Perfection of the Human Species?

Doop

Doop

Legend
I know this is a pretty common topic, but what do you guys think about the hypothetical "perfection" of the human species? Is it possible? Is it ethical? Is it pointless? Necessary?

Personally, I don't think scientific research should ever really be limited by what we view as ethical, since ethics are the definition of subjectivity and are always and always have been changing, whether it be socially or due to evolution, respectively. Therefore, I think trying to physically advance the human race is an extremely worthwhile task. There's no way to opt yourself to be genetically altered when you are still in development, obviously, so genetically altering a human in the first stages of growth is being held back by morals very much so. While this may be the quickest way to select traits you want in humans, there is another way, and that is the old fashioned way of evolution. Humans have already "evolved" foods like bananas to be more nutritious and whatnot through artificial selection. If, hypothetically, only the more intelligent humans had a large number of offspring then the human population in a few thousand years could have a much higher average IQ than it does now. That could open a lot of doors for us, so what do you think? While its really impractical to think about now, especially with humans being divided between political boundaries, do you think it could or should be done?


bananas.png



TL;DR: Marry the most intelligent girl possible and help out the human race.


Edit:
You guys seem pretty opposed to the idea of facilitating evolution or directly altering genes, so let me pose you this question: does it bother you that humans have naturally evolved (and may be evolving today)? In other words, why is it so fucked up to ease along evolution if its inevitable anyway? Who is to say that how humans are now is the "be all end all" version of the species? And that's factoring in morals (not even mentioning the fact that empathy/emotions/morals didn't even exist at one point [like with 99% of animals]).
 
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someone just saw idiocracy for the first time
 
Intelligence and evolution are highly context-dependent. Asking if it's possible to "perfect" the human species prompts the question, "for what?" That's why politics, ethics, and a bunch of other intangible concepts play a much more important role. Until you develop a clear vision of "for what", then ideas like growth, perfection, evolution, intelligence, and awareness carry little meaning.
 
There is no such thing as perfection. It is a subjective term.
 
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@OP Ethical? I think I'd want to stay out of any attempt to "perfect" humanity because I'm simply not sure that it's possible, or even reasonable to try such a thing. What if they screwed it up? Scientific exploration and progress is always going to have its mistakes, misinformation and wrong turns... would hate to have the next fubar happen to the genetic code of the human species. We're fubared enough as it is : /

verh said:
Its funny because according to the hardcore christians so does Jesus.
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Not sure that "hardcore" defines a group of people that obviously haven't learned enough about the religion to know that Jesus didn't/doesn't hate anyone : / Unless your definition of hardcore = "very loud about but with little actual knowledge of" a subject... in which case I'd agree.
 
Druiddroid said:
jesus doesn't hate anyone

lol cynicism for humans by humans
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This (my post was implying that I was Jesus because of my name)

Jesus didn't hate anyone, and preached to his followers to love their enemies like their neighbors and so on.

Now of course he had that view of anyone not following him will end up in the bad place (the inner core), but he always thought there was forgiveness, repentance, etc.
 
Falkor said:
someone just saw idiocracy for the first time
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I knew you would post some sarcastic shit on here, lol. And no, I saw idiocracy like 4 years ago
 
Kearbear said:
@OP Ethical? I think I'd want to stay out of any attempt to "perfect" humanity because I'm simply not sure that it's possible, or even reasonable to try such a thing. What if they screwed it up? Scientific exploration and progress is always going to have its mistakes, misinformation and wrong turns... would hate to have the next fubar happen to the genetic code of the human species. We're fubared enough as it is : /
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You cant really make missteps with genetics... Evolution is a surefire process to increase certain qualities in a population and decrease others. Did you not see the bananas picture I posted? It works.

Intelligence and evolution are highly context-dependent. Asking if it's possible to "perfect" the human species prompts the question, "for what?" That's why politics, ethics, and a bunch of other intangible concepts play a much more important role. Until you develop a clear vision of "for what", then ideas like growth, perfection, evolution, intelligence, and awareness carry little meaning.
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Good point, but if you're gonna be nihilistic about this then be nihilistic about everything. Why did you bother to type this post, or get up in the morning, or eat food to keep yourself alive? Personally I (and I think/hope a lot of other people) hope to see the human race become more intelligent and aware of its surroundings. Of course there is no "meaning of life", some people choose to enjoy themselves, others to learn things. If you prefer to see some change in humans in the direction of more intellect or even more pleasure, then altering genes can change all of that.
There is no such thing as perfection. It is a subjective term.
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Thanks for the lesson in semantics, bro. If I said "changing the human species so that certain traits like intelligence or athleticism were enhanced", would you be happy? I just used "perfection" as a more interesting vocabulary choice.
 
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You guys seem pretty opposed to the idea of facilitating evolution or directly altering genes, so let me pose you this question: does it bother you that humans have naturally evolved (and may be evolving today)? In other words, why is it so fucked up to ease along evolution if its inevitable anyway? And that's taking a moral position (not even mentioning the fact that empathy/emotions/morals didn't even exist at one point [like with 99% of animals]).
 
Doop said:
You cant really make missteps with genetics... Evolution is a surefire process to increase certain qualities in a population and decrease others. Did you not see the bananas picture I posted? It works.
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Maybe the natural evolution of something exposed to an environment that prompts the adaptation over a long period of time is failsafe but I doubt any human induced equivalent would be. It's not "helping along" evolution if we decide to screw with something we think needs to be changed and then discover that what we got rid of was actually important. For instance since you bring up food, many crops bred or altered by humans to make them better for us are actually poorly adapted to survive in a situation where they are not having their every need catered to by farmers. Since we do not know the intricacies of every level of our environment I think that it would be presumptuous of us to assume we can successfully tweak the human species into being "better" than it already is, without inducing some terrible genetic disease or vulnerability accidentally. It's more risk than it's worth.

Now I've been thinking that you mean alter the genome directly. If you're talking about some sort of selective breeding program I don't think we need to debate the many many reasons that would be unethical.
 
Kearbear said:
Maybe the natural evolution of something exposed to an environment that prompts the adaptation over a long period of time is failsafe but I doubt any human induced equivalent would be. It's not "helping along" evolution if we decide to screw with something we think needs to be changed and then discover that what we got rid of was actually important. For instance since you bring up food, many crops bred or altered by humans to make them better for us are actually poorly adapted to survive in a situation where they are not having their every need catered to by farmers. Since we do not know the intricacies of every level of our environment I think that it would be presumptuous of us to assume we can successfully tweak the human species into being "better" than it already is, without inducing some terrible genetic disease or vulnerability accidentally. It's more risk than it's worth.

Now I've been thinking that you mean alter the genome directly. If you're talking about some sort of selective breeding program I don't think we need to debate the many many reasons that would be unethical.
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The Human Genome Project was completed in ~2003, so we know the entire human genome already. Scientists aren't going to be like "do'oh" and accidentally alter the wrong gene, making us more vulnerable to diseases or whatever. Testing periods would happen before more people could have their genes altered, of course.
And yeah, I obviously am not suggesting we put humans in like a lab where we breed them selectively. I'm just pointing out that if everyone had an "intelligence fetish" then the human species would literally become more intelligent over time because the most prolific breeders would be those with the genes for greater intelligence.
It's unfortunate that people can't sign forms to be genetically altered when they are still in development (lol), because I would have more than likely signed myself up for the betterment of humanity via scientific testing.
 
Doop said:
The Human Genome Project was completed in ~2003, so we know the entire human genome already. Scientists aren't going to be like "do'oh" and accidentally alter the wrong gene, making us more vulnerable to diseases or whatever. Testing periods would happen before more people could have their genes altered, of course.
And yeah, I obviously am not suggesting we put humans in like a lab where we breed them selectively. I'm just pointing out that if everyone had an "intelligence fetish" then the human species would literally become more intelligent over time because the most prolific breeders would be those with the genes for greater intelligence.
It's unfortunate that people can't sign forms to be genetically altered when they are still in development (lol), because I would have more than likely signed myself up for the betterment of humanity via scientific testing.
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I'm thinking less of a "Do'oh, we altered the wrong gene" moment and more of a "do'oh, we altered a gene that we thought needed altered but which was actually crucial to our being resistant to this bacterial/developmental/environmental issue we didn't even know existed."

I mean yeah we might have mapped the whole genome, but that doesn't mean we know the consequences of altering it.
 
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