Beeb, what makes you think sexual reproduction will stop? What makes you think mutations will no longer occur? What makes you think we would ever “over” engineer?
Seriously, fill me in on how mutations vanish and sexual reproduction is eliminated?
You have two options in life as a parent (given the hypothetical society): submit the child to chance, or give it what you can. I think most people will choose control over chance.
Apart from that, what makes you think every other action we do isn’t imposing our order on chaos that this should be any different?
Well, I was just following a logical progression from the definition of “biological fundamentalism” that was posted in dalovindj’s link:
It may be incorrect to extrapolate that to it’s extreme, but that’s what I did. i.e. Transhumans will forego sexual reproduction in favor of asexual reproduction and will select against future mutations through genetic engineering. Also, birth rates will drop to nill because the transhumans are near immortal.
In actuality, I’m not sure that even given the technology “transhumans” will opt for that extreme. The possibility worries me however.
Because we over-engineer everything. Tools invariably have a certain specialization that they do well. To steal from hansel in another thread (and quote out of context) “The history of the success of technology is a history of technological solutions exceeding human capacities by specialization. Levers lift greater weight, cars are faster, computers carry out reptitive mathematical tasks faster and more accurately…” The beauty of humans is that we aren’t designed for any specific tasks. That will change if we start designing ourselves. Even with much thought given to artificial diversity, mankind will invariably settle on what works well. What works well for one situation will not work for all. That is why I keep bringing up “interchangeable parts”.
When I performed cloning (cloning genes, not entire organisms) experiments, I almost always used kanamycin resistance genes as tags. I only had one kind. The entire e. coli population in all my dishes and tubes only had the one kind of gene. Why? It was safe and it worked.
Eventualy, ambient bacteria in the lab developed a kanamycin resistance gene, and colonized the dishes and tubes. Several experiments were lost without hope of recovery. I fear that the transhumans will forego true diversity in favor of whatever produces the desired result. An unforseen event will then cause disaster.
That is an admitted flaw in one of my earlier arguments. When I say “we are not apart from nature”, sometimes I get “But birds don’t build skyscrapers and shoot people” in response." My response is usually along the lines of: “well those are behavioral traits that humans have been expressing for millenia. Besides, termites build huge mounds and ants have wars - it’s not much different” The flaw in my argument applied to this debate is that “transhuman” technology could be described as another part of the scientific curiosity behavioral trait. I really don’t have a defense for this. Let me just say that because I **could **build a house on that sandbar 50 yards from shore doesn’t mean I should. I would worry how a rigid structure could cope with the shifting sands.
Well, it’s time for me to leave the office now. If any further responses are asked for, I’ll post 'em in the morning.
-Beeblebrox
…and sees two ducks, one of which is trying to make a third duck inside the second duck, whilst the second duck is trying very hard to explain that it doesn’t feel ready for a third duck right now, is uncertain that it would want any putative third duck to be made by this particular first duck anyway, and certainly not whilst it, the second duck, was busy flying.
“resists overcoming death” is a biased way of saying “increasing humans lifespans by a few thousand years would be a bad thing due to population issues and/or religious issues”. That is why I complained about the definition. But, it’s a moot point.
For all those people who think that genetic manipulation will lead to a wider pool, look around.
First of all, a limited genetic adventure is happening in china. Whether the child is male or female is the only variable that is currently available for genetic selection. Now, is the percentage of women/men being born this way about equal? No, many more men are being born than women.
Now, what would happen if cloning were allowed. Every person who was cloned (instead of au-natural) would be one less geneticly new type. If 10% of our population was clones, there goes 10% of our variability.
Another example: Think of how many people use steroids or diet pills, even given the negative reactions of those on the body. Now, if they found the gene that made men burlier (and could implant it genetically ( a bit difficult, but that is what transhumans eventually want ) ), how many poeple would line up to take it immediately. Imagine how many people would modify their genes to be the next brittany spears clone or the next Arnold clone. Yet more variability gone.
There are 3 examples, off the top of my head, on how the gene pool would get smaller. And, of course, if the gene pool gets smaller, sexual reproduction becomes less important. If you can have sex with anyone you want, but everyone looks like B.S. (sorry, couldn’t help myself ) genetically, what have you gained?
Oh, and one final point, DJ. Something like the FDA regulates what people can sell you – even if you want it. I have NO problem with setting something like that up – I have no idea if that makes me a biological fundamentalist in your defintion or not.
Wait… you think we’ll stop having sex? Asexual reproduction is a viable alternative, but unless we are going to the way extreme and cloning clones of cloned clones then I think we’ll still be getting genetic material from both parents. Though such a thing is a bad idea, I think that clones would be more of a novelty than a habit.
As well, why would birth rates drop? The primary drive for spreading is overpopulation and/or depleted resources. With sharp increases in medical technology provided by genomics lifespans will increase. I don’t think that increased life will cause the birth rate to drop to zero permanently, though because of surveying and increased life spans it will certainly appear so.
I thought that was just the British?
As I understand it, the key component to surviving natural selection is adaptability. Surely by being able to focus and predict genetic changes is only an improved form of adaptability on a much smaller time scale!
But these unforseen events will be there regardless of whether we fiddle with the stuff of life on a molecular level anyway; this is the whole reason for both spreading over the planet, spreading over the solar system, and genetic manipulation/study (for medication which targets specific protiens and enzymes). I see being able to manipulate DNA as a logical progression of evolution; now if we can simply keep the media out of telling us how to make our children look we should skim through this better for it.
I am still wondering why you feel mutations would no longer occur.
Admittedly, I was looking at the extreme case. If cloning becomes merely a novelty, then it will have a minimal effect on the gene pool. However, if through some Brave New World type shift in society asexual reproduction replaces sexual reproduction as the most common means of propagation, then you will see a signifigant impact on genetic diversity. This is not to say that sex will go away. I am sure people will be boinking each other till the end of time. I am just saying that sexual reproduction may fall by the wayside if you take the transhuman logic to it’s extreme.
Not quite sure what you meant there, but birth rates will drop for two reasons: a.)as a reaction to overpopulation caused by people not dying and thus taking resources and b.)the signifigant demographic increase of post-menopausal women caused by longer lifespans. Low birth rate means no new blood which in turn means a static gene pool.
The problem with that reasoning is that there will always be something we can’t predict. If our gene pool shrinks, we will lose much of the raw information needed to adapt to stresses in the future, whether that be passive adaptation or active adaptation. We will have burned down half of our Library of Alexandria. Additionally, if this unforeseen stress is a plague, we may not have time for that directed adaptation. It is best to keep a wide diversity so somebody will get through, even if 98% die off.
They won’t go away exactly, they will still be happening all the time. The difference is that the transhuman baby engineers will then “correct” them through gene manipulation because they fall outside of the desired parameters.
Gene therapy, when performed on somatic cells, will be a good thing. As a medical technique it holds a lot of potential. However, it should not be performed for cosmetic reasons or on gametes for almost any reason, as I hope I have explained in above and in earlier posts. Human directed evolution would be the proverbial road to Hell paved with good intentions. A cocker spaniel is a good example of what human directed evolution has wrought. That floppy-eared son of a bitch wouldn’t have a prayer of surviving in the wild.
-Beeblebrox
“But how are you, metalman?” said Ford.
“Very depressed.”
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know,” said Marvin, “I’ve never been there.”
Solution: lengthen menopause. Remember, we’re not talking about an otherwise static technology base. Given a means to expand overpopulation will result in expansion. Given an otherwise static technology base I agree: overpopulation will result in a decreasing birth rate.
We both want colonization off the planet Earth. One of us wants something in addition to that.
If we make the assumption that cloning only occurs in cases of an inability to bear a child then I don’t see that the gene pool will shrink. Sexual reproduction will otherwise occur as normal, with the added ability to customize the child in some ways. Will everyone choose the same child? To some degree there will defintitely be traits which are preferred over others. How is this method of selection any different than a strict environment of natural selection? Natural selection act to shrink the gene pool to remove “undesirable” or biologically incompetent life. We interfere with natural selection by setting up social programs which extend the means to survive beyond what nature itself would otherwise allow. I see no problem with that. If we then act to remove those problems before they occur (say, MD or MS) we have done nothing more than reinstate natural selection.
In addition to this we have the action of imposing certain traits on ourselves as aesthetically or pragmatically pleasing. do enough people agree on these things that they will significantly shrink the gene pool? i don’t know, largely because I don’t know how much our DNA actually controls. I think that until that question is answered for humans there’s not much to worry about.
But let’s take the case where everything short of facial features and intelligence can be altered through DNA manipulation. We’ll all be stronger (generally), we’ll all probably be a bit thinner, and apart from that I can’t see what else will happen on a large enough scale to shrink the gene pool. The parents decide what sort of children they want, but the children decide what sort of mates they want. Is this truly a slippery slope leading into a race of very similar people? I think that underestimates technology itself. Control what you can, manage what you can’t.
But as I mention I think that the race of twins is unlikely, even if they aren’t clones. For that matter, the idea of off-planet colonization is just as important as a super-plague. Even that, not all plagues are fended off due to molecular differences, but due to antibodies and the body’s other defense mechanisms. these, too, will be just as enhanced as the rest of us.
Remember: the plague has to work through natural selection to get to us. We have both natural selection and huamn selection going on. Which do you suppose “wins the race”, statistically speaking?
hmmmmmmmDepends on where we act on the genetic level. Constant gene therapy throughout pregnancy, or subtle manipulations during the single-cell-to-zygote phase? Many many mutations can occur aftre implantation; I would bet that is where most of them occur.
Can we continue to successfully manipulate DNA after a person is grown? That would seem almost impossible to me…
Here is an interesting article concerning genetic modifications which can be passed on to future generations. Once they learn how to soup us humans up long-life style, these attributes will be able (in some cases) to be transfered to our decendants. We will have evolved new traits, but intentionally instead of accidentally.
Glad to link to acceptable definitions for this use of the word Evolve if anyone wants to fight!
Asexual reproduction is a viable alternative, but unless we are going to the way extreme and cloning clones of cloned clones then I think we’ll still be getting genetic material from both parents. Though such a thing is a bad idea, I think that clones would be more of a novelty than a habit.