CRISPR-Cas9 the 2015 name for eugenics

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With the history of Eugenics in the USA it is better not to trust and verify. Eugenics has a place in our national DNA (pun intended). If CRISPR is generally a disease ridding wonderful project and only a small part of it is eugenics against autistics the more chance the program will come into fruition and the eugenics part of it put into place. Most eugenicists especially in America have never been final solution Nazis, but think they are doing the morally humane thing for society and the disabled persons. With the Autism "epidemic" now 1 in 45 people and assuming CRISPR was started for non autism reasons what part of the program do you think a large share of the money and effort is eventually going to end up?

Whether it's CRISPR or some other method, the the willful disbelief in some parts of our community that a cure for autism can happen is astounding to me. Yeah Autism is complicated but I have seen so many things happen that I thought were impossible I never say never. The claim has been made in the article that gene editing of multiple genes is possible and that while it is early the autism research looks "promising". The difficulty of it makes it more likely harmful quack cures will continue to move into the mainstream.

I miss B19's input in a discussion like this.

I think your concern about the impulse toward eugenics is well founded, but you keep talking about CRISPR as if it was a project or enterprise of some kind. That is a categorical error. You can no more talk about CRISPR as a controllable project than you can talk about DNA as a controllable project.

CRISPR is a part of the natural world that people discovered. Using its mechanism, people can split and splice DNA with great precision, permitting all manner of DNA editing that was previously impossible--or so difficult as to be impracticable. It isn't something people invented and it is a functioning part of the natural world regardless of how people use their discovery of it.

The claims in the article are BS of the kind that often emerge in science writing from oversimplification. CRISPR would allow people to edit a person's DNA and alter the codons that result in particular phenotypes only if the exact relationship between codons and phenotype was rigorously understood.

Since such understanding is not even remotely close for autism, it is completely impossible to use CRISPR based editing to do alter autistic phenotypes at this time. In the future, all sorts of things will be possible, but in the future the sun will expand into a red giant and sterilize the earth. The future is a big place.

The article makes stupid, grandiose claims. CRISPR is not alarming in the same way that calculus is not alarming. Evil people may use calculus in the service of nefarious plans, but that is not because of some intrinsic moral fault in calculus.

If you want to know what CRISPR is from a generalist standpoint, the Radiolab podcast I linked to is pretty good. The TWIV podcast is very good if you are interested in the mechanism from a biological perspective.

this is potentialy serious stuff

It is remarkably powerful. It's hard not to think of a new Island of Dr. Moreau situation, once you understand how powerful this is and how willing people are to leap into mucking about with genomes, before they have much more than a hint of a clue about how the systems they are tinkering with work. The Chinese group that went straight to human germline experiments emphasizes this.

people better take care and get there ducks in a row before they start using this stuff.
i cant deny that this has potential to do good but it is knocking on eugenics door

Science's entanglements with application-ism and consumer-ism is the broadway, and keepin' corporations afloat.

If it's exernal crutches that's needed, you'll pay, one way or everyway.

One slogan tying it all, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.”

Well said, however I wonder... are we then the savages in this situation, required to be tamed by the 'civilized' man?

Some news about investments in an applied CRISPR company:

http://www.biopharmadive.com/news/bayer ... tn/411277/

No focus on autism there.