# A Powerful New Way to Edit DNA



## Orion (Jan 25, 2011)

RobynC said:


> @_Bear987_
> 
> I'm glad people are starting to get this, please don't forward this as this article seems to glorify it rather than criticize


You have the wrong idea about the kind of research Universities do. A company is not going to give a University large amounts of money to perform specific research for them, that money is better spent developing their own internal R&D. A researcher at a University is not going to do work for a company if they can not publish papers and build upon their results. 

The most money I have seen private companies give Universities were either in the form of gifts (with no strings attached except naming rights on the building) or scholarships to improve human capital. Government funding is being cut for science research, but the private sector is not picking up the slack at all, they are simply hiring away the talent.


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## GottSchreit (Mar 20, 2014)

I think you guys are freaking out too much. Not because it couldn't be used as a horrible weapon. Y'all's alarm shows an attitude towards the world that unconsciously assumes y'all are safe _now_. Y'all are operating under a _completely_ false sense of security. If there's suddenly a new super weapon, who cares? Add it to the pile! Ever since the development of the atomic bomb, we've been living under a new social paradigm that coexists with the possibility of our own annihilation. Why are we still here? Because political, economic, and ethical forces keep it that way - as well as general self-interest. If y'all have been relying on the desire of politicians not to slaughter their own families in a global holocaust thus far, why would that change once we've got better genetic engineering? I'd worry more about subtle misuses by government and corporations, ones which are hard to prevent, but have significant effects when used pervasively in the long term. (Like how we've all been ignoring the hormonal chemicals increasingly pervading our lives for the past decades, having demonstrable effects on things like puberty and fertility.) If we're not using our _current_ biological weapons, then we probably won't use the new ones either. In the meantime it'll allow us to cure most human diseases, and possibly even slow aging. I think that's a justified gambit.


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## gingercat (Mar 25, 2014)

GottSchreit said:


> If there's suddenly a new super weapon, who cares? Add it to the pile! Ever since the development of the atomic bomb, we've been living under a new social paradigm that coexists with the possibility of our own annihilation. Why are we still here? Because political, economic, and ethical forces keep it that way - as well as general self-interest. If y'all have been relying on the desire of politicians not to slaughter their own families in a global holocaust thus far, why would that change once we've got better genetic engineering?


While genetic engineering is one of the topics that fascinate me the most, I also see the dangers. I think you're missing the difference between our current weapons and genetic engineering. the danger of the latter is that it is usually not portrayed as a weapon and can easily be used from the motive of doing _good_ (e.g. by eradicating certain traits that are seen as _bad_). This is dangerous in so far that everyone's definitions of _good_ and _bad_ are different, there are so many perspectives and they're all valuable and we'll never be able to reach a consensus. Someone will always criticize the use of genetic engineering in certain fields.

However, the possibilities that it offers to medical treatment are too great to ignore. and i personally can't think of any argument against the use of this method in medicine (as soon as it is safe enough, of course). 
so to my mind, research should be continued but the practical use of this technique should be regulated by laws, restricted to the medical field (if you completely want to avoid the abuse of this technique) and monitored, similar to the way genetic engineering and research are already being regulated in many countries.


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## Orion (Jan 25, 2011)

I almost forgot, this technology is already on its way out. We got something better: CRISPR - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

Can it change chromosomes? (too lazy to read article)


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## Orion (Jan 25, 2011)

ephemereality said:


> Can it change chromosomes? (too lazy to read article)


Anytime sexual reproduction occurs chromosomes change.


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