# Is there a good reason to be against designer babies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 1, 2016, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828 "2016-02-01T09:05:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/81 "2016-02-04T01:16:50Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I think you’re making a false presumption that there are no smart criminals. While certainly many criminals, particularly low-level ones, are stupid not all of them are. Intelligence is not the same as morality. That’s true, that was the back story surrounding Khan Noonien Singh. Hyper intelligent human, who’s ambition was enhanced even more to the point where he worked against the non gifted. It’s a concern and no panacea, but that just tells me we need to better advance our culture to instill better ethics, and perhaps engineer more natural ethical inclinations as we define them if we learn how. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/82 "2016-02-04T05:37:20Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Why is eliminating a negative different than enhancing a positive? When it comes to genetics, it seems more often that a big negative can be traced to just one particular gene whereas the positives seem to involve multiple genes that are not as readily identifiable as discreet items. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/83 "2016-02-04T07:38:21Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Different immigrant migrations have different characteristics. For example, the people crossing the southern border tends to be more of a mix of low skilled labor. The Indian population tends to come in with work visas or to go to school or something like that. I was at USC recently and it’s like little india, which is great! I’m glad we have more super bright people drawn to the US, but the fact remains that this is not a general slice of the indian continent, it’s a smarter sample, that’s how they were disproportionately selected and able to cross the seas to the US, a much higher barrier than crossing a border. I assure you, my great grandfather and others of his generation were not the best educated. But they, like Mexican immigrants, had the drive that helped them to make it in the US, and more importantly helped their kids make it also. On the other hand the kids of the high achieving Tiger Moms (and I know these people very well) are fed up with getting pushed. [/quote] The best might stay where they are if they live in a wealthy nation, but if you are a super bright indian guy/gal that can study and get a high end job, would you rather go to the US or the UK, or stay in india? Where do you think a software engineer makes more money? India or the US? [/quote] A bunch of people in my department went back to India. They took a 50% pay cut to do so - but they seem to live a lot better there than they did in Silicon Valley. > [@](#): > > It’s EXACTLY the opposite of what you suggested, it is the brightest segment of the population that has greater freedom and ability to travel to better opportunities with higher pay and prosperity. US companies actually sponser foreign nationals that are bright, they WANT more of them to come to the US, are they tapping the indian kid who can barely understand algebra? even if he works harder? No. There is a natural magnet and brain drain of the cream from less developed countries to more developed countries. I work in Silicon Valley, and I’m one of maybe a dozen people in my building who was born in the US. I know this situation a lot better than you do. I’m pro immigration, don’t get me wrong. I’ve written supporting letters for people coming in under the experts loophole. But most of the visas don’t go to PhDs, unfortunately, but go to grunt programmers who work for peanuts in Indian owned consulting companies. Oddly you’ve neglected mentioning all the Chinese people who are also coming, from Taiwan and the Mainland. Now, the people I see have lots of degrees from good schools, but there are plenty of other immigrants running motels and restaurants who aren’t rocket scientists. Which is great, but they fall into the group with more than average initiative, not necessarily more than average brains. > [@](#): > > As for my arguments sounding like the eugenicists of old, not really. I don’t want to force anyone to do anything. What I want is for people who did not receive the gene combinations that allow for hyper intelligence to get a boost for their children that would likely never happen. And what about the side effects? I went to MIT - I know all about hyper-intelligence. The parents - who will indeed get forced into this by competitive pressures - may not like what they get. > [@](#): > > lineage is POWERFUL, and what is the one thing we know is transmitted through lineage? genes. It’s the genes. Accept reality, we need you to do that first, then we can work towards some solutions that even the scales. > Before we learn all about proper gene enhancements we’ll probably dive more into the smart drugs, like modafinil. You should think about what part of the benefits of lineage don’t come from genes but come from a better home environment, better nutrition, and better educational opportunities. Maybe instead of spending money on making the children of the rich hyper-intelligent we should spend it giving the children of the not so rich an even break and decent opportunity. And don’t tell me you’ll make everyone hyper-intelligent. A society that makes all people really smart and continues to oppress a big chunk of them is going to deserve what it gets. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/84 "2016-02-04T07:39:54Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Why is eliminating a negative different than enhancing a positive? What **Broomstick** said. And also, fixing a bug in a program is a lot different from revising it to run 2x faster. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2016, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/85 "2016-02-04T07:41:25Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > That’s true, that was the back story surrounding Khan Noonien Singh. Hyper intelligent human, who’s ambition was enhanced even more to the point where he worked against the non gifted. It’s a concern and no panacea, but that just tells me we need to better advance our culture to instill better ethics, and perhaps engineer more natural ethical inclinations as we define them if we learn how. Engineer ethics through genetics? You really don’t have a clue about genetics, do you? Do you really think there is a gene for ethics? ---
**Author:** ![Chihuahua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dec6dc/32.png) [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/86 "2016-02-05T00:15:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Engineer ethics through genetics? You really don’t have a clue about genetics, do you? Do you really think there is a gene for ethics? Everyone knows biology plays a huge role in criminality, and some believe it’s influence outweighs socialization. I doubt there is a single gene that definitively controls ethics, but to completely dismiss the role of biology is a profoundly ignorant position. ---
**Author:** ![Danja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@Danja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danja)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/87 "2016-02-05T05:21:19Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > A point. > > Folks keep pointing out Mother Nature screws up and hasn’t optimized things gene wise. True enough. > > However, Mother nature HAS run billions/trillions/quadrillions/some large assed number of genetic experiments. Not just on individuals, and not just on a generation. But on the effects from generation to generation. > > I would not be remotely surprised that there were plenty of gene changes/mutations that at first glance would appear to offer some advantage. But mother nature ran the long experiment. Some were probably just not worth it. Some may well have been VERY bad things. > > We don’t see many of those very bad things because mother nature ruled them out. > > Unfortunately, mother nature hasn’t published recently. Nor has she left of a list of bad things NOT to do gene wise 101. Sure, but the lack of a genotype does not imply that the given genotype has been tested and discarded. Sequence space is enormous. Just one gene (out of the twenty-some thousand that we have) generally encodes a protein of about 300 amino acids. Each amino acid can be one of 20 variants. So for a protein of length 2, that’s 20 \* 20 = 20^2 (400) possibilities. For a typical length protein, that’s 20^300 possible variants. For comparison, the estimate for the number of atoms in the known universe is only ~10^80. And that’s just for one gene. Nature has seen a lot but she hasn’t seen it all, and even if she has, it doesn’t necessarily means she recognized it as worthwhile, especially if the context wasn’t right at the time. If we come up with a better solution, saying “we shouldn’t do it because it’s not natural” is illogical. > [@monstro](#): > > I don’t have a problem with it provided there are checks and balances. For instance, I think genotypic discrimination in hiring and academic admissions should be a prohibited, the same way that racial and gender discrimination is. People should only be evaluated on their phenotype. I don’t want us to turn into Gattaca. > > Barring that, splice away. Genotype is correlated (by some transfer function) to phenotype. We may not be perfect at predicting phenotype from genotype in all cases, but if you allow evaluation on phenotype you’re permitting evaluation on genotype by proxy. > [@billfish678](#): > > You tell me. > > Personally I get the impression we don’t have a clue as to what most of our genes do. And that even isn’t factoring in what Voyager pointed out. That it seems that many of the genes are interellated in how they express themselves…which just takes a complex problem and makes it exponentially worse. > > To me, gene science is about at the point some cavemen realized if you put some certain kinds of rocks together they got warm…and they decided to build a nuclear reactor. Oh, we’re much farther along than that. We have a library of genes that we understand very well, a peripheral set that are under active study, and some that have not been studied at all. Obviously advocating to insert one of the understudied genes into a baby would be asinine, but nobody serious is doing that. There’s no gain in such a thing. The chances of success in such a case are very small, and you’re subject to public vilification and (hopefully) your own conscience. My assumption about a discussion on designer babies is that modifying only well understood genes (using protocols tested in animals, human cells, and human organ models) is permitted. Anything further is a) science fiction and b) never going to be publicly accepted (and therefore legal). > [@billfish678](#): > > Another random point. > > Let me give you a random gene sequence. > > You tell me what kind of animal you’ll get. And some generalities on the many aspects of it. > > If you can’t do that, you REALLY don’t know your gene engineering worth a tinkers damn. a) you give me a random sequence that you pull from a real database. I look up that sequence in the database and tell you which animal it corresponds to. Done. b) you give me a random sequence that you design yourself. I tell you it doesn’t encode an animal. Given the vastness of sequence space as I mentioned above, I’m correct 99.99…% of the time. I don’t know how much a tinkers damn is worth (more than their self defense abilities I hope) but that’s like saying if you can’t build a nuclear submarine you’re not qualified to build a car. We’re not qualified to build nuclear submarines. I think it was you that had the good point above that we don’t know nearly enough about how the brain works to go trying to augment it. We do know a lot about other systems though. For example, we know a lot about the genetics of eye color and, if there was to be sufficient demand (and ethical license), I could see fertility clinics swapping around known functional combinations on cassettes that encode blue, green, brown, etc after another decade or two of intense validation in animal models (my standard for validation in such a procedure would be much higher than for a therapeutic intervention because there is no illness being prevented in such a case). > [@Tzigone](#): > > My concern is in the “do we know enough” field. Item #3. > > But we’ll never know if we know everything. So when the relevant experts know enough, we do our “real world” start responsibly - with genetically modifying away those diseases or conditions that are very quickly fatal, and which the doctors in question think they have a good understanding of. A riskier procedure is acceptable (to me) when there is no alternative in which a patient can survive. You know, the old “I’m going to die soon anyway, so why not take a chance on living.” That does increase the chances of long-term disability over short-term disability and early death, but if the parents choose to take that risk, that’s their decision (people should always, always be informed of the possible consequences). > > Then you follow up with the less-immediately fatal or just agonizing conditions and then the very-well-understood (we think) genetic aspects that aren’t fatal or agonizing. > > Beyond that, you get into less objective measures, and I’m less sure on my opinions there, but do have to acknowledge that countries have to pay attention to what other countries legalize, because what the world is interconnected and what one country does has the potential to impact another. > > This specific argument doesn’t work for me - if we can eliminate the gene for sickle cell, then we can make sure only one copy is carried instead of two, therefore making sure the gene is carried for protection and yet no one has the danger of two copies. Admittedly, that means more generations would have to be tested for those things, but I assumed we were talking routine fetal testing forever. > > We can only work with what we know - by your logic we’d never do anything, never modify a single crop, because in a million year we might need the original. It’s always a balance of risk v. reward. I do have a question, though. **I know that genes can be inserted - can we keep a “gene vault” the way we keep “seed vaults” or smallpox viruses?** It would cost, but, if possible, would it mitigate your concerns? > > That is an advantage. But for most people in the developed world today the cost (arthritis or regular treatment) outweighs the benefit (quicker recoup), especially since blood transfusions are available. You can’t cover or prepare for every circumstance. You have to choose those most applicable to the environment you live it or think you will be living in. That’s why I know how to drive a car and program, but not how to make cheese or grow barley. If there’s a dramatic change where those skills become more needed, I might die, but I/my parents went with the odds and I learned what I learned. (Bolding mine) [Here you go](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/). Pick the gene that you want, send it to one of several synthesis companies, and for a few hundred dollars you’ll have a physical copy of the gene you require (although my understanding is that they’ll have questions if a person unaffiliated with a research organization tries to order DNA :p). ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/88 "2016-02-05T06:29:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Engineer ethics through genetics? You really don’t have a clue about genetics, do you? Do you really think there is a gene for ethics? I think this might be harder to do, but if we figure it out, sure why not? Take a single family with 3 children. Say all 3 are boys. Say they are all fraternal triplets so they do not share identical genes. Do they have IDENTICAL temperaments? Are they all equally kind? Equally patient? They will grow up in the same environment, that has been held constant. They will not have a differential upbringing effect based on the chronology of birth. Is their resultant personality going to be the same? Of course the answer is no. There will be differences, and a good chunk of those are likely genetic. And unless you think their inner “soul” is what houses their personality/temperament/ethics as opposed to the combination of their genes and wiring done from environment, then there is no other conclusion but the last that genes still matter even there. That said, I think the cherry picking of temperament and ethics is far more dicey than enhancing intelligence. I can see benefits across the board to having a population where the baseline intelligence is higher. But would we want a world full of pacifists? Of warriors? It takes all kinds to fill up a society, and I don’t think there is a “best” type of personality and temperament for all the different niches of life. Even when it comes to ethics, when it comes to a soldier, I want a bit more utilitarian calculations having more sway in their ethics than say, a judge deciding on legality and flouting the law to achieve some other perceived good. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/89 "2016-02-05T08:20:21Z")
> [@T.M](#): > > In some parts of the world we could be looking at a population imbalance because in some countries baby boys are very much preferable to baby girls. Already happening, both with selective implantation and selective abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/90 "2016-02-05T09:46:33Z")
One point I’ve made before is that there won’t be a clean line between correcting rare disease genes and adding favorable genes. Because you likely have countless sub-optimal genes that in most cases will be rarer than a better gene. Ironically just giving someone a higher proportion of “average” or “normal” genes could make them anything but. This in itself doesn’t answer the OP…I’m just saying that I think this is one situation where there really is a slippery slope. It’s very hard to draw any lines and once we start down this slope I think we’ll be making more and more extreme changes. The only thing holding us back right now is lack of knowledge of gene functions. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/91 "2016-02-05T12:12:19Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Take a single family with 3 children. Say all 3 are boys. Say they are all fraternal triplets so they do not share identical genes. > > Do they have IDENTICAL temperaments? Are they all equally kind? Equally patient? They will grow up in the same environment, that has been held constant. They will not have a differential upbringing effect based on the chronology of birth. Is their resultant personality going to be the same? > > Of course the answer is no. There will be differences, and a good chunk of those are likely genetic. On the flip side, identical twins, and triplets (which do occur) despite having identical genes are NOT identical copies - there can be sharp and distinct differences between them. Which just shows that ignoring factors other than genetics is whack. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/92 "2016-02-05T17:19:44Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > On the flip side, identical twins, and triplets (which do occur) despite having identical genes are NOT identical copies - there can be sharp and distinct differences between them. Which just shows that ignoring factors other than genetics is whack. I agree, but the pushback and denial is generally against ideas that suggest genes/nature are the cause of a good portion of the differences between people. And some people will bend themselves into pretzels trying to argue about just getting the environment right being the primary method of dealing with things like the gaps in outcomes for different people. This is a fantasy, and people need to be disabused of it. Having that fantasy popped need not imply we stop working on the environmental side, it just puts us on the task of ALSO working on the nature side to shore the people up who were not born so gifted. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. The more equal and just a society, the more even the distribution of opportunity and initial family income, the less likely that negative effects like racism and sexism factor into the outcomes of people, the MORE likely it is for the individual attributes of people take up the biggest portion of the outcomes of mankind. Nature does not care about our sense of egalitarianism, and it certainly has not built that into its environments and creatures in terms of their fitness to survive and thrive. We care. As such we need to stop allowing people to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the obvious, and get the people in the know onto the hard path of altering nature and filing down the rough edges that dominate the fates of men in ways we find unappealing. For all of these reasons, I want designer babies to go forth and explode in popularity. I see zero credible arguments against them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/93 "2016-02-05T17:59:32Z")
> [@Chihuahua](#): > > Everyone knows biology plays a huge role in criminality, and some believe it’s influence outweighs socialization. I doubt there is a single gene that definitively controls ethics, but to completely dismiss the role of biology is a profoundly ignorant position. There is definitely a genetic component of things like sociopathy. But we’re talking ethics here. There is a huge difference between people who were bullies in school and got worse and successful lawyers and bankers who don’t mind fudging the rules. Even if there is a genetic component to that it is probably influenced by so many genes and their expressions that it would be almost impossible to control. And doing so would change other stuff. When people talk about genes for ethics it is clear they have a simplistic model that you can twiddle one gene and control something. We’ve found that things are way more complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/94 "2016-02-05T18:10:32Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I think this might be harder to do, but if we figure it out, sure why not? > Take a single family with 3 children. Say all 3 are boys. Say they are all fraternal triplets so they do not share identical genes. > > Do they have IDENTICAL temperaments? Are they all equally kind? Equally patient? They will grow up in the same environment, that has been held constant. They will not have a differential upbringing effect based on the chronology of birth. Is their resultant personality going to be the same? > > Of course the answer is no. There will be differences, and a good chunk of those are likely genetic. And unless you think their inner “soul” is what houses their personality/temperament/ethics as opposed to the combination of their genes and wiring done from environment, then there is no other conclusion but the last that genes still matter even there. Their genetic makeup is going to be very different, which makes understanding what is responsible for their changed behavior very difficult. But their environment is not going to be the same either. Say the parents are sports nuts, and one of the boys is good at sports and another is not. They are going to be growing up in very different conditions. Ditto if the parents are academics. My brother and I are only 19 months apart, but the environment he feels he grew up in is very different from what I feel I grew up in. > [@](#): > > That said, I think the cherry picking of temperament and ethics is far more dicey than enhancing intelligence. I can see benefits across the board to having a population where the baseline intelligence is higher. But would we want a world full of pacifists? Of warriors? It takes all kinds to fill up a society, and I don’t think there is a “best” type of personality and temperament for all the different niches of life. > > Even when it comes to ethics, when it comes to a soldier, I want a bit more utilitarian calculations having more sway in their ethics than say, a judge deciding on legality and flouting the law to achieve some other perceived good. This was my original point. If we do this, we are going to decrease diversity through fads. That’s bad. We’d be focusing on increasing intelligence while not noticing (or ignoring) the side effects. BTW, I do data mining, and you’d not be able to get useful results from your triplet experiment without a lot more triplets and a lot better control of the environment. Maybe you could draw a few conclusions, but not enough to indicate which genes did what. If you had a million sets of triplets you might start to get somewhere. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/95 "2016-02-05T18:18:22Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > I agree, but the pushback and denial is generally against ideas that suggest genes/nature are the cause of a good portion of the differences between people. > > And some people will bend themselves into pretzels trying to argue about just getting the environment right being the primary method of dealing with things like the gaps in outcomes for different people. Nobody is arguing that genetics aren’t important in the differences between people. That I’m not a concert violinist has nothing to do with my parents cruelly not paying for music lessons and everything to do with me being tone deaf. But knowing I’m not genetically suited to being a musician is a lot different from being able to twiddle my genes before birth to make me a great musician. And knowing that doing so would likely screw up my verbal skills and trivia skills. Environment is important too, and improving environment (by giving a kid who does have music skills access to music classes, say) is a lot cheaper and safer than mucking about with genes. ---
**Author:** ![ProDentite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@ProDentite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ProDentite)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/96 "2016-02-10T20:56:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even just removing genetic diseases could be a problem. The classic example is sickle cell: If we had the resources to spend on genetic testing (and possibly modification, but it could also be done just by culling sperm and eggs), we could eliminate the gene for sickle cell, and ensure that nobody ever gets it again. That, in itself, would be a good thing… except that carrying one copy of the sickle cell gene provides protection against malaria, and in some parts of the world, malaria is a bigger killer than sickle cell. > > Of course, we could also use technology to protect against malaria. Or at least, we can do that now. But what happens if we lose that technology, and malaria again becomes a major killer? It could happen. We can’t be sure it won’t. And if that happens, we’d be glad to still have a few malaria-resistant people in the population. > > And of course, the issue isn’t just sickle-cell and malaria. Maybe, for all we know, someday there will be some other disease which emerges, which we’ve currently never heard of, and it turns out that having a single copy of the Tay-Sachs gene protects against it. Or likewise for any given genetic disease you might think of. > > We can even take it one step further: Sometimes, a disease itself can be a benefit, depending on circumstances. Hemochromatosis, for instance, causes the body to accumulate too much iron. It’s a fairly mild disease, compared to the likes of sickle-cell and Tay-Sachs, and fairly easily treated, but in the long run it can lead to arthritis, gland problems, and other issues. On the other hand, it also means that you can recover from blood loss more rapidly, and so if you’re in an environment where bloodshed is frequent, it could actually be an advantage. You bring up some interesting points. But also consider that if we had enough control over DNA to create designer humans we would easily be able to manipulated the nucleic acids of bacteria, viruses, and parasites so diseases like malaria would no longer be a significant threat. We would also be able to synthesize custom antibodies for deadly diseases making immunizations much easier and more reliable. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828/97 "2016-02-10T21:02:41Z")
> [@ProDentite](#): > > You bring up some interesting points. But also consider that if we had enough control over DNA to create designer humans we would easily be able to manipulated the nucleic acids of bacteria, viruses, and parasites so diseases like malaria would no longer be a significant threat. We would also be able to synthesize custom antibodies for deadly diseases making immunizations much easier and more reliable. Actually, this is already being done. Recombinant DNA methods have been used to synthesize vaccines when there was an issue with the original source. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-good-reason-to-be-against-designer-babies/744828.md?page=4)