a new super race?

[rosieglo]

Re the article in the guardian about the baby that was successfully screened for the breast cancer gene and the controversy about 'designer babies' - what's the fuss? I'm thinking that breeding out illness and disabilty is a great thing. Improving intelligence also; hopefully the smarter the future generations are the more likely they will find ways to halt our destruction of the planet and stop fighting. What's wrong with wanting fitter, stronger, cleverer and healthier children? And I think it is so wrong for a deaf or blind parent to actively seek out a way to pass their disability on, I cannot begin to understand how they could want to deprive their child of the ability to hear music or see the world around them.
hmmn - for me it's a pretty straight forward matter.

I think this thread needs to die.

I think this thread needs to die.

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I think this thread needs to die.

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I think this thread needs to die.

Mamadiva, that's an interesting point.

We don't use genetic selection to get rid of the 1 in 10 people who commit domestic abuse. We don't select to get rid of the one in four who have a criminal record (yes, that's the number) or the tens of thousands of people who choose not to work (rather than have a legitimate reason for it e.g. childcare, illness, etc). We're not even looking for ways to select for these things.

It's people with disabilities that get deselected.

Cote, you questioning whether babies with disabilities being born would make us "feel better" is an astonishing question. I think people with disabilities have a right to life the same as other people do.

We know that most people with disabilities do not suffer. Us being in the world is nothing to do with someone else being happy, it's to do with giving us a chance to be alive and try life for ourselves instead of having a society pre-judge us as rubbish that needs to be disposed of.

Yes because bumping it with a thousand plus messages is really going to make it die.

what if there was a genetic test for homosexuality then? Could we "breed" out gays? After all that's not normal either is it?

wannaBe, gosh no, that would be illegal because Gay people are protected by law. Presumably it's not quite all about reproduction and the next generation after all, then?

"We're not even looking for ways to select for these things." I thought we were. We are certainly looking very hard into genetic elements for propensity to depression and the like. One theory on our sexuality is it may be determined by levels of hormones in the womb and that is indeed something that can be determined to an extent. Research the other week looked at what makes some men risk takers and apparently it's exposure in the womb to testosterone etc. These are really interesting issues and will enable us to control even more things in my view to the good of man kind.

Hitler might be your enemy but you cannot dictate that people discuss things you don;t want to

"It's people with disabilities that get deselected'

Deslected from what? Being born. In that case they are not people, are they. Or if they are 'people' get deselcetd for much less reasons that putative disablity. Evolution is selection.

And a vast number of miscarriages are because the baby has disabilities and that's the natural way of dealing with that. But none of this means ablebodied people look down on people with disabilities or want to kill them off in any way at all and we all have various things about us that could be improved.

If evolution is selection, and it is an entirely natural evolutionary step for these disabilities to cease to exist as a result of evolution, then why are these disabilities still here after 10,000 years? If these disabilites were going to vanish as a result of evolution, then why does human technology need to be used?

This argument is not about evolution; it is about what human culture finds desirable.