Do you think genetic reprogramming is good?

Question

I would love to reprogram my genes to perfection...

According to this article, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/17/bio.debate/index.html

it could be a possibility.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

good? more like god-like. if we had that kind of ability the world would be a very very different place.

Answer 2

h**l yes! I've been waiting for it since the early 70s when Upjohn Pharmacuticals, the largest employer in my county (but now owned by Pfizer) announced it was working on a method to "reset" the biological clock.

That never happened by their method, but with modern genetics it will. I figure when I'm 70 or so I'll turn back to 30, live until I'm 50-60 and go back to 25, live until I'm 80 or 90 and go back to 55, on and on ad infinitum. What a life that will be.

Answer 3

Do you think that taking drugs is good?  Well sometimes, if used to cure an illness, relieve suffering, or even perhaps expand the mind: yes taking drugs would be good.  But what if someone is addicted and ruining their life and the lives or others, or what if they are being tortured, or what if they have been fooled by a pharmaceutical company and are actually taking a drug that is bad for them but makes some jerk rich: then taking drugs would be bad.  

Genetic reprogramming as an idea or course of action is neither inherently good or bad, but rather a fascinating technology which can be used for many different purposes.

That article is a typical mass media assassination of science and is very misleading, so please don't put too much stock in it.  There are wonderful possibilities brought about by knowledge of genetic sequence and the ability to alter it, but it is a misunderstanding to view genes as they are portrayed in the piece to which you linked.

Most plausible is growing organs and that sort of thing.  Secondly, to stretch things a bit further, we might get pretty good at altering our pre-natal babies in desirable ways, but this is looking more and more complicated the more we learn of embryology, morphogenesis, and gene/cell interactions.  To think that we are going to be able to reverse aging?  Even the proponents of this (Aubry deGrey etc. much moreso than Kurtzweil who is a computer scientist) admit that is decades off.  

Anyway, I don't know why people have a fear of "changing what it means to be human".  What's so great about humanity?  Seems to me that if we could improve consciousness, sentience, quality of being, why not go for it?  If it makes us obsolete, so much the worse for these clunky, smelly, great ape bodies we've been saddled with all this time!

Answer 4

well, healthwise, if everybody has access to it then population could be a problem.  But if only certain people(rich people probably) have access then other issues might arise.

Answer 5

good is meaningless in this context.

Answer 6

Rethinking would be consistent with reprogramming. The premise behind re-["x"] is that "y" is "imperfect". The relation of the good to both x and y is problematic. Note that I did not state that the good was problematic.

[Clarity] where the good is at issue: the loci where Being and thinking may meet: the issue of critical concern to the THINKING being.

Thus yours is begging the original inquiry as if it were of little importance or dignity. Perfection may be acheived by-way-of the good without reference to programming just as accident plays a role in Nature for which programming has no account or concern. Man is not the measure.