titled, "The Process" should be rewritten in a third-person non-imperative point-of-view. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Modernhiawatha (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Genetic engineering in fiction

There may be overlap with the article Genetic engineering in fiction. (SEWilco 05:54, 29 May 2005 (UTC))

With the examples listed, yes. Some non-fictional examples are needed.
Since genetic engineering of humans is generally off limits for various reasons, most literature on that subject may be fictional. Still, a lot of fictional literature (especially more recent literature) can be valuable for people wishing to get a grasp on a subject which may be rather opaque to the uninitiated. EthanL 10:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added a reference to James Blish's The Seedling Stars. I think that a reference should also be added to Nancy Kress's work. There is a great deal to be added about the real-world ethics and politics, e.g. transhumanist views, bio-conservative views, etc. Metamagician3000 00:31, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we talk about "spiritual considerations". The issue raised is a metaphysical one about determinism versus free will that seems to have little to do with spirituality as such. I take it that the spiritual realm is a realm that transcends both body and mind, as in Hindu philosophy. Nothing like that is mentioned here, though there is a reference to the "soul". Metamagician3000 00:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

--Someone should consider putting in references about A Brave New World By Aldous Huxely- its entire plot and storylines revolves around the concepts of using genetic engineering and human conditioning to create a perfect society.--

Why does the blurb for When the Wind Blows read like it was copy-and-pasted from a book review? On another note, it would be nice if someone would add Maximum Ride to the list (it's loosely based on When the Wind Blows, and by the same author).

The entire list should be moved to Genetic engineering in fiction; that's what it's there for. Noclevername 06:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
That section has obviously gotten far too large, it should be merged with the already existing article Genetic engineering in fiction. I've added a merge tag. BTW I've also added a "Complete rewrite" template to the top of the article, this page needs to become a lot better to be up to any kind of Encyclopeadic standard. --Hibernian 00:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] refactoring

Someone put the {{refactoring}} tag on the article 29 April 2005. I took that tag off today. Don't take that the wrong way -- I certainly want to encourage refactoring on this and other articles. --DavidCary 10:04, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alvin the Great?

There is some reference to something called "alvin the great" in the positives section and a part of the preceding sentence is either very poorly written, or perhaps minor vandalism. I am inclined to remove it but I wanted to ask incase "Alvin the Great" is legitamatly related.

It's vandalism, dude.

[edit] Expert needed

I added the "expert" template tag today. I'm no expert myself, but there has been a great deal of work on this topic by professional bioethicists, and I think this article could benefit from it.

I added a narrative under 'social consideration' to offer a broader discussion of some of the possible social implications. --Oobasogie 22:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)oobasogie 15:17, 8 Aug 2006
I added a section under "Human Enhancement" to help balance out the analysis a bit. Oobasogie 22:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the seciton on positive reasoning and chimeras to streamline the information presented in the article. I"ve also removed the "significance" section since it is a bit speculative and its most important parts are presented in the "considerations" portion of the article. I've moved up the "process" and "when to make chnages" sections of the article to improve the flow of information. I've also tried to clean up the "process" section. Oobasogie 00:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I cleaned up some of the prose in the opening paragraphs and removed the section on "Interference from Law" because it is no longer accurate. See http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-he-genetherapy28aug28,1,4998228.story?ctrack=1&cset=trueOobasogie 19:26, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Social considerations

This section and the following section (Metaphysical considerations) are criticisms, and should be designated as such. Also, the last paragraph in this section is unclear. Is the idea for governments to take control of genetic engineering their populations themselves or for taxpayer dollars to be paid to genetic engineering companies to engineer the populace? Either way, this is very controversial and should either be striken or ammended to include an opposing view. IntrepidDemise 08:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Metaphysical considerations

I think the subsection metaphysical considerations should be removed. Neuroscience and psychology are the areas of science dealing with personality, not human genetic engineering. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.241.127.122 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Rewrite

This article is in desperate need of a rewrite. There is far too much speculation and theorizing, not to mention directly asking the reader if it is ethical. JDub90 18:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethical Considerations

This section uses presuppositions pertaining to Christianity, hindering its neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.246.244.63 (talk) 19:53, 22 November 2007 (UTC) The major problem that genetic engineering has is that once you mutate a particular gene with a substitution you don't know for sure what will happen. When chopping off a bit here and adding a bit there, how do you know you won't express a whole new set of problems? Perhaps a virus as virulent as hemorrhagic fever. There's never been a reservoir found for it. If a wrong signal is sent to a gene that has previously been coded and now there's an open slot in the DNA, who's to say that it won't open a whole new host of problems. Some that were never previously seen. We were designed with a certain concept at birth. It's like being exposed to a large amount of radiation: your DNA is changed forever, even through future generations.(Cobalt131 (talk) 04:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC))

You'd be amazed at how many genes are utterly worthless. It is not a computer program where every character is essential to the perfect design of an algorithm. Besides, that is what testing is for. I'd be more worried about accidentally modifying a chimp to be super strong, smart, and have overly developed ambitions of ruling the world.149.130.235.202 (talk) 18:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Do not say that some genes are utterly worthless. We just do not know what they are for. (From: Some year 10 who thinks he knows it all.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.106.83.128 (talk) 08:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe Or Not

216.153.254.156 14:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)Genetic engineering should be allowed only when necessary. Only when the child is missing genes or suffers form some kind of [genetic] disease should this process be used.

That is your opinion. For it to be taken seriously please state why you think this way (I hope you don't mind the spelling corrections either). I believe that this could be the key to a type of transhumanism that does not create a genetic divide (read: Gattaca situation). When mastered the process would be relatively routine and cheap. But this wiki article is far too speculative and biased towards genetic modification, and ought to be re-written.149.130.235.202 (talk) 18:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The "Gattaca divide" argument ignores emerging technology like self-replication (see self-replication here on Wp). So it's not quite up with the times. :) -- kanzure (talk) 01:40, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Current genetic engineering technologies on the web

There are numerous websites that are directly relevant to the topic of human genetic engineering, such as 23andme, decodeme, polonator (DIY pyrosequencing), DIY genetic engineering, and other websites (oww comes to mind) that are basically pathing the way for personal action when it comes to taking responsibility for your own genome. I think that this information should be incorporated into the article. Any suggestions? -- kanzure (talk) 01:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)