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Sunday Reads: Ice, Ice, Baby

Posted: October 17, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: just because |13 Comments

Cartoons via Cagle:

Just a few quick tweets:

Lab grown coffee…🤮

Ending it there, I’m not feeling well so …this is an open thread.

13 Comments on “Sunday Reads: Ice, Ice, Baby”

  1. Minkoff Minx says:
    October 17, 2021 at 9:46 am

    So, I just read this and thought you might have some thoughts:

    I’m realizing that some articles are not tweeted by the Guardian…even though they publish them.

    Anyway, have a good day.

    • quixote says:
      October 17, 2021 at 11:53 am

      The basic error the article makes is not saying *why* PGS is far from ready for prime time: We have very little idea how genes are linked. Or, for that matter, what the healthy functions are of “disease-producing” genes.

      You decide to select against heart disease, then it turns out that some of those genes are involved in resistance to muscular dystrophy or Alzheimers or endometriosis. (Just an analogy I pulled out of thin air. No evidence for any of those, specifically, that I know of.)

      That’s even if we knew what the role of all the genes associated with heart disease itself actually was. The situation is analogous to sending a drone over a rainforest, noticing parrots in the tallest trees, and selecting for parrots to get tall trees.

      To be fair, sometimes there really is some knowledge of the actual relation between genes and diseases. My point is it’s *far* from good enough to be strolling down the aisles of the genetic supermarket and picking out your little superman. And that’s way before you even get to the ethics of the thing.

      As for the ethics? If we knew everything we needed to? When the gods want to punish you, they give you what you want.

      • bostonboomer says:
        October 17, 2021 at 1:56 pm

        Most “journalists” seem to make little effort to understand scientific research. It’s definitely true of reporting on psychology studies.

        • NW Luna says:
          October 17, 2021 at 3:22 pm

          Yes, yes, to quixote and BB. The sickle-cell trait, for example, also encodes for protection against malaria. It’s no wonder that over the millennia people who have this and so weren’t killed by malaria lived to pass on their genes. Now that we have ways to treat malaria the trait is seen as giving only harm and no benefit. But there are almost certainly other genes which encode for benefits along with less desirable traits. We shouldn’t be messing with what we don’t yet understand! (cut to the Sorcerer’s Apprentice…)

    • bostonboomer says:
      October 17, 2021 at 1:53 pm

      Hope you feel better soon JJ.

  2. Minkoff Minx says:
    October 17, 2021 at 10:26 am

    • quixote says:
      October 17, 2021 at 11:25 am

      Exactly. It’s a huge, “HELLO? The guy was in a big celebration tent with multiple screens to watch ‘the action’.” What’s it take for some people to notice the shitpile we stepped into?

  3. dakinikat says:
    October 17, 2021 at 8:39 pm

    The Boston Red Sox put up a Black Lives Matter billboard over the Massachusetts Turnpike

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/22/us/boston-red-sox-black-lives-matter-trnd/index.html

  4. NW Luna says:
    October 18, 2021 at 12:06 pm

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