Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 13/10/2016 13:53:01
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Rachael b asked the Naked Scientists:
Hi Chris,
I hope you are well. It's been a long time since we have written, but I just watched Sally Phillips' show on Down's Syndrome and she hits hard that forced eugenics is alive and growing. It's hard to separate what she was revealing (100% "termination" rate of Down's Syndrome babies in Iceland and the huge numbers in the UK) and CRISPR children.
Obviously these are highly contentious issues and maybe too hot for your show, but maybe exploring with the audience that eugenics and CRISPR are questions we are grappling with, and to look at the numbers, we will kill to get the right answer.
What do you think? Can you broach these two ideas?
Rachael
Los Angeles
What do you think?
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Is synthetic biology a eugenic philosophy? The gene editing capacity of RNA-mediated delivery systems (CRISPR) is comparable to a new branch of eugenics. By altering the genome of an organism, you modify its DNA. Gene-therapy with CRISPR is the future of eugenics, however this implicate profound social and bioethical issues
regarding the selective genome editing of human embryos.