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I don't think you understand science...

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Yes, it actually is. That's exactly what you're doing when you correct a genetic defect. You're taking the natural genetics of something, and making it different. I'm aware that liberals hate Monsanto because omg genetic engineering, but modifying a tomato to withstand freezing temperatures is a change on the same level as removing cerebral palsy from the human genome.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Let me clarify.

Yes, the process is the same essentially, you're altering genetic code. However, IMHO there is a big difference in repairing damaged genetic code back to what it should have been without the damage vs. taking normal genetic code and altering it or splicing it with a different type of plant entirely to create a specific attribute. In once case you're repairing damage in the other you're creating something new.

"God's Sandbox" is nature randomly poking things with a stick and keeping any good things that result.

Natural Selection has not created any perfectly adapted species. We are a product of random mutations, (most of which are negative -- nature just kept the ones that helped us reproduce). Even ones that are selected are not always beneficial. They may simply not be harmful to the propogation of the species.

We are certainly no less qualified to play around with mutations than a random number generator is. Natural Selection will still choose what it wants to keep, regardless of the source of the genetic change.

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But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
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Downs Syndrome is not damage. You can correctly call it a genetic variation or even a mutation but not damage.

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Logical consistency demands that believers of the Judeo-Christian God and believers of Natural Selection both decry genetic modification of species (human or otherwise).

Anything is logically inconsistent with those beliefs.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Corolinth's lack of wings and a prehensile tail is clearly damage.

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"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Not at all.

Natural Selection "selects" mutations. It does not create them. The source of the mutation is irrelevant, be it random replication errors that have resulted in the biodiversity we see today, or direct human intervention. We can manipulate the genome all we want. Natural Selection will decide if the manipulations are "worthy."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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No.
First, that isn't what natural selection means
Second, that would not be Natural Selection then. That would be Artificial Selection.

They are not the same.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Wrong.

Natural Selection means that mutations that give a species some kind of advantage in survival/reproduction are "selected." The word gives an incorrect mental image of natural actually choosing them, but the choosing is done because those advantages help that mutation to survive, reproduce, and be passed on to the next generation. That's all Natural Selection is.

The source of the mutation does not need to be "natural" (randomly occurring) for the selection to be "natural."

Now, we've been manipulating "natural selection" in hundreds of species for all of recorded human history -- by intentionally breeding (both humans and animals) for desired traits. But genetic manipulation has absolutely no influence on natural selection whatsoever. It just gives Nature more choices to select from. Whether or not we further influence natural selection at this point is not what we're talking about here. And if we really had an issue with it, we'd object to the way we have created domesticated species through selective breeding over the millennia. But we don't object to it...because ultimately, humans are also part of nature, and what we do is just as natural as every other method of selection. Hell, nature has built such mechanisms into our mating preferences. We do this even subconsciously in the way we choose who we want to breed with.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Let me clarify my position on this:

I don't really care what people believe and consider to be "good." I'm just pointing out that you can't retain a consistent logical framework in God or in the "propriety" of Natural Selection and also believe Genetic Modification is bad.

I am also not limiting this to human Genetic Modification. When it comes to being logical, it's an all or nothing thing.

That said, people are (obviously) free to be as illogical as they want, and should thus believe whatever they want as well.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Um, no. It seems somebody hasn't actually ever read Origin of Species or they'd know that Darwin specifically differentiated between natural and artificial selection (edit: Darwin also called this "selective breeding)

Would you like me to quote the dictionary at you, or would you prefer to just Google it yourself? The two things are not synonyms.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

(1) Nothing in the absolute proven scientific fact known as the process of Natural Selection makes interfering in the process an undesireable thing. (2) Genetic modification does not interfere with natural selection at all. (Any breeding programs afterward that propogate those mutations can be considered interfering in Natural Selection.) However, see (1).

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Shall we shuffle this thread down to Hellfire now or wait for it turn into a flame fest?

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Which is exactly what I just said. Selective breeding interferes with natural selection. Genetic modification does not. They are at different ends of the process. Genetic modification does not have anything to do with whether that modification is "selected" afterward for propogation.

However, there is nothing less "natural" about Selective Breeding (which, as I stated, we've been doing for all of recorded human history and beyond) than simply leaving human actions out of the equation. Human choices and actions are just as natural as those of any other species.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This and the Detroit thread should both be in Heckfire or Hellfire anyway. This is the wrong forum for such discussions.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Even so, Natural Selection is not a dogma, or some sacred process. It's simply the means by which the species developed. Science doesn't hold it sacred any more than it does the Theory of Gravity. What you are suggesting, DFK! is equivalent to saying that scientists should oppose air and space travel, because it's finding ways around the Theory of Gravity.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No, someone who believes in natural selection is not forced to reject genetic engineering in order to maintain logical consistency. Natural selection led us to genetic engineering, after all. The most egregious assumption being made is the assumption that belief in natural selection is equivalent to a belief in God, that is to say that because natural selection occurred, natural selection has given us Ten Commandments that we must continue to follow. Natural selection has done no such thing. There is no list of, "Thou shalt not," which appears in the explanation of the origin of species through natural selection. That would be like saying that because I believe in Boyle's Law, I can't add heat to a gas system. Without a solid grounding in what natural and artificial selection are, and how the two can occur side by side within the same system, we are reduced to checking our list of fallacies from English Comp 102 in the hopes that the debate judges award us more points.

It's another form of the same half-baked argument that Aizle is trying to make. What constitutes a damaged gene? How do you think to propose that Down syndrome is a damaged gene, while the potato's inability to grow in a certain soil composition is not?

It's natural. What makes natural special? Why is water "clean" when it evaporates out of the sky, rains down to Earth, and comes crashing down from the mountains in a stream, but it is "dirty" when it's strained through a screen, boiled in a tank, pumped through a hose, and condensed back to liquid in another tank? It's the same thermodynamic process.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

You don't get to change definitions to be what you want. Words have meanings.

You're using them improperly. Sure, humans are part of nature. Irrelevant, and tautological. Natural Selection has a definition. Artificial Selection has a definition.

If you use gene therapy to make somebody not retarded, or not crippled, or not gay, or not X or not Y, you have inherently and artificially improved their chances at breeding. You have artificially selected circumstances that alter their likelihood of propagating their gene pool. If you artificially make their dick bigger, sperm spermier, or womb wombier, you've artifically selected circumstances in favor of their gene propagation as well.

I don't really care what people believe in this matter, but you literally cannot think that Natural Selection is a "good" thing for species and logically believe that genetic modification is also "good." This is true of things like in vitro fertilization or surrogacy (of the womb) as well. Feel free to be illogical and hold both beliefs, because I don't care what you believe.

I'm simply pointing out a logical fact of the situation.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You are not pointing out a logical fact of the situation. You are attempting to win points from debate team judges.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

They do if they believe that natural selection is "good."

I'm not talking about people who believe that natural selection happened. I'm talking about people who think that natural selection is an inherent "good" in nature, something that should not be interfered with. Such people as are against GMO's or are against humans caused species extinction.



Nothing particularly makes natural special. I'm not arguing that at all, per my several posts about the issue. It all simply is about logical consistency.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

The non-existent judges that don't exist?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

I agree.



And yet, plenty of people DO hold it sacred. They may not call it that, or think they're holding it sacred, yet it occurs. For example, people who advocate against Monsanto GMO products despite literally nothing proving them unhealthy and LOTS of evidence that they are healthy. That's putting the "natural selection" process above artificial selection.




I'm not saying anything of the sort. That would require that people hold gravity to be something that is "good" and should be driven towards and advocated for.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

You don't get to change definitions to be what you want. Words have meanings.

You're using them improperly. Sure, humans are part of nature. Irrelevant, and tautological. Natural Selection has a definition. Artificial Selection has a definition.[/quote]

And you aren't following them.



Random mutations can do the same thing. Which doesn't matter, because none of that is part of Natural Selection. Yes, you've created (either intentionally or randomly) a new or different trait in the species. Natural Selection will then decide whether that trait is "worthy" of passing along to the next species. And no matter how beneficial such a trait seems to us, it will not necessarily be passed along. Lower IQ/Lower income/Less educated people tend to have more children than their higher IQ/higher income/higher educated counterparts to, as a general average. I believe nature is selecting against advancing human intelligence, because for some reason we do not understand, the more competent you are, the less likely you are to pass along your genetics to many offspring. Ultimately, the source of the genetic mutation doesn't change whether or not it is naturally selected for survival, and does not change whether it is naturally or artificially selected.

Now, if you proceed to introduce that genetic mutation into the entire populace (or as much of it as possible), or introduce eugenics programs to propogate the mutation, in an attempt to sidestep natural selection, then yes, at that point, it's "artificial selection." (A completely meaningless term, but still true.)




Several issues with this paragraph. (1) Science does not make value judgements. Natural selection is not "good" or "evil," it simply is. It exists. It's how we evolved. (2) Nothing precludes natural selection and "artificial selection" from both being good things, depending on what the goal is.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █