I think this is a very big conversation for me to fire off a quick HN comment. I'm mostly ignorant about this, and my Christian faith probably clouds my judgement, so it's difficult to say whether I'm being objective and rational.
However, I'm not convinced that medical science is there yet, so my child is just an iteration for big pharma. Perhaps we produce a whole generation of intelligent children who develop Alzheimer's when they're 25. I realise that argument is made against every new technology (especially medical), but making an active choice somehow makes me culpable and it would be harder to live with it.
Also, there's the idea of what happens if this becomes universal. Since some traits seem universally desirable, all parents will choose to grant them. So if everyone is given the genes to be massively intelligent, is that a good thing?
Then there's the quality of life argument, which makes me deeply uncomfortable. Essentially, choosing a fully-sighted embryo over a partially-sighted one implicitly says "partially-sighted people are likely to have lower quality of life than fully-sighted ones", and that sounds wrong both ethically and practically.
This is a really difficult debate, though. Put in the hypothetical situation of having to choose, I guess I would end up choosing the best possible embryo, but I'd rather not have to make the choice to begin with.
Why does "partially-sighted people are likely to have lower quality of life than fully-sighted ones" feel wrong to you? In the extreme cases (say, Tay-Sachs disease) it is clear that some people will definitely have a lower quality of life than others, so in general there is a difference, and it's only a question for which problems the genetic quality-of-life differences are insignificantly small compared to other factors.
But sight (IMHO) is a very important thing.
Think of it this way - to compare apples with apples, let's talk about a single person, not two people who can be wildly different. The moral dilemmas have different answers for different people, so think from your personal perspective:
If you would/could make some currently fully-sighted person become partially-sighted, would it be a neutral thing or an evil thing, according to your beliefs? Would you have a duty to avoid doing that?
If you would/could make some currently partially-sighted person become fully-sighted, would it be a neutral thing or a good thing, according to your beliefs? Would you have a duty to do that?
If you had an ability to choose between some person being partially- or fully-sighted; or flip a coin instead (50% chance of only partial sight) - would you avoid making the choice? Is it ethical to avoid making the choice?
> Why does "partially-sighted people are likely to have lower quality of life than fully-sighted ones" feel wrong to you?
Usain Bolt obviously has two pretty amazing legs, and my legs by contrast must look 'less able'. But I'd be offended if you assumed that Usain Bolt has a better quality of life simply because he has 'more able' legs.
So with this gene selection we end up in selecting only those with the legs of Usain Bolt.
I feel the same about sight. I'm fairly short-sighted so wear glasses, and my glasses are kind of part of my personality. Even if somebody wanted to pay for the laser surgery, and it was a guaranteed success, I can't say that I'd definitely do it.
So in the case of your questions - if somebody asked me to improve their sight, and it was in my power to do so, then I would do it. But I don't think it would guarantee them a better quality of life.
> I'm not convinced that medical science is there yet
Agreed, but I think it's a matter of if, not when. As our knowledge of gene expression, epigenetics, protein folding, and the like increases, the set of things we can't do will shrink.
>Perhaps we produce a whole generation of intelligent children who develop Alzheimer's when they're 25
It's certainly possible that we'll leap before we look, but I'd hope not. We've had examples of that in the past, but the result of those tragedies is that research processes have improved. They're far from perfect, but they've certainly gotten better.
>So if everyone is given the genes to be massively intelligent, is that a good thing?
I'd say so, yes.
>choosing a fully-sighted embryo over a partially-sighted one implicitly says "partially-sighted people are likely to have lower quality of life than fully-sighted ones", and that sounds wrong both ethically and practically.
I think, on average, it's simply an objective fact that "full-sighted people have a better quality of life than partially-sighted people". I can't think of any way that astigmatism has improved my life, and it's something I plan on rectifying permanently once my finances allow it.
As for being ethically wrong, I don't see it. Just because someone is perfectly capable of living a happy and fulfilled life with a birth defect doesn't mean the lack thereof wouldn't be preferable.
>I'd rather not have to make the choice to begin with.
Keep in mind, not choosing is itself a choice. Just as you'd feel guilty if the procedure caused a birth defect, I think you'd also feel guilty if your child was born with a birth defect that you chose not to screen for or take steps to select against. That said, there we finally find an ethical quandary: the nature of the procedure would mean choosing to select against that defect would mean choosing not to have your child, and that's not something most parents would care to think about when looking at their kid. There's a big difference between choosing which fertilized egg to implant and looking at your kid and wishing you had chose not to have them. I think most people would be okay with the former, but would likely (and rightly) recoil in horror at the latter.
> So if everyone is given the genes to be massively intelligent, is that a good thing?
> I'd say so, yes.
My thoughts on this are overshadowed by Brave New World. I realise how enormously snobbish and arrogant this sounds, but there are some jobs where having an enormous intellect would definitely be a burden. So either we have to automate those jobs (not necessarily possible), accept that some people are going to be very unhappy, or breed a specific group of people with lower intellects.
I guess this is a variation on the 'tragedy of the commons' - something that's wonderful for your child and my child would probably be a disaster if it were given to everybody's child.
> Just because someone is perfectly capable of living a happy and fulfilled life with a birth defect doesn't mean the lack thereof wouldn't be preferable.
I think sometimes disabilities are part of what make them amazing people. Would Beethoven have written such wonderful music if he had full hearing? From what I've read of Dame Evelyn Glennie, she seems to say that her deafness taught her to hear the music in a different way. So I'm worried that removing everything we perceive to be a defect results in a rather bland human race. It would be better to work on improving society so that being blind didn't cause many people to become depressed, for example. Adding lifts and ramps to buildings as well.
> Keep in mind, not choosing is itself a choice.
I'd like that the choice is not even possible. If the choice can be made confidently by a large proportion of the population, then it would inevitably go this way.
Yes you're right, a lot of this does depend on what we're considering a defect and at what stage. We have obviously done the whole Down's Syndrome scan, and we had no idea what we would have done if it had come back positive. If I could have done this pre-conception, then it would be a more comfortable decision. But if the question was about being short-sighted (which both my wife and I are), or whether we'd prefer a more athletic child, then the question gets much harder.
However, I'm not convinced that medical science is there yet, so my child is just an iteration for big pharma. Perhaps we produce a whole generation of intelligent children who develop Alzheimer's when they're 25. I realise that argument is made against every new technology (especially medical), but making an active choice somehow makes me culpable and it would be harder to live with it.
Also, there's the idea of what happens if this becomes universal. Since some traits seem universally desirable, all parents will choose to grant them. So if everyone is given the genes to be massively intelligent, is that a good thing?
Then there's the quality of life argument, which makes me deeply uncomfortable. Essentially, choosing a fully-sighted embryo over a partially-sighted one implicitly says "partially-sighted people are likely to have lower quality of life than fully-sighted ones", and that sounds wrong both ethically and practically.
This is a really difficult debate, though. Put in the hypothetical situation of having to choose, I guess I would end up choosing the best possible embryo, but I'd rather not have to make the choice to begin with.