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A comment on First Human Embryos Edited in U.S. Parent comment

Re:First Human Embryos Edited in U.S by plaidfuji on Thursday July 27, 2017 @11:01AM (#14865920)
This is definitely true, but all of these genes have been vetted by millions of years of evolution, so we know they're rock solid. The edits we're talking about will be happening on a time scale that won't be constrained by natural selection, so by the time a weakness is found in one of these new genes, it's likely that it will already be widely adopted. I guess what I'm saying is that it's hard to anticipate what natural selection will look like when we multiply the "mutation rate" by probably > 10 orders of magnitude.
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Re:First Human Embryos Edited in U.S by logfromblammo on Thursday July 27, 2017 @03:33PM (#14868611)
Certain breeds of dog get hip dysplasia. Dalmations go deaf. Molosser breeds often have respiratory issues, particularly pugs. This has not stopped people from breeding dogs.

Natural selection will be out the window. It will be replaced entirely by intentional selection. We will certainly see new diseases rooted in human vanity and hubris, and they will become business opportunities for surgeons and pharmacists, just as our natural and lifestyle ailments have become moneymaking industries.

So the great-grandchildren of people that were gifted by their parents with then-fashionable gene mutations will have all new reasons to pay for health care.

And Sylvester McMonkey McBean simply unveils his star-off machine.

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Re:First Human Embryos Edited in U.S by eli_gottlieb on Friday July 28, 2017 @09:53AM (#14874254)
>This is definitely true, but all of these genes have been vetted by millions of years of evolution, so we know they're rock solid.

Evolution does not vet for anything except population-level viability. Once upon a time, our population bottlenecked. The return of large-scale genetic diversity is normal for an animal species, especially one that has spread to practically every environment on the planet.

Also, evolution is not a prescriptive standard. Oy.

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Re:First Human Embryos Edited in U.S by D-Coder on Thursday July 27, 2017 @07:50PM (#14870814)
"...all of these genes have been vetted by millions of years of evolution, so we know they're rock solid."

You haven't talked with my knees recently, have you.

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