Devolution or Genetic Engineering

So heres a Question for you:

Imagine you are a political ruler of a state in the future. Advanced medicine has made it possible for people with the worst genetic defects to survive and reproduce, but this caused "devolution" (i know its not a very scientific term, but you all know what it means). So more and more sick or handicapped people are born and they all need machines or medicine to survive.

To stop this trend, you have two choices:

A: You reduce the social support of people with genetic defects to let more of them die and leave the genetic pool.

B: You allow and invest in genetic engineering to manually replace the defect DNA in newborns / enhance them to create an "artificial evolution". (Whith all the mess when you experiment)

What do you choose? If I made a False Dichotomy here, tell me, because i see no solution that does not require even just a Part of one of these 2.

For the record, i would choose B.

edited 6th Feb '11 2:20:15 PM by ZheToralf

"Devolution" is a misnomer.

I'm generally in favor of genetic engineering.

Also, there's a third option, which is developing medical treatments and other interventions to help people overcome the defects they are born with.

that's precisely what the problem here is. People can survive through medical treatments, so they are still in the genetic pool. Therefore, humanity will be getting more and more dependant of medical machines. "Survival of the unfittest" if you will.

edited 6th Feb '11 2:46:04 PM by ZheToralf

That doesn't change the fact that you're still propagating defective genes.

Eventually you can't keep doing that, either the medical costs will become too great, or humans will have such polluted gene structures they'll be unable to survive.

Like how since we vaccinate ourselves against diseases, we have to live in sterile bubbles to prevent ourselves from dying of the common cold.

Evolution doesn't stop just because we invented medicine you know.

Well, it's still ethically dodgy, but you could always sterilise people with genetic defects. You don't have to withhold treatment and kill them.

This is a ridiculous question. Everyone will be cyborgs by then, so crappy genes and crappy bodies are a moot point.

edited 6th Feb '11 3:27:10 PM by melloncollie

Do you guys want to make another thread about eugenics/reprogenics, or turn this thread into a discussion about it, or stay OT and move on?

Destroy everything

Science is here to help people. Even as a Christian, I can't imagine why this would be wrong.

It could be abused though, presumably. Further, at this point in time one might desire to campaign in an attempt to encourage people to be willingly sterilized. No one needs to get hurt.

edited 6th Feb '11 3:45:09 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Ummm...Hardy-Weinberg already answer this question for you. Unless there's selection for those defective genes, you won't get an increase in those genes. What medicine did was to reduce some of the selective pressure against those genes and at best maintain those genes at the current level in our population. And this is assuming somehow that those with these genes are as capable of finding mates as those without the genes. So unless those defective genes suddenly turn those with them super hot and starts having more kids than those without, the original question is really not gonna happen.

edited 6th Feb '11 3:50:01 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Most of the common nasty defects aren't genetic, or are genetic but not inherited (eg chromosomal trisomies). Or they're recessive and the carriers far outnumber the affected. But anyway, assuming we did get some major autosomal dominant genetic disorders to be really common...

I suspect people would just develop cheaper ways of treating the resulting problems. After all, a basic computer used to cost millions and take up an entire room, and it had less processing power than most people's cellphones do nowadays. And that's only in the past 40 years. I'm sure with the proper incentives we could make that kind of progress in medicine too, and if many people had genetic disorders, we'd get the incentives.

This seems like a false scenario. We haven't yet suffered any particularly ill effects based on medical advances "interfering" with natural selection; there's no particular reason to think this will suddenly start happening in the future.

Artists haven't gone extinct. /engineering humor

What percentage of people today would survive in a "natural" environment? We will devolve, from that standard. It won't be a disaster, we won't become nightmarishly mutated. But unless steps are taken, humanity will no longer be capable of surviving without mechanical aid.

Okay let me just indicate that you've totally ignored one thing.

• Without medical advancements, those people would have died, so now they continue to live and possibly reproduce. Here you've stopped and concluded that humanity will get ever more dependent on medicine.

• What you've done is preserve any and all genetic variations whether useful or not, therefore the generation of people that you would figure as "strong" are still there. You get a growing population dependent on medicine in the background but the absolute number of useful people (and their subsequent increase due to population growth) stays the same.

So basically what you are saying is that...

Original population is of size X without your advancements. New population is of size X + Y, Y being the new people possible through your advanced medical technology. You're asking whether it is okay to kill off Y. X is not affected.

Those steps consist of "genetic engineering".

If people can't exist (or someday won't be able to exist) without mechanical aid, it isn't because of genetics. It's because of skills. Skills and knowledge vastly outweigh any genetic component in human survival.

Anyway, the very phrase 'devolution' is a misunderstanding of evolution, as if there were an evolutionarily worse way to be. It hearkens back to the old-school idea of "advancing" to form "higher life forms", as opposed to the modern idea of expanding to fill niches.

It's not about evolution, it's about genetics. As is, there's no way to stop harmful traits from existing. Consider the dominant traits. Those would be wiped out in nature, but they will continue (and in fact increase, because we allow harmful mutations to survive) because we keep them around, and it's only slightly less likely for them to reproduce. Let me put it this way. How many people alive today can barely see without glasses? Most of them will reproduce. How many of them would have reproduced in an environment where that's not corrected with glasses?

Is needing glasses genetic, though? I had a feeling it was partially environmental.

Seriously though - if we accept that natural selection is no longer selecting against negative physical traits, then that means it's not selecting for or against positive traits either. So with no selection going on, levels in the gene pool should remain approximately the same.

Yeah, that wasn't the best example.

Yep. That's the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium. Problem is, mutation still occurs. It'll take forever, but we'll eventually get a lot of harmful mutations which aren't bad enough to kill the carrier, and can be corrected with technology.

edited 7th Feb '11 2:19:38 PM by Ultrayellow

But if they're more fit in our new environment, what's the problem? Why should we worry about who could survive the stone age? It's pointless; we live in a modern technological society.

edited 6th Feb '11 10:01:42 PM by storyyeller

I know that "devolution" is not the best term to describe it as I pointed out in my opening post but it was the quickest way to describe what I meant. I can understand english very well but when I have to speak / write it, I have problems whith the more complicated words.

edited 6th Feb '11 11:22:53 PM by ZheToralf