well thats quite an interesting question. so i would say humans will kill themselves with a huge nuclear holocaust. but thats just me.

We won't find any way to kill ourselves off. That goes against the very nature of life itself on Earth. The two primal thoughts that go with every species are 1) survival of the self and 2) survival of the species. In other words, protect the body in order to reproduce later. Humans are no different. We may find new ways to kill large masses of people, but in the end, some members of the human species are going to find a way to survive.

As for your genetic quandry. I'm still trying to understand what the heck you are even asking or suggesting. I teach genetics, cloning, DNA, etc., so I fully understand the basic premise of what you are suggesting, but your post is very unclear as to what exactly you are talking about. Please explain how genetic engineering is going to spell the end of all human life. Why will manipulated DNA cause social problems? I can guess, but you never explained. I would love to further discuss your ideas on genetics and future engineering (it's one of my favorite things to teach students), but I need more than veiled hints as to your future hypothesis.

Lastly, it's scary to think that you have the attitude that what you work on in genetics doesn't matter to you because the consequences or your work will come after you're dead. Don't you think that you, as a future genetic scientist, should work as hard as you can toward improvement instead of having the "oh well, I don't give a s***, because I'll be long dead" attitude?

I hope that this response doesn't come across as rude, that is not my intent, because your basic premise of evolving species, genetic technology, and the future effect on humans is a fascinating blog post and a much needed refreshment from the standard blog posts of "why such and such game is cool."

For some reason this blog reminded me of the movie "The Island" and "Gattaca" lol

Its tough question, It something I rather not answer, to think that the most intelligent species in the world would kill itself? It's a scary though and there can be so many variables, nature, war, diseases or just stupidity. While I did find the blog rather missing detail, as to how "enhancing" babies will make humanity kill itself faster, I feel that there is a very slim chance humanity will cease to exist, unless some sort of meteor just obliterates the whole planet.

@ArsenicA
Ya, Odd what happens when im thinking in the shower huh. Anyways ya I think the nuke theory is great. The best counter plan to it, Is that humans should nuke our selves as soon as we can so our chance of some human surivors are greater then if we nuke our selves in 200 years from now where the chance of a surivor will be even less. So we should attualy try to nuke ourselves sooner then later.

@beutlich99
Wow,I think you just dramticly either A)Made yourself a world of pain with my now curoisty and seeking out genetics or B)Well you get more questions with B =p.

So anyways my theory of human intelligence being the cause of our own races downfall. Is from a Anthropolgy view point where any time a speices has a specailized trait it often leads to there demise. As in my one example: A ant eater is specailzed in eating ants. So take out the ants and the ant eater is unable to eat the other food around him.

the Koala bear lives almost entirely on eucalypt leaves. So if you take out those leaves it would be unable to eat any other type of food source.

Homo-sapiens are so amazing because we are so generalized if chickens died we could still eat beef. Or we can eat plants, It is one thing that has lead us to our surival other time as other speices have more favorable traits for living in some areas but we can thrive in almost anywhere.

So using that specialzed traits are the main downfall then looking at a human we can see our only main one of huge differance is our brains. Looking at what we have made and what can make we come each day to using our brain and advancing to who knows how far we can stack the tower before it will fall on us. If humans were to kill our selves the world would go on and so would natural selection then evolution.

Like Icarus, We can only go so far with our knowledge before we burn our wings and fall to the ground.

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Genetical spilcing as I call it will cause problems in my life time or the next due to what we can do and what it means. Now remember this is all in theory must we can do right now is locate infected fetus's for tay-sechs and similar and change the sex of a baby for now. But in 20-30 years who knows. I know one geneticist allready was talking how they are now taking every little gene and placing it in this liquid and seeing what other genes are fire or trigger so they can see what effects what. Because as of right now it is far to complicated to change a certian trait like intellgience because we can not pin point it.

But. In a few years lets say we can see how long a child will live and the diessases the kid will have and if they will die of a heart attack at age 36. Now this is good and bad good we can heal disseases ahead of time. But what happens to the kids who can not afford it or can not be cured yet we know for sure at birth they will only reach age 30. If this knowledge is given to parents then is it ok for the kids to know? Is it then ok for the kids to take life insurance so they know when they die at 30 there family is taken care of? Is it ok for insurances to know so they can protect themselves from people that are going to die for sure and not pay out? Is it ok for jobs to not hire people with known illnesses too so they dont have to pay out for insurance and it will lower there cost of bussines knowing everyone working is 100% healthy and wont get sick.

Then even in more time think of what happens when we can affect strength and body builds and your IQ. I mean right now there are some companys changing the looks of your baby for high prices. So if you want your boy to have the body of a foot ball player or a daughter like a super model we can make it happen.

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Now as much as im kind of against this. I've realized in my time on this earth. That the world is so vile and so ugly and I generally hate it that at this point I can very little for the worlds end other then in thinking. I would in a sick way love helping the downfall of humans by unlocking and playing god to the point where I can help make humans genetically better then what we have now. and also getting enough money to live happily. Now, IT is a bit bitter biased and kind of well stupid I guess but really I mean humans are so spite ful and waste ful and destory so much. I'll rather just live in peace and not worry about my effects on this world by making my self like god and re creating the image of humans. Though kind of funny how my hatered for humans is leading me to try and quicken the downfall of humainty rather then look for a cure like so many other genticists. Amazing what so much torment can do to a person I think. As much as I wish I could care and share empathy with people I can't. I feign to care alot and try to fit in but really im only thinking about how to hurt people in the way i was cut. Anyways this is more so for my psychologist and prolly just rambling now but hope i explained myself a bit more.
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@Chief_527
Both good movies that I enjoyed. Though I will admit, "Gattaca" left me a bit going "um wow really, why is that"at points.

hopefully my longer response always answers some of my views on this to. IF not i would love to keep going though dont want to seem like im rambling on and on or appear that I am even more clearly a bit crazy then i allready do. The cake is a lie =p

wow selina, that post was huge, as for me right now the only thing i wanna think about is going well in my exam, human existence is later haha

I think you are putting too much emphasis on what exactly genes and DNA do. It's the age old argument of nature vs nurture. Yes, our DNA carries a lot of information and makes up a fair amount of what we look like, our risk of certain illnesses, and other things, but it never tells the whole story. Simply because my DNA says that I will die of heart disease at 37 doesn't mean I will. I could die in a car accident just as easy. I could work hard to find ways to strengthen my heart (working out) and die of heart failure at 54. I could smoke like a chimney and speed up my process too. The DNA may say there is a potential, but it is not a perfect predictor. I also think that there isn't a gene out there for everything either. A lot of geneticists think that they will eventually uncover a gene for all traits (personality, intelligence, sexual orientation, etc.). I don't believe that. I'm willing to admit that the chance is there, but I just don't believe that there is a gene that can be turned on and off that could make you more fun to be around.

True, There is always out side infulences like a car crash, But still for large companys the risk of knowing you will die early from a heart attack is still enough to not insure you. More so if they know the moment you are born and same thing with work. A heart attack is not as fatal as say hunters syndrome which is always fatal and only comes out later in life. Now imagine if big companys knew you would get hunters syndrome at the moment of your life so could easily deny you life insurance same thing with work.

Though I do not a trait will unlock personality, or intelligence or sexual orientation. What I belive is traits control your pyshical body. So you could make your boy have the body of a football player but if he does not want to play football then your son wont kind of thing.

However while also being a schoolar of pyschology and knowing how some symptoms are there at birth schizophrenia is one that has a large biological factor. Is it really that hard to think we could then remove or alter the genes in schizophrenia to remove it.

At the point you can remove something.Can you also add it? if you can add schizophrenia what else can we add mentally into a human to basicly pre lobotomized them at birth.

You might be a bit late if you're trying to genetically engineer babies in 40-50 years...I'd shoot for another 10-15 to be honest. The human genome project was completed in 2003, and we already know how personalities are made and what they are (variations in proteins). Hell, deep space travel is being researched as we speak by NASA. How they propose to do it? Since we know how to map and create personalities from scratch, small robots called nano-machines (I know...but its what they are called) Are being experimented with right now that map a person's entire functioning brain. The robots can map and detail the entire layout of a person's brain, down to the proteins that make their unique personality theirs. We can save these maps and data onto a hard drive, and insert it into a computer. What happens then is pure speculation of course, but the expected outcome is that "you" will exist inside of a computer. The computer will react and make decisions exactly as you would because your entire genetic code is implanted into its hard drive. That computer is then sent into space...it will never die, and will send information back as long as it has power.

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Those same robots are being programmed for disease and gene control as well. Research is actually finishing up on robots that are injected into your bloodstream at birth that are programed to destroy every disease known to man. I kid you not. This sort of cybernetic immunity is supposed to be available to the mass market in 2015, it is that close. So 1 step back from there of course is injecting these robots into a fetus while it is in the womb, and removing any genetic deformities, and re-writing the code to function normally. Once again, very possible with current technology. From there, re-organizing features, personality, traits...its all simple, and already being done in labs.

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All sounds like a sci-fi movie huh lol. Well its all true, its a necessary evolution in Human life because before long we won't have enough resources to sustain human life. The idea is that by then we won't need any of that...because we will have become mostly cybernetic. The issue becomes, what real use is there for our physical bodies outside of the teachings of religion? Are we supposed to die? What happens if we never die? We can already create a complete personality on the hard drive of a computer. So as someone lays dieing, and they do not want to be frozen, simply download "myself", store it in a computer until cybernetic bodies are perfected, upload into a shell and there you have it, eternal life...and the fountain of youth.

That is, of course, assuming its "you" who comes out on the other end and not just a copy.

@beutlich99

You make some sense, but still sound too mystic for my taste, I prefer the explanation of trans-humanism and the "post-human" idea when thinking of what our genetic research will result in for the human race.

If we can already map out a person's personality, how can you say that there are no core parts making it up? This is exactly why science and religion are at each other's throats so much, although any true scientist will tell you that there must be a force beyond our comprehension, because for everything we know and can explain there are a million others that we cannot.

Unfortunately, the human soul is no longer one of the things that mystifies us and can be used as evidence of divinity, rather, the intricacies of the natural world replace ourselves (at least in my opinion).

I think it is around the bend for most of this stuff. But from genticist I have talked to doing testing right now with mice. Right now it is still a ways off 20 or so prolly. Due to we now know what causes everything. But we can not pin point what triggers and effects what cause removing one chormosome has a huge effect on other parts as well.

So right now there taking each piece by piece in liquid that can trigger the cell and see what other cells are affected and in time through all this data we can then pin point what changes what. I think this is a huge and will really change the world why im investing my life and soul in to being at the fore front and jumping on this ship. I mean not only will the money be huge but if this causes such a great ethical crisis over what happens with geneticaly altered humans i'll be the girl behind the wall's not outside of them suffering for our alterations.

SystemLord. I would love to see what published article and from what scientific journal says that a personality is only variations of proteins.

I took it from a TLC special that asked an MIT researcher point blank what it was they were working on, and how long until we see it put into practical use.

That's sweet! Thanks!

nevermind it wasn't TLC, it was the History Channel's "The Universe" series...the one that talks about life on other planets. They used the nano-machine topic to present an argument that we are being visited already by microscopic robots flitting and floating in our atmosphere taking pictures, and not by actual beings in ships...the latter being far too dangerous and something we wouldn't dare attempt, nevermind a race that is supposed to be far ahead of us...

Now that I think about it, how they got so off-topic is beyond me

Yeah yeah, I've seen some of that stuff. I was looking at trying to get my hands on some copies of the series for some of the topics that I teach to my students. Cool!