h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I agree.

cooL!
complicating this is that there are well known and recognized "Defects" or "syndromes" that arise from defects in more than one gene...
another complicating factor is that we do not know ALL the ramifications of whatever gene change we make. we could be affecting much more than we realize

Maybe, we should just leave well alone and let nature do what it is going to do.

Yes I know that the moon has no atmosphere, the crators are evidence of meteorites flying about and impacting .

Helping kids out medically would start with the foetus. So you wouldn't strictly speaking be helping any body, you'd be removing the chance of their lives.
In a way this makes the assumption that a disabilty means that the personality of that person is not viable to the abled. Something which many less abled people deny.
If you asked many less abled people would you rather have not existed in a genetically 'pure' world, they would probably still seek to maintain the lives they have rather than no life at all.
If we were able to eradicate certain terminal diseases with genetic manipulations, I have the feeling that other ilnnesses would take their place, since this is the 'natural' order of things.
The biggy would be to 'remove' death, this of course would probably be only a 'service' provided to those who could pay for it and would create all sorts of troubles.

annie,
what would you think about screening an egg and a sperm before united to make a zygote for "defects"?

>In a way this makes the assumption that a disabilty means that the personality of that person is not viable to the abled

No it doesn't.

>If you asked many less abled people would you rather have not existed in a genetically 'pure' world, they would probably still seek to maintain the lives they have rather than no life at all.

I am not saying we should destroy them, merely stop the disability.
No one would rather be disabled rather than abled.

>The biggy would be to 'remove' death, this of course would probably be only a 'service' provided to those who could pay for it and would create all sorts of troubles

No one would want to live foreever anyway, not if they really thought about it. We would be overpopulated for a start.

"In a way this makes the assumption that a disabilty means that the personality of that person is not viable to the abled"
"No it doesn't "
Yes it does.
Why else are we thinking of eradicating what we call defects?
Because we don't find them viable, but then we are not in their bodies , hearts and minds and they do not consider themselves unviable.
As I said we can't do anything about the current 'defects' we can only stop them being born. Therefore they would not exist.
If a foetus has a defect it would be destroyed.
Manipulating egg and sperm before conception to obtain percieved perfection is really about the same thing.
The potential human with defects and a character produced from those so so called defects would not exists in this brave new world.
for instance would we have the same Stephan Hawkins the world has now if he had been genetically produced to be perfect? Because he isn't just the sum total of his bodily perfection. Everything that HAS happened to him has made him what he is now.
As with all of us.
Should we eradicate the bipolar gene and get rid of the genius that comes with it?
Get rid of comediens and stars and writers with that illness?
Make us all stepford people?
My friend teaches the happiest, kindest , gentle downs syndrome man.
He is not aware of how miserable he should be feeling.
He doesn't know what his body and mind 'should' be like, he's as happy as a lark with his physicality.
This sort of thing can really only be decided on a personal level.
I didn't have an amniosynthosis (or however you spell it !) with my last child. she was welcome whatever shape she turned out to be.
Had I found that she was damaged in some way early on and then aborted her and had another baby, it would have been ANOTHER baby not her.
Had I discovered I had a genetic illness, I wouldn't have had a baby at all, but that again is a personal issue for the individual.

But what I said has been twisted. We are talking about stopping the disabilities. Not stopping the people.
No one in their right mind would want to be disabled.
It has nothing to do with being viable.
Have arms, don't have arms, erm..? Tough decision.
Be confined to a wheelchair, don't be confined to a wheelchair?
mmm, let me think.
This is what I am talking about,
DOnt tell me that someone in a wheelchair might say to you that they were happy as they are, they might be now, but would have struggled all their life to come to grips with living in an able bodied world, they would not have had these difficulties had they been born without their dissability. They wouild have been the same person. Maybe moulded differently because of their struggles, but the same person.

You can't say that being Bi polar makes you intelligent, or is paret of the course. Intelligent people may well be just more likely to be bipolar. So if they were not they would still be intliigent.

aManda out