Happy Atheist Forum

This topic has been covered in a few news atories today, but it's a really cool one.  Two boys with ALD have had the progress of the disease halted due to genetic therapy.  It looks promising for them and likely the disease will not return.

An article on the subject:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/co ... 009/1105/1 (http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1105/1)

This is so amazing, but so many people knew advances like these would be coming.

So I'm curious.  At what point would you ever submit to genetic modification?  Only in a life or death situation?  What if the risks were very minimal?  What if it got to the point we could use genetic therapy for even cosmetic reasons?  What do you think is ethical?

I'd get some in a heartbeat, let's perfect my metabolism and how about changing the texture of my hair. Remove all of the predispositions to diseases and i'll call it a happy day.

I would love have some gene therapy, as long as it is elective, I can't really see the ethical considerations of people choosing it for themselves.

I would have the genes that create a shark's electrical sense implanted into my genome. There is no appropriate smiley for this situation.

I'd definitely use. You'll have to be careful though, cause if everyone wants to look super beautiful, then you might have everyone looking alike. Actually, no. I don't think this will happen. Rather, people will change their countenance to look as different as possible, you know, as a form of self-expression.

What's really interesting is that race would no longer have ANY meaning. Tired of being black? Presto, your irish. Want to be asian? Ooo-la-la.