Smarter monkeys through Genetic Engineering?

[John Clark]

A gene called "ARHGAP11B" that is found in humans and in no other animal has long been thought to be at least partially responsible for humans having an extremely large brain with a high degree of cortical folding. All other primates have a similar gene, but a point mutation happened between 500,000 and 1.5 million years ago and a single C was changed to a G in the human version. In yesterday's issue of the journal Science researchers report than when Genetic engineering was used to insert the human gene ARHGAP11B into the fertilized egg of a small monkey (a marmoset ) the result was a fetus with about 45% more neurons in the neocortex than a normal fetus and 3 times as many glial cells. A marmoset gestation period is 152 days but because it had a human gene in it the fetus was aborted after just 101 days due to ethical guidelines, so it's not known how such an animal's behavior would change if it was allowed to come to term.

Human-specific ARHGAP11B increases size and folding of primate neocortex in the fetal marmoset

John K Clark

[Brent Meeker]

On 6/19/2020 9:35 AM, John Clark wrote:

A gene called "ARHGAP11B" that is found in humans and in no other animal has long been thought to be at least partially responsible for humans having an extremely large brain with a high degree of cortical folding. All other primates have a similar gene, but a point mutation happened between 500,000 and 1.5 million years ago and a single C was changed to a G in the human version. In yesterday's issue of the journal Science researchers report than when Genetic engineering was used to insert the human gene ARHGAP11B into the fertilized egg of a small monkey (a marmoset ) the result was a fetus with about 45% more neurons in the neocortex than a normal fetus and 3 times as many glial cells. A marmoset gestation period is 152 days but because it had a human gene in it the fetus was aborted after just 101 days due to ethical guidelines, so it's not known how such an animal's behavior would change if it was allowed to come to term.

Human-specific ARHGAP11B increases size and folding of primate neocortex in the fetal marmoset

So one gene made it necessary to abort because it might have a humaness...which you must not abort because humaness implies a soul??

How did our ethical guidelines become so irrational? 

I wonder how it would affect a dog?  I'll be there would be a market for smarter dogs.  And where there's a market, there's a way.

Brent

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 8:01 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

So one gene made it necessary to abort because it might have a humaness...which you must not abort because humaness implies a soul?? How did our ethical guidelines become so irrational? 

It's easy for human beings to strongly believe in 2 viewpoints which logically contradict each other, Trump supporters prove that every day.

John K Claek

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[Lawrence Crowell]

I don't think the matter is over ethereal ideas about souls. The implications of this research are potentially explosive. A gene in soybeans produces an enzyme involved with a pathway that produces a compound that blocks glyphosphate. Glyphosphate inhibits the production of several amino acids in plants. The gene in soybeans is then copied multiple times in the soybeans to make then super resistant to glyphosphate. In principle the same could be done with humans; insert additional copies of the ARHGAP11B gene to create super-smart babies. The question of course is, what can go wrong with this? There are potential nightmare scenarios for people so genetically engineered. Further, a sort of "brains arms race" could lead to generations of young people who are mental freaks. They might be in some ways very smart, but they could also easily be emotionally dysfunctional or mentally ill. 

My brother was a plant molecular biologist and geneticist and I used to have arguments over this. I am not entirely against genetic modification, but I think great care and caution is in order. My brother was more laissez faire about this. 

LC

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 4:26 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

> insert additional copies of the ARHGAP11B gene to create super-smart babies. The question of course is, what can go wrong with this? There are potential nightmare scenarios for people so genetically engineered. Further, a sort of "brains arms race" could lead to generations of young people who are mental freaks. They might be in some ways very smart, but they could also easily be emotionally dysfunctional or mentally ill.  My brother was a plant molecular biologist and geneticist and I used to have arguments over this. I am not entirely against genetic modification, but I think great care and caution is in order. My brother was more laissez faire about this.

I'm with your brother on this one. It's true that some mathematicians, especially world class mathematicians, tend to be a bit on the odd side, so it's not unreasonable to think that increased intelligence might cause some mental instability and other problems, but historically all advancements have always caused problems of some sort, some of which we learn how to fix and others we learn how to live with. And besides, trying to halt this would be a losing proposition; out of a population of 7.6 billion people sooner or later somebody somewhere is going to use genetic engineering to enhance human intelligence, and that will result in people who can outsmart those who have not received such enhancement. Right or wrong in the end the pro-enhancement people will win and the anti-enhancement people will lose, it's only a matter of time.

John K Clark

[Bruno Marchal]

Easy. By forbidden or mocking the use of reason in the field for a Lon period of time.

The ethic question is “do you accept that your daughter marry an ape, or a pig, genetically modified, and which, actually has a PhD thesis in the cognitive science, or physics, or whatever …?

Should we consider as racist someone answering no to that question?

Bruno

I wonder how it would affect a dog?  I'll be there would be a market for smarter dogs.  And where there's a market, there's a way.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

I share the caution, but in the long run(s), we have to defend our values, as our bodies will change, no matter what.

There has been results showing that the brain augments his size in absence of gravity, leading to blindness or super-headache and often both for those astronauts staying too much longer in space. So to explore space, we will need genetic self-modification. Eventually, we will use many diverse forms of Mechanism, to really explores “physically” our local neighbourhood, but also get the “place” for the experimental mathematics too, and pursue the search inwards.

At least we know that in the terrestrial plane the dispute between security (totality) and liberty (universality) never ends.

This can be related to the hesitation between collectivity (multi-cellularity) and individuality (mono-cellularity).

Bruno

LC

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[Lawrence Crowell]

It goes beyond just highly intelligent people. Complex brains did not evolve as such by adding neurons, but also with subtle recursive feedback loops to regulate it. For instance some personality disorders are linked to genes that express dysfunctional isozymes of monoamine oxidase neuropeptides that regulate signalling between neocortical and amygdala regions. This permits the executive decision and emotional regions to control each other. If we just multiply neurons it is a dicey prospect this feedback will scale linearly.

People with malignant behavioral disorders, such as narcissism, psychopathy and borderline disorders are a problem for not just themselves, but all of us. BTW, I was in a relationship with a woman with borderline disorder. It was exhausting. These problems stem from the neocortical and limbic regions of the brain being out of proper synchronicity. We start designing brains and you can be sure human wreckage will be all around us.

[Lawrence Crowell]

When it comes to space colonization or a permanent presence in space we must have some clear positive economic feedback. It is of no use to build a base or colony on the moon, or even more outlandishly on Mars, if there is no return on investments. Maybe solar power satellites and then mining small near Earth asteroids are a start. Yet, so far no clear strategy exists.

It is a matter of industry and economics and not science. We can do plenty of science in space without astronauts. In fact rather little science comes from putting people in space.

If we do have some trajectory into space it is possible genetic reengineering of Homo sapiens may become necessary. Brave New World may become reality.

[Bruno Marchal]

It all depends of what we want. The problem with the humans is that they don’t know what they are looking for.

If we digitalised ourself, without progressing on some existential question, some human wreckage (as you said) has to be expected. Now, once digitalised, the very economic rule will change a lot, and we will be even more confronted with ourselves. With the humans, that is often not quite pretty. It looks like going to heaven requires some detours through hell, as mechanism suggests.

Bruno

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