Matt Becker's Blog

Well maybe one-two levels down. I’d say genomics, the use of genetics to make changes to genomes is one level down from genetics. The brain, the most advanced organ in our bodies, is starting to be understood by the use of genomics, because even the complex synapses and neurotransmitters are determined by the genetics of the organism. The fascinating thing about this organ is that if we manage to improve it, everything will snowball into place, for better or for worse.

This is what happens, exponential growth, but unlike this photo, it never stops.

When we, as a species, produce one member of our species that has had genomics used to improve his/her brain, then that person in turn can work on genetic things that can further improve our brains as well as everything else, like I’ve discussed earlier. As usual, the ethical considerations would need to be taken into account, because many would see this hyperintelligent human as an unfair, unnatural production of intelligence, completely unlike Einstein, Bohr, or Hawking, who were born in the natural sense, but were (most likely) the result of natural mutations that allowed them to be so smart. As per my whole blog this semester, I must comment that this is not yet a true civic issue because the technology to achieve such a thing as neurally a amplifying someone is not yet, to my knowledge, possible.

BRAINZZ

The brain itself is such a cool organ though that I cannot help but discuss it and the implications of changing it. The changes would be through genetics and genomics, staying within the parameters of this blog, but the brain itself is definitely a separate very interesting topic. The chemicals that are transmitted by the different parts of the brain, as well as the electrical signals between the neurons, are very complicated and determine your body’s limits and strengths and weaknesses because those things are primarily concerned with genetics. The alterations of the brain would be more about eugenics and improvements to the organism than they would be about treating diseases because very few diseases are literally caused by the signals from the brain, more in the actual properties of the body that are flawed. By that I mean that if you are genetically prone to heart disease, it is not a brain function that is sending a chemical to your heart, making it more susceptible, it is your heart’s properties, determined from nature and nurture (a.k.a. genetics) that determines that you are susceptible to heart disease. This is not to say that the negation of adverse health effects cannot be achieved by changing the brain’s actions. Diseases like Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), and Huntington’s are caused in the brain and could be contained reactively if the brain is studied and changed. Proactively, genetics is the best way to treat all diseases, but as those diseases affect the brain, a reactive approach could be taken to treating them and other neuro-diseases. In the end, the brain is, to me, a very fascinating and large aspect of the very large field of biology, which has its basis in biochemistry and genetics.

Dolly the sheep was the first animal that we as a race cloned using a somatic cell. The cloning was done in the conventional way somatic cloning would be done: some of Dolly’s somatic (body) DNA was placed in the cleaned out egg of a sheep and then the sheep had its embryo transplanted in a ewe, which gave birth to a new sheep, which would become the clone of Dolly. This cloning happened in the UK in the 1990s, and it gained an enormous amount of media coverage because of how it was the first of its kind (in fact, many laypeople thought it was the first clone ever, myself included until recently).

Hi Dolly

This huge success promoted the idea of cloning many things, like pigs and horses, through somatic nuclear transfer throughout the rest of the decade. The success also brought up the idea of cloning humans throughout the rest of the decade as well, but most people acknowledged that the rate of success of somatic nuclear transfer (roughly 70-80% today, not even a decade ago) was not nearly high enough to ever (legally) try in humans, despite all the ethical considerations to take into account.

The fear (as I somewhat implied above) is the fact that many very intelligent scientists often have smaller amounts of empathy than their non-scientist counterparts. One might hit the right combination of work ethic, apathy, and intelligence to clone a human being in less-than-ethically-acceptable conditions. The consequences of such a cloning would be immense and, despite its questionable means, offer a lot to science and the world, because the human being that would result would be a experiment the whole world would watch (yes, saying a human is an experiment is definitely immoral).

The side effects of cloning are that the cloned being’s lifespan is shorter than normal in most circumstances which would not be fair to the person who is the clones. Governments across the world, as well as religious institutions, financial institutions, and scientific institutions, would need to adapt their policies to take into the account the person (and possible people) not born of a unique mother and father, like every human previously. The backlash from most Western societies, if not all developed societies, would be severe and, while they would treat the clone wisely, most would agree to never let it be tried again.

The uses for the clone, besides just being a global experiment, are largely dark. Fiction authors have suggested using clones for sinister purposes such as organ leeching, where the original person takes the genetically identical organs of his or her clone and uses them to extend his or her own life at the expense of the clone’s. Others have mentioned the idea of using clones as soldiers and slaves, provided their intelligence is diminished, with all of their actions benefitting the prime versions of the organisms, creating a world in which we have the socially raised prime organisms, and then their clones at the bottom of the pyramid. The uses are endless and almost always scary. Therefore, this I feel is all theoretical: cloning a human, in my mind, is too big of a risk to society.

This is the key to it all.

The above picture is the picture of an idealized karyotype of the human genome. The 22 pairs of chromosomes above determine what someone will be at their core, as defined by nature, while the final pair in the bottom right determines whether that being will be male (with the dinky little Y chromosome, ironic that males tend to be larger) or female. According to the last sentence on the page on “human genome) on Wikipedia, “On 19 March 2015, scientists, including an inventor of CRISPR, urged a worldwide moratorium on using gene editing methods to genetically engineer the human genome in a way that can be inherited, writing “scientists should avoid even attempting, in lax jurisdictions, germline genome modification for clinical application in humans” until the full implications “are discussed among scientific and governmental organizations.”” I intentionally kept the hyperlink to the Wikipedia page on genetic engineering because I hope that anyone who reads this will be prompted to click on it and see what it’s all about. A summary of the sentence above is that on March 19, 2015, scientists everywhere warned other scientists to not genetically change humans either for therapeutical or enhancement purposes, at least not in ways that allowed for these humans to reproduce and spread their enhanced genes. This would be a huge civic issue in the minds of many if someone were to succeed in splicing superior genes into a human being, or changing an embryo right at the moment of conception to have superior genes to the rest of humanity. All sorts of ethical questions would be raised, as well as questions regarding who should raise the child (or how the spliced person should be handled) and how either person (embryo or spliced) should go about their lives. There is also the rather sci-fi, Star Trek chance that the changed person would be an absolute demon with no morals and a massive God complex who would be a bane on all of humanity as he goes about trying to enslave it. We have seen great, crazy people with many flaws (Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander, Julius Caesar, the Khans) take over large swaths of land with relative ease, who’s to say that a nearly perfect person with copious amounts of narcissism couldn’t manage to gain followers and take over the world. His logic and charisma would be unprecedented and he would be sure to gain a very very large number of followers and definitely would manage to change the world for better or for worse. However, proponents of making such a perfect human being would argue that the human being, if nurtured correctly (remember nature AND nurture play a role) the superhuman could be a great boon to humanity and not think himself superior and help humanity develop many advances in the sciences and the arts. Nonetheless, this technology is (to my view anyways, not sure about say the premier of China’s, or Putin’s or Obama’s) out of our reach for now and seems like it will be a civic issue later on in our lives, not now.

I am writing this blog after having a truly intellectually-stimulating discussion with three of my fellow Schreyers Scholars for approximately 2 hours, covering a wide range of things such as chemicals of the body, geopolitics, personality types, personality disorders, Hitler, WWII, what war you would prefer to fight in if you had to (Mexican American War), what war you would never fight in (WWI), and even more.

So stimulating…

All the while while this discussion happened, my brain kept circulating back to the idea that everything we were talking about was caused by the nature and nurture circumstances of individuals who made up societies that took historical courses of action. The cause of everything ever in human history and development is caused by nature and nurture and therefore genetics. Actions are determined by people, people are determined by their personalities and their experiences, personalities are determined by abilities and traits and strengths and weaknesses and experiences. And experiences are self-affecting, but their initial starting point can be traced back into genetics, just like traits and strengths and weaknesses. Everything not just in human history but history PERIOD has been determined by genetics. 25% of the genetic information of humans is the same genetic information as the grain of rice you just had for dinner (or late night, I guess).

We are all the same…

I really cannot tell if nature and genetics is an incredible system or a a horrendously flawed system. I once read something in my honors biology book in ninth grade (it was one of the few things I actually read out of that book) that the level of success that your body has when coding your genetics would be the same as typing the nearly 900-page book four million times and only making one typo the entire time. Ratio-wise that’s impressive. The margin of error is undoubtedly nearly 0%. But then I remind myself that there ARE genetic errors, and that people DO have things wrong with them due to malevolent genetic mutations and mistakes on the part of the coding system. What it simply comes down to is that fact that 1 in 10000000000000 still happens many times if the event happens a number of times a substantial number of magnitudes greater (this is simple division, 10^19/10^16=1000). Comparatively, DNA coding is a great system, but in absolute terms, there are still mistakes made because the sample is just so large. The number of times genes are coded in 100 human beings makes the unlikely mutation odds likely in that many attempts. Mutations are not all bad though. I see positive mutations  as a huge boon to society. Society will continue to progress steadily as time moves along and humans have desire to advance. But, in terms of economics, positive genetic mutations seem to move the Production Possibilities Curve of an individual (and eventually a large group, due to reproduction and reproductive advantage due to said genetic boon) out and allow more potential advancement of society to occur. Genes are the basis of everything.

Watson and Crick discovered the double helix form of deoxyribonucleic acid in the 1950s, and the world hasn’t looked back since. DNA is the code to life and what it does makes us who we are. The chemicals in each little bit of code determine your eye color, skin color, athleticism, creativity, social skills, math skills, and every little thing (at least in part) in between. For millennia, it was impossible to alter any part of the code of life: you had what you got from your parents, whether it be the skills or traits listed above, or, unfortunately, genetic diseases or great burdens. In all the years previous, who you were was pretty set in stone by your genes (nature) and the society around you (nurture). Often the society around you was not very good if your genes (and thus your parents’ as well) were not very good and the nature and nurture would often complement one another for the large majority of people. This sad fact would often lead to many imbalances in society, with the genetically blessed being on the top of society, and the less fortunate on the bottom.

The depth of the gene pool greatly reflects this pyramid.

With recent technological advancements, it is starting to be possible to make leeway into genetic changes, changing the core of who organisms are. While the technology to change a person’s genes to something perceived as superior (emphasis as perceived) is still a ways off, genetic study seems to lend itself to this type of development among other things.

In the world today, genetic modification only really truly happens in the farming industry. To fortify plants and animals and make them stronger and more likely to survive until when they need to be butchered or harvested, many factory farms use genetic modification to turn their future food into GMOs, or genetically-modified-organisms. Many conservatives on the topic (ironically, liberals, not actually conservatives) dislike what has happened to our food supply and call it unethical and unnatural to alter nature as such. Therefore, due to the whiplash on what we do to animals and plants that are not human beings, I highly doubt we will ever legally mess with the genetics of human beings, even if we think that it has the potential to make the human race better as a whole. There is also historical and cultural stigma behind the altering of human genetic code. The Holocaust is known in part for its unethical experiments on genetic anomalies (like twins) in the name of information for genetic change (eugenics, more on that in my next post). Dr. Josef Mengele is known to have done unspeakable horrors to human subjects with the goal of seeing how genes work. There are also a number of books that discuss the badness of genetic manipulation on the world, with the most prominent to me being Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where the world is a culture-less dystopia divided into five genetically altered classes.

Yes, this is supposed to be ominous-looking

Genetics to me are an interesting issue that will have to be dealt with at some point in the future.

The code to life, and the code to this blog for a semester: DNA