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I want your opinions genetic Engineering, how it could be used, and if you think there should be limits on it to prevent misuse.

There is some potential on this science, it can allow the potential of every from curing the common cold to creating catgirls to cloning to allowing more healthy crops. However all of that comes with its own ethical and moral baggage as messing with human life (and to a lesser extent, animal life) and "playing God" would be inhumane and the treatment of test subjects are a huge factor.

So what are your thoughts on the science

I think it's rather so-so. But I don't really understand science, so… I don't know.

(Also, I thought this was an ad-bot thread for a second, assuming from the title)

I personally believe that using genetic engineering to improve crop production is the only viable solution to world hunger. Also curing genetic diseases and curing disabilities would be nice too. Too bad everyone thinks of half-human hybrids taking over the world when people bring the subject up (even when such idea's become laughable once you get an even basic understanding of genetics)
Spoiler Alert: DNA is not made of Legos. You can't just pull a gene sequence for "Cat Ears" out of Cat DNA and put into Humans. DNA don't work like that.

I say I'm all for it.
Hopefully when I get into genetics I can learn exactly what goes down and stop being a dumbass and worrying that Les Enfants Terrible can possibly occur from it.

Yeah I think it's fine. Usually the only argument people have against it is "it's not natural". That's not even an argument. Imagine the currently incurable genetic diseases it could help end when it develops enough and of course the world hunger thing.

I always respond to those "arguments" with "Neither is your Car/Phone/House/Computer/Clothes"

I mean, who doesn't want a glowing cat?
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-14882008

I don't understand how anyone can be against this.
We can literally save billions of lives, we can get rid of all diseases, get rid of famine, etc.

The only argument i ever hear is "yea, but then people will make designer babies!"
I honestly don't even know what they mean by that. What people will change their genes so they'll have the hair and eye color they want them to have? so what? Thats the best argument you can come up with?

Well… everyone in here's already stated my opinion on the matter multiple times over.

So, here's a huge, loud, funny man saying it instead.

Genetic engineering is just an improved version of selective breeding, which we've been practicing for thousands of years to create better crops and animals.

I say: go for it!

Designer babies are babies who's features, genome, future, and destiny are pre-ordered by their parents for what they want.
Like if you wanted your child to be a football player, you would genetically enhance them with mental retardation, and modify the genomes for muscles and speed.
Or if you want your child to be a scientist, to obliterate the genomes for social development.
The child of course has no choice in the matter, its destiny, future, personality, everything that would define it would be pre-chosen, it would be a slave to whatever the parents wanted for it.

I find that the biggest hurdle genetic engineering has is that people don't understand enough about it (i.e. fear of the unknown) and there have been millions of science fiction stories making cautionary tales about dystopias where everyone is genetically modified and the world is awful and all that jazz. Another big hurdle is that genetic engineering has not been researched enough yet so there are a lot of questions on where exactly it will go, which makes a lot of people nervous. On top of that the government is putting way more regulations on organically grown foods than they are on GMOs and I can see why that would make people suspicious about how safe the food actually is to eat. And of course there's the age-old slippery slope argument of "how far is too far? where will it stop?"

I can sympathize with all of the fear and uncertainty that goes behind being against genetic engineering, but what I can not excuse is the fact that people are actively trying to stop any further research and development into it. Essentially stopping progress in its tracks. As many in this thread have said, GMOs are our best bet at ending world hunger and genetic engineering could potetially cure thousands of crippling and life threatening diseases. I will admit I am a little scared of our world becoming an army of designer babies as that concept makes me very uncomfortable, but I do not think that is a good enough reason to stop research into something that could potentially save millions if not billions of people.

Not really how that works. While Genetics have some say in your personality and talents, your environment has FAR more say in the matter. Also, the Genes that do have say in your personality are far to integrated with each other pick and choose certain personality traits. There are multiple parts of your brain all working together to create your personality, changing one part would create unpredictable changes to other parts.

This is another myth that's holding the idea back is that we can program people's personality and world views when there is no way to even come close to doing that. The closest we could do is to personality control is cure Mental Retardation and Autism. Changing Genes would have far more impact on things like how strong your immune system is, how prone to addiction you are (read: zero prone) and eliminating genetic diseases. It would be more akin to Vaccines, except that instead of preventing diseases, they prevent genetic malformations, with a side of fixing evolution's mistakes.

And that's IF we ever get to Human Genetic Engineering. Right now, it's focused on genetic modification of crops to make plants yield more fruit per plant, grow taller, and grow fruit resistant to crop destroying diseases and pests. Imagine if we could increase the amount of food produced by an acre of farm land four times, with very little, if any, increase in cost. Imagine now that all the farm lands in America could go from yielding enough food to feed 300 million to 1.2 billion, enough to feed all of America and 81% of Africa. Now imagine first world country had this technology. World Hunger would perish, along with all the disease that follows starvation.

However, due to Sci-Fi B-Movies, every time someone brings up "Genetic Engineering" people automatically think of Half-Human Half-Fly Monsters taking over the world, or an oppressive future where everything about you down to the kind of music you like is determined by the Government or your Parents. These myths which thrive on popular culture and ignorance of the subject is what holds back what could be an amazing and world changing breakthrough. I think "Genetic Engineering" is today what "Radiation" was in the 1950's. No one understood it, but everyone saw the movies about all the monsters it causes and became afraid.

…what?…
i'm assuming your trolling, especially with the "to be a football player, you would genetically enhance them with mental retardation"

why would anyone pick and choose the genes they want for there kid? if there is a way to make your kid smarter, EVERYONE will do that.
This isn't like choosing which stat you want to upgrade in an rpg. You'd just upgrade it all.

anyways, you are implying we don't already do all of that. We already chose what we want our kids to be like based on the person we have kids with.

This brings up another question i have do you, the posters, think that part of the stigma is cause by conflation to eugenics (and by extension, the sigma that it gets saddled with thanks to the Holocaust)?

I always tell people the difference between Eugenics and Genetic Engineering is Eugenics kills the weak while GE fixes the weak. The goal of the two is one and the same, it's just that the methods are different. But yeah, I think people will immediately oppose and idea if it even has a tertiary connection to Nazi's. I can see many people thinking they are one and the same and immediately opposing it with no more questions asked

The reason I'm most excited about genetic engineering is that it can bring back extinct species. More recent species like mammoths and the dodo can be brought back through cloning because we still have bone and tissue samples. It can also be used to bring species back from the edge of extinction and to diversify the genetics of their populations.

My opinion on genetic engineering is that it is fine so long as it is properly managed and contained. Genetically modified plants are fine so long as we take the proper steps to observe its interactions with nature around it, and if the need arises, be able to prevent damage or contamination. The same applies to other organisms. We must have the ability to stop the unwanted spread of genetically modified organisms if they move out of their designed parameters. But to me, the greatest risk lies in 'intelligent' organisms. If we can make organisms that are better then us, then what is stopping them from creating a biological singularity and leaving humanity in the dust? Granted, that is much less likely, but either way, genetic modification will change society, maybe better, maybe for worse.

All for it. It has a metric shitload of untapped potential, so I don't get why people are against it.