Autism Eugenics attempt at MIT

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No about the fact that we've genetically altered so much of our food supply that we basically don't even really know what we were eating from 10 million years ago to 10 thousand years ago. Meanwhile, obesity, of which there's no fossil evidence of ever having existed until circa 10k years ago (hint hint: that's the time modern farming and animal husbandry arose), just seemed to pop up out of nowhere and we can't figure out why. I'll give you hint with obesity: it's not all just exercise, the s**t people unwittingly shovel into their mouth is equally to blame. Nutrition from modern stores is nothing like real fresh food, it doesn't even look the same. Yeah, eugenics, selective breeding, whatever term you want to use for humans killing species they don't like, that gave us the food supply that's making us sick today.

When I started breeding plants about 15 years ago I was all gung-ho on maximizing the genetic output of my plants. After about 5 years I realized that while I was able to maximize the production I'd also unwittingly made my pepper plants bland and prone to disease. I spent the next five correcting the problems only to find the production dropped back down. That's when I realized that you can move the profile of genetics in one direction or the other, but it will always have consequences on other related genetics (not just pepper plants, they were my favorite that's why I used them as the penultimate example). There is no cure-all that has only positive effects, you can take from Peter to pay Paul with genetics, but you can't just mystically create something out of nothing or eliminate something like it was never intended to exist without consequences somewhere down the chain. This shouldn't be a surprise, the basis of all science is math and there's really only one fundamental of basic math: the equation must balance on both sides. I'm just happy I learned this lesson @25 and not @45.

Ahh, I'm afraid you've tried to define the underlying theoretical principles that gave rise to eugenics. This is like trying to explain Nazism by studying Nitszche and the Hindu Rg Veda.

Whatever it's origins - the political version of eugenics relates to a simple concept (easy for those who subscribe to political eugenics to understand) that some lives are not worth living. This nicely encapsulates the eugenic creed and was indeed a principle the Nazis subscribed to. The Nazi philosophy incorporated extreme versions of eugenics that included eliminating lower classes and races. These principles largely died with Nazism.

However, "the lives not worth living" identified in the early Eugenics movement in Europe and the US were people with disabilities (both physical and mental). It was quite a popular belief that people who could not contribute to society and required care should be sterilized so their deficient genes could not be passed on. Among it's proponents was Claude Binet the father of the IQ test.

Eugenics is infact with us today. Many legal systems around the world (including western countries) allow the forced sterilisation of people with mental illness. Most commonly young women who are identified as having a low IQ. Ostensibly it's for the benefit of the women who are identified by their parents as not being capable of looking after a child and in addition the risk their retardation is passed on. In reality it's implementation involves the human rights of the individual being deprived.

Oh I nearly forgot. In addition to forced sterilization of women classified as "intellectually impaired" it's legally acceptable in western countries to abort a fetus if they are diagnosed with Down's Syndrome. This decision is taken up by > 85% of parents who are informed the baby will develop downs.

Then of course there's switching of life support for those deemed vegetables. I suppose if you think about it, eugenics is all around us...

Um, yeah, I don't think humans should get anything they desire, I actually don't think I'll find too many arguments there actually. Have a child and when the child says to you: "Why are you so selfish you deny me what I desire." See how quickly it takes you to retort: "I'm not raising a self-entitled little brat." I'm a ok with humans getting any need they have, but desire that's a bit different-- you don't actually need it, you merely want it. I'm perfectly fine with people getting their wants, the problem is when those wants conflict with another person's needs. My needs include not being genetically altered. I'm perfectly fine with you doing whatever you want to your body, but when your want starts effecting my needs then yes, we're gonna have conflict. Example: I had my gene therapy and no longer have autism, I love it, every autistic should have to do it. Then gene therapy becomes the "thing" for autistics, they have to do it or be shunned from society-- you may be too young, but it's akin to the 80's when gays were sent to "gay" camp to get the gay beat out of them (some religious groups still do it).

Second, evolution is a process, a process of nature. It doesn't have to think and have memory to further the process, it merely needs time. That's why I use the term experience, what is experience exactly? It's the process of elimination over time: one figures out what works, and what doesn't. There is no thinking to experience, it's a simple elimination of things that don't work over time. One doesn't even need to think, just keep doing random s**t until something that works pops up. Nature does the same thing with evolution: it experiments and the creatures that survive get stored to memory, and those that don't, well, extinction is elimination in that process. Why is it that animals over time keep increasing cranial capacity? Why is that animal joints continue to get more compact and more complex as time passes? It's not just "random", the process puts many pieces on a board in a seemingly random assortment, but just like chaos theory, there's actually order upon closer inspection. All life needs food, water (lubricant of some sort, there's always the possibility of nitrogen based life after all), and some need shelter-- these are the requirements of life, the equation of life. Point being life doesn't need to think to have experience, it merely has to follow it's mechanical equation and the correct answer spits out the other side because it's nature, thus math, thus it has to balance. That's nature's experience: 4 billion years of throwing anything and everything into the equation, and what works stays, what doesn't goes. You're right it's not very sophisticated, but that doesn't make it any less correct-- after all, it has been around 4 billion years, can you say the same?

Genetic screening and abortion are also considered eugenics. Two things that I'm against. The third is Autism Speaks.

so you are selfish and misanthropic to boot. got it.none of what you just described is experience. it's all random chance playing out.

"I don't know, therefore ~wooo dragons~"
arguing that we dont know what will happen if _ happens and then postulating a possible outcome apropos of nothing is dishonest and a logical fallacy.
as for the comment about obesity not existing back 10 thousand years ago


this is the Venus of Willendorf, discovered in 1908 and is estimated to have been made in 28-25k BCE.

Because I don't think you should get everything you want I'm selfish? How so, I actually don't want anything, I'm perfectly happy growing my own food, enjoying my own little slice of nature, and living my life. I just don't want your wants interfering with my needs or anyone else's for that matter. That's the difference: you seem to think your wants are more important than other people's needs, I'm not so self centered. As for misanthrope, not even close, humans are merely animals, no different and barely more advanced than any other species, I just don't happen to view them as anything extraordinary or special, they certainly don't behave like they deserve that reverence-- when they start acting sentient and conscious I'll start treating them as such, until then realize I grant no special status to any creature aside that which they earn it through good behavior. This gets to a core problem with western society, people think that just because they exist they deserve something special, sorry but life doesn't work that way. You think nature is sitting in the background, making special little treats for humans? Hell no, it's a math equation, it doesn't give a damn what creature is what, merely that the creature in question follows the equation.


And who says random chance isn't experience? You're saying the lotto winner doesn't have any experience at winning the lottery-- it was just random chance after all, so therefore it can't be experience. It's that same hubris that thinks only sentient beings can have experience even though non-sentient creatures have been learning and gaining experience through seemingly "random chance" since life began. My car has experience driving across the nation, it doesn't have thought and feeling (as far as I know, fingers crossed), but it does have experience going from San Fran to Atlanta. Hell, I don't even have that experience, I wasn't there, but the scrape mark on the left front bumper when it came back sure as hell told me it had the experience. How do I know the car can make it from San Fran to Atlanta: the car has experienced doing so already. I never said life was a conscious being, in fact I said it was the direct opposite: life is a math equation and that's the problem-- people are trying to f**k with the equation and it hasn't even been completely written out yet. Experience isn't about conscious thought or decision making, it's about data collection, one doesn't need to be sentient to do it, hell server farms across the world are doing it right now and I sure as hell hope they aren't sentient.

edit: quote nightmare

You want to talk intellectual dishonesty: that's a fertility doll, not some artwork the ancients sent down through time to warn of the effects of obesity.

Read the second sentence. The number of autistic people who lack this gene is...ONE PERCENT.

WTF?

Is that a misprint?

They have found a way to cure one percent of autistics?
Why dont they just say "we havent found a damned thing yet!". Lol!

And whats the percentage of NTs who lack this gene? The article doesnt say.
For all we know the absence of the gene could be higher than one percent among NTs.

But that's the point of an obese fertility goddess. Obese women were probably symbols of prosperity; something which the tribe would strive for. Slender women came into vogue mostly in modern western civilization, when starvation was no longer something to dread.

It has nothing to do with weight, it has to do with reproduction-- a pregnant female form is a symbol of renewed life and progress for the tribe, even today it symbolizes that. Now if it were say a fat man depicted in the 14th century I would agree, but I have yet to see a fat male figurine from prehistory. They may exist, I don't know, but I have never seen nor heard of one so I can't claim they exist. That being said, since we only have preggers to go by, I feel 95% certain that the dolls symbolize fertility and renewal and nothing to do with weight, which just happens to be a byproduct of pregnancy.

It must be nice to be high functioning enough to be able to hold intellectual discourses on what autism is and isn't, and how / why gene therapy is the new evil to be fought tooth and nail, because GOD FORBID, those lovely autism genes are altered out of existence. Oh, and let's not forget to throw in the straw man argument of how homosexuality is the same thing as autism - puts a bunch of folks on the defensive now, don't it ?

Since my son lacks this luxury, I will beg leave to disagree with you. Autism isn't homosexuality. If you are functional enough to have these arguments here, then you are not the kind of person who might benefit extraordinarily from this therapy / gene alteration. So, that begs the question as to who YOU are to question whether others - like my son - should benefit from it or not ? Or whether I - who live and suffer with him every day - should want this for him or not ?

I am a very simple-minded woman. I don't care about Pandora's box, messing with evolution, nature, future generations blah blah blah. My single-minded focus and the only thing I actually really care about is my son. If this therapy will benefit him, then I am first in line to get it for him. You must excuse my inability to have these intellectual arguments with you - after having spent the entire day cleaning up after him as he had potty accident after accident after accident, I am too tired and too drained to give a ****. I just want this made available to him so I don't have to change the diaper on a 50-yr-old man when I am 80+ and not trying to read his gestures and trying to decipher his grunts to figure out what it is he wants / needs / trying to communicate. Autism aien't grand at all in my neck of the woods, and if there's something that will make it go away from my life, and my son's life, why, gee, where and when can I get it ?

You're right, from an emotional standpoint I can't argue with you, but that's why I don't base decisions off of emotion-- they're rarely correct. Take say 9/11-- first emotion: attack back. Also happened to be wrong, especially when one hits the wrong country and the result is a decade long mess because one decision maker didn't keep their emotions in check when making a world impacting decision.

I understand why you have an issue with my position against genetic engineering of any kind, and trust me, even us "high functioners" would be happy to alleviate our symptoms too. That being said, I can't in good conscience support something that I know will have long term negative consequences for the species as a whole. Any individual, me, you, your son, my sister: we're irrelevant, we're only cells of a much larger animal called humanity. If I could save your son but the cost was humanity itself, I'm sorry I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it to save myself or a family member. The potential for abuse is too high. This is precisely why I'm against the research: people can't see beyond their own desires to the see the big picture consequences of their actions. For most things that big picture doesn't change much because the decisions are fairly innocuous, but we aren't talking whether you should have one burrito too many, or perhaps swerve a little in the lane to reach your coffee while driving, we're talking the very building blocks of life here. The consequences of genetic alteration are far wider ranging than any one individual or any one group for that matter.

Like I said I do understand your perspective. Autism isn't for the faint of heart, living with it, or living with someone with it. That being said, here's another perspective. You love your son, most likely more than life itself, would you kill to save him and if so how many people? Don't worry I'm not going to morally bait you into a death argument, every parent I've ever talked to usually answers something along the lines of "as many as it takes". I get that, I don't have kids, but I do understand a parent willing to sacrifice anything, life itself even, for the benefit of their children: that's instinct pushing you towards protecting your genetic line. But, that narrow sighted focus on one case is also what prevents someone from seeing the larger picture and all the problems one individual case can cause on the system as a whole. Let's put it this way, if your son caught bubonic plague and was in quarantine you'd argue tooth and nail for his release: you love him and want him back. No arguments there. That being said, the CDC would be correct in keeping the quarantine in place since a single victim could devastate an city's worth of people. In that moment, to you, that cost is worth it to see your son again, but to the millions of other people that decision would effect it's merely a single person's selfish act.

Then let's say we do start altering a variety of genes and low an behold we didn't realize that all those alterations created cells that had off the charts genetic drift (above normal mutation). Your son does the therapy, it works...but come to find out his kids will inherit something worse than autism and their kids something even worse. You don't even need to say it: I can't verify, it's all speculation; yet, no one can refute it either, because that itself would also be speculation. And that is the point, scientists can claim any number of things, but have they done generations of testing to ensure the long term veracity of their research? Nope, they're just like any other worker: get the work done quickly for the investors and let the lawyers deal with any consequences. Sorry, but again we're talking the building block of life itself, creation itself, I doubt lawyers are going to be able to solve the problems if we f**k this one up.

Yes, all this is eugenics. And none of which has any bearing on the study in question or the work of Dr. Feng.


This is not possible--let's be completely clear about that--without editing germ line cells. The therapy hypothesized as a possible future benefit of this work is based on somatic cell editing, not germ line editing. That is not something that is being contemplated in Dr Feng's "why my fundamental neurology research has a public health benefit" nonsense about a cure in his grant application, so it makes as much sense to fear this as it does to fear werewolves, witches and demons.

But sexual fertility is only one aspect of fertility cults. Another aspect is the abundance of food, which obese women were symbolic of.
It's unlikely a male fertility figure would be found, as pregnancy is part of womanhood, and thus fertility was personified as a pregnant woman. Besides, men as hunters of the tribe, had to remain lean and muscular.