My name is Caspar Zialor and today I am going to be discussing designer babies. First I would like to read to you the definition of designer baby (below).
Considering that the a designer is someone is whom devises designs; that designer products are contrived. A designer baby must be a baby with contrived attributes.
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"The belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology." - The Oxford Dictionary |
The first keyword (above yellow) I would like to discuss is evolve. Evolution is the gradual process by which the living world has been developing in time. The processes of evolutionary development can have one of two consequences.
Illustration 1:
Depicts, Anagenesis, the progressive evolution within a species. The characteristics of the population may change, however they remain as one inter-breeding population. Change is to be expect in a species over time. In humans, the genes that govern innate malaria immunity are becoming more and more frequent.
Illustration 2:
Represent
divergence, Each species is a branch in Darwin's drawing "I Think", any branching in the tree shows when one species becomes two non-interbreeding populations. Divergence something we need consider in light of, "haves and have nots", of designer baby technology. Those who can afford the technology may be a at a significant advantage in life.
The second key word is technology (above blue) so let us consider what modern technologies people
typically use to create new organisms.
For 10,000 years people have used, artificial selection. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is a man made selection process. Screening for molecular diseases (e.g. sickle cell anaemia and hemophilia) will select against defective genotypes, the alleles associated with genetic diseases will deplete within the human population.
In more later times genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been used to fill industrial niches (see below). Recombinant DNA occurs when, original genetic material, is spliced with DNA of foreign origin. Gene cloning occurs when when recombinant DNA is replicated within a living cell.
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How might biotechnology be used to improve human physical fitness? |
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Muscualr hypertrophy (MH) occurs when the gene that would
ordinarily code for the protein myostatin is defective. The resulting organism in lacks the specific protein, myostatin, is an
inhibitor of muscular growth. In absence of myostatin muscular tissues are free to develop in excess.
Muscular hypertrophy, also known as muscular doubling, has been observed in naturally and artificially in mammals such as mice, cattle and dogs. Clever scientists have isolated the genotype that causes muscular hypertrophy and have genetically engineered a trout to express the phenotype.
How might biotechnology be used to over come our psychological limitations?
Efforts to consolidate a specific gene associated with intelligence are still in are in development however the impact of heredity on intelligence is also in debate.
If we where to apply engineering to human children we may all be parent children like Richard Sandrak. He was born in 1992 and his country of origin is the Ukrainian-American. He is not genetically engineered and is suspected of taking steroids.
This was created by Dougal Dixon born in Scotland in 1947. He published the book "Man After Man, An Anthropology of the Future" in 1990.
(
) and pressure of 
pascals. IUPAC recommends that the former use of the pressure of 1 atm as standard pressure(equivalent to 
) should be discontinued." - PAC, 1990, 62, 2167 (Glossary of atmospheric chemistry terms (Recommendations 1990)) on page 2216 
