Tim Pool did a video on the genetically modified Chinese babies. According to his headline, and the one he was covering, the procedure may have "backfired." As it turns out, the changes made are likely to reduce the overall lifespan of the subjects. Sounds scary, right? "Oh, they can't control the godlike powers they're unleashing!" Well, it's not really as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be.
First, let's consider the biggest genetic engineering success to date (economically speaking) which was Roundup Ready soybeans. Scientists managed to make soybeans resistant to glyphosate, a powerful pesticide. It's sounds spooky, but what they did wasn't very complicated, just technically difficult. Soybeans are naturally susceptible to glyphosate, as are most plants, because it interferes with a particular enzyme. (Snake venom works the same way.) The genetic engineers were able to take genetic code from other organisms which had a more resilient version of the enzyme (which is just a protein) and inject it into the soybean DNA. In short, they took an allele of a gene that was already found in nature, and inserted it into soybeans. They did not craft some new trait from scratch.
What the Chinese engineers did was to take a desired allele of a gene from a known source, and inject it into the targeted gene of the recipient. They didn't even move a gene across species, as Monsanto did, but merely ensured that a particular individual had the trait which already occurred in the species. Like the Monsanto engineers, they did not craft some new trait, and further, they didn't even't craft a new trait within the species. The work done by the Chinese scientists was actually less significant, except that they broke the rule of not monkeying with human genetics.
Tim Pool steers it to a morality question. He asks if it is moral to modify a person's DNA to prevent diseases, or to tailor offspring to have desired traits, like to be tall or have "big bosoms." He asked it as a single question, but really it is two, and it actually has a technical answer.
The first part - preventing genetic diseases - is a viable application of genetic engineering. It is technically feasible that scientists could scan the DNA of an embryo for know faulty alleles and replace them with good ones. Assuming they didn't otherwise damage the DNA, there should be no bad side effects. Since most babies are still made the old-fashioned way, it might not be worth the cost and complications of in vitro fertilization to screen genes like that, but someone already doing fertilization treatment could find it to be worth an extra cost if the technology was matured.
The second part, where we tailor our children to whatever set of traits we desire, is not feasible. Most human traits are not genetic, since we only have about 19,000 genes. There is no gene that controls height, so engineers will not be able to flip some alleles and reliably get tall offspring from short parents. They would not be able engineer a black baby from an embryo created by two white parents (much as the liberals would try). Nor would they be able to engineer a walrus from a human embryo. It would still be a human cell, trying to do human cell things. The cell would look to the DNA for instructions on building the necessary proteins, that would fail, and the cell would quickly die.
I'll go a step further. It is not feasible that scientists will be able to engineer any trait that does not already exist. Think of what it would take even to create a new allele of an existing gene. They would have to imagine what the new shape of the produced protein would be. Then, they'd work backwards to figure out what the amino acid sequence should be. They can't even reliably do that process working forwards, as seen by the protein folding problem. Then, they would have to determine the DNA sequence that would create such an amino acid sequence. (I have no idea how feasible that is, or what the state of research is.) Then, they'd have to create DNA with that particular sequence and inject into the proper place.
Even then, the most we'd ever likely see would be a modification of a known genetic trait. For instance, we do know that genes influence hair color (although the case of the domesticated Siberian foxes shows that hair color is not entirely genetic). Perhaps, working through all the obstacles, they could find an allele which causes naturally blue hair color. (Again, the liberals would be all over it.) That's hardly the same thing as crafting a hyper-intelligent human or one with uncanny strength. To this day, genetic engineers have never crafted a new biological trait. It is assumed that it is possible by materialists, who believe that the chromosomes fully specify the organism, and yet it's never been done (and likely never will be).
Since we've been poking fun at liberals, and the traits they'd likely prefer, it's interesting to look at what trait was chosen by the Chinese scientists. They chose to add an allele to Chinese children, taken from European donors, of a gene that reduces the chance of - I'm not making this up - of catching AIDS, and happens to also be correlated to shorter lifespans. What kind of parent would willingly make such a tradeoff? Who is expecting their child to have lots of gay sex more than they are expecting their child to desire a long and healthy life? (You know the answer.)
The moral of the story: I wouldn't get too worried about the genetic tinkering. They can't actually do as much as is assumed, because genes don't have the influence that nearly everyone assumes they do. Preventing genetic diseases is a wonderful application of science that we should fully support. In a nation where women aren't having that many babies, it would certainly be helpful to ensure women that their babies won't end up with one of these genetic ailments. Creating designer babies, on the other hand, is not technically viable, and will only end in disappointment and failed investments.
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