Beyond
1. What is CRISPR and what does it often produce?
2. What moral imperative does Julian Savulescu say we have?
3. How have efforts to control evolution changed over the last century and a half?
4. What are eutelegenesis and Bokanovsky's Process?
5. What did Matt Ridley say would save us?
6. Who is Ray Kurzweil and what is SU?
7. Who is Raymond McCauley and what did he predict?
8. What is Peter Diamandis's Orwellian vision?
DQ
- Is it bad that CRISPR has received so much attention from science journalists and pundits in popular media?
- Would it be unethical not to use an available AND reliable technology to produce "better" children? How should we understand "better"?176
- Will eugenics become "acceptable and widespread again"? 177
- Is it appropriate for researchers to aim to cure diseased molecules, rather than patients? 179
- What do you think of "procreative beneficence"? 181
- Do you agree that happier, healthier humans are more likely to result from a focus on nurture, not nature? 184
- Is the Singularity near?
- Are medical tricorders coming soon? 190
- Are Singularitarians mostly "confirmed atheists" and "progressive capitalist utopians"? 191
- Are you thrilled and concerned about the future of "enhancement"? 193
- Are you as dispirited by transhumanists as Corey Pein?
Lifelines
1. Leana started college and med school at what ages?
2. What is xiao xun?
3. What drove Leana's decision to enter the PhD program?
4. Leana suffered from what syndrome?
DQ
- Do you think Leana is being falsely self-deprecating when she denies being very smart? 30
- What do you think of Leana's parents subjecting her to dental care without anesthesia?
- What do you think of xiao xun?
- Are you an aspiring physician? Have you had adequate institutional support for that? Is med school too expensive? 36, 38
- How can financial considerations be made less pivotal in students' educational/career decisions? 39
- What do you think of Leana's mother's "disparaging comments" etc.?
- Do you feel a responsibility to make a difference and "give back"? 41
1. What is CRISPR and what does it often produce?
ReplyDeleteCRISPR (clustered regularly spaced short palindromic repeats) is a method of artificial gene alteration. It often produces "off-target" mutations
2. What moral imperative does Julian Savulescu say we have?
ReplyDeleteJulian Savulescu, insist that we have a “moral
imperative” to proceed with engineering our genomes as fast as our
sequencers can carry us.
4. What are eutelegenesis and Bokanovsky's Process?
ReplyDeleteEutelegenesis is the process of creating babies in a lab with high quality eggs and sperm. Bokanovsky's process is the process of human cloning in test tubes.
4. Leana suffered from what syndrome?
ReplyDeleteImpostor Syndrome.
In a way, I find comfort when I realize that others feel this too. I've battled with it often myself since I started college and it really is difficult to overcome.
6. Who is Ray Kurzweil and what is SU?
ReplyDeleteRay Kurzweil is a "noted inventor, big-selling author, and prophet of a technological end times."
An SU is a "singularity university."
7. Who is Raymond McCauley and what did he predict?
ReplyDeleteRaymond McCauley is a "big, Texas-born biotech scientist and engineer." He predicted that the prevention of childhood disease would open the backdoor to widespread human genetic modification.
8. What is Peter Diamandis's Orwellian vision?
ReplyDeletePeter Diamandis's Orwellian vision is that though privacy will be long gone, the new world of "perfect knowledge" will end tyranny.