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Should we be designing our children? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from house Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Tucky Bryant. This is stuff
0:15
Speaker 1: you should know the podcast. This will be done all
0:19
Speaker 1: in sing song. You don't want to hear me sing songs,
0:24
Speaker 1: because I've heard he sings songs. Your heart will melt,
0:28
Speaker 1: glasses will break, my heart will go on, birds with sure,
0:32
Speaker 1: and uh, grown men will kiss each other on the mouth.
0:40
Speaker 1: So inspiring. That'd be pretty cool if you could do
0:43
Speaker 1: that just by singing, Yeah, like you kiss him now,
0:48
Speaker 1: glass you break. What you're talking about is Chevy Chase
0:51
Speaker 1: in Modern Problems. I never saw that one. He didn't
0:54
Speaker 1: have to sing, but he gained telekinetic abilities. You can
0:59
Speaker 1: make things happen just by thinking them. I shouldn't even
1:02
Speaker 1: say I never saw that one. That's not that much
1:03
Speaker 1: of a surprise. Everyone knows how my dad raised me,
1:06
Speaker 1: but I've never even heard of that one since now
1:09
Speaker 1: eighties movie Modern Problems it was. It was very dumb,
1:13
Speaker 1: but it was one of those early HBO movies for me.
1:15
Speaker 1: So I just sat around watched it like constantly, and
1:18
Speaker 1: I had a couple of dirty jokes. Oh I got you? Yeah, Um, yeah,
1:25
Speaker 1: how do we get on that? It was me so chuck. Yes, Josh,
1:30
Speaker 1: we are now UM friends. I guess you could say
1:34
Speaker 1: after four years, we finally crossed that cusp. No, I'm
1:37
Speaker 1: not talking about us. We're not for INDs. Still, you
1:39
Speaker 1: and I are friends, Yes, we are. We're friends with
1:43
Speaker 1: Science Channel and UM. As such, we are pretty excited
1:49
Speaker 1: that they have something going on pretty soon. Yeah, and
1:51
Speaker 1: this relates to our podcast topic, which is the reason,
1:54
Speaker 1: very reason we chose this podcast topic. UM. Science Channel
1:57
Speaker 1: is UM bringing Fringe, the cult classic television show Fringe
2:03
Speaker 1: UM to its airwaves starting November twenty ye. They're gonna
2:08
Speaker 1: show all five seasons. And uh, we were even lucky
2:11
Speaker 1: enough to meet meet the guy, the guy at at
2:15
Speaker 1: Comic Con. Yeah not Joshua Jackson, Dr Fringe. Yeah, that's
2:19
Speaker 1: not his name, Mr Noble, and he was very nice
2:23
Speaker 1: and uh, because he's not just on Fringe, he's on
2:26
Speaker 1: Dark Matters too, he's the host of Dark Matters on
2:27
Speaker 1: Science Channel. But I personally watched Fringe. I watched all
2:32
Speaker 1: the first season, me and Emily did. Emily and I
2:35
Speaker 1: excuse me, and um, I really enjoyed it and just
2:40
Speaker 1: it was one of those things that I didn't watch
2:42
Speaker 1: season two Beyond and Beyond because it just, you know,
2:46
Speaker 1: life got in the way or something. But it wasn't
2:47
Speaker 1: because it didn't like it was really good. I sort
2:49
Speaker 1: of had a X Files vibe. Oh yeah, and the
2:51
Speaker 1: twist that they've managed to work in there. Yeah, but
2:54
Speaker 1: the science was more predominant. So I liked it. And
2:56
Speaker 1: I'm totally gonna watch seasons. We'll probably start with sas
3:00
Speaker 1: and one again. Well, then you should tune in November
3:03
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna watch seasons two through five now and
3:04
Speaker 1: Science Channel. I'm pretty stoked about that, right, Um? And
3:09
Speaker 1: uh well yeah, in honor of fringe, we chose kind
3:11
Speaker 1: of a fringe science topic. You did, That's right. I
3:14
Speaker 1: think it's a good one. Chuck Yeah. Um. Designing Women,
3:18
Speaker 1: I mean Designing Children? Where did that show? Oh? Yeah? Man?
3:23
Speaker 1: What was the one that followed it with Burt Reynolds
3:26
Speaker 1: Evening Shade? Was that tiede? Was that a spinoff? No?
3:30
Speaker 1: But I think they were packaged together. It's like Tuesday
3:33
Speaker 1: Night Redneck Hour, Sugar Bakers. Yeah right, Yeah, I watched
3:37
Speaker 1: Designing Women. I didn't watch evening shade though, which surprises
3:39
Speaker 1: me because I love Burt Reynolds. I yeah, I didn't
3:42
Speaker 1: see it either, but yeah, designing Women, it was a
3:45
Speaker 1: good show. Um that we're talking about designing children and
3:49
Speaker 1: not just designing children, designer children. That's right. Uh, the
3:53
Speaker 1: idea that one day in the very very very near
3:57
Speaker 1: future now UM will be able to make kids ready
4:03
Speaker 1: to order, made to order. Yeah, in certain ways, like
4:08
Speaker 1: I think right now you we have the ability to
4:12
Speaker 1: select eye and hair color. But they're just not doing
4:15
Speaker 1: it yet because they try that in Los Angeles and
4:17
Speaker 1: people are like, who woa, whoaa do you remember that? Yeah,
4:20
Speaker 1: we don't like this. We shouldn't be doing this. And
4:22
Speaker 1: I think that's really significant that that happened. Like the
4:25
Speaker 1: first real commercial attempt for basically just saying hey you
4:28
Speaker 1: want a blonde kid, we can give you a blond kid.
4:31
Speaker 1: UM received public outcry, international outcry, so much of it.
4:37
Speaker 1: The people are like, okay, sorry, we opened our mouths
4:39
Speaker 1: and just forget we said anything. Here's your brunette, you know, yeah, exactly,
4:44
Speaker 1: roll the dice, jerks. We don't care. UM. But I
4:47
Speaker 1: find that significant, you know, because I wonder, um, you
4:51
Speaker 1: know how it's gonna go. How when it does become
4:54
Speaker 1: really commercially viable to really make your kid a different
4:57
Speaker 1: person than they would have been natural? Really like, how
5:01
Speaker 1: people will accept that? Yeah? I mean this is the
5:03
Speaker 1: stuff of science fiction that is really happening now. Um,
5:07
Speaker 1: the movie Gatica, this reference in this article really good
5:11
Speaker 1: movie is really good. Yeah, man, it's good. It's like
5:14
Speaker 1: a thinking man's science Uh. I don't know if you
5:17
Speaker 1: call it a thriller. Maybe a thriller intrigue at the
5:21
Speaker 1: very least, But yeah, it's good. And basically the synopsis
5:25
Speaker 1: there is without spoiling anything. Is that not the not
5:31
Speaker 1: too distant future we are able to in Gatica two
5:37
Speaker 1: build designer children that will grow into designer adults that
5:40
Speaker 1: are like, disease free and highly athletic and very intelligent.
5:44
Speaker 1: And then the rest of the shlobs of the world
5:47
Speaker 1: are you know, sorry t s for them? Basically go
5:51
Speaker 1: with your potato chips. So see, Gatica's a good one.
5:55
Speaker 1: Like it? Yeah, every time you say like this isn't
5:57
Speaker 1: gonna spoil things, I tried really hard to spoiler. I
6:01
Speaker 1: was watching an episode of Breaking Bad the other day
6:04
Speaker 1: human and I were and Um, I was like, how
6:06
Speaker 1: do I know what's about to happen that? I was like, Chuck, yeah.
6:10
Speaker 1: And the Math episode, Oh I thought you. I thought
6:15
Speaker 1: you meant the one in Breaking Bad that was about meth.
6:17
Speaker 1: I was like, they're all about man, right right, I
6:19
Speaker 1: didn't spoil that, Yeah, I got you. Yeah, all right,
6:23
Speaker 1: So sorry that was not a spoiler for Gatica though.
6:25
Speaker 1: UM so, chuck, yes, let's talk about all this you're say.
6:31
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, they came out against that fertility
6:36
Speaker 1: clinic in Los Angeles. That's a good example of a
6:40
Speaker 1: commercial business saying hey, we can do this now. A
6:44
Speaker 1: good example of a government saying, hey, you can do
6:47
Speaker 1: this now, we need to do something about it. Was
6:49
Speaker 1: the UK proposing a bill and we couldn't find out
6:52
Speaker 1: whether it passed or not. So frustrating how hard it
6:55
Speaker 1: is to find out things like this sometimes. Um, if
6:59
Speaker 1: if you write an article about something that is big
7:02
Speaker 1: enough for somebody else to use in an article, you
7:05
Speaker 1: better follow up. Yeah, that's what I'm duty journalist. So
7:08
Speaker 1: what we know is it was protested at least, so
7:11
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I went through well, and the
7:13
Speaker 1: reason it was protested was protested um largely by the
7:16
Speaker 1: deaf and heart of hearing community over there, because this
7:20
Speaker 1: bill would have or did prohibit um selecting kids for
7:27
Speaker 1: disease or disability, right, So if you it allowed you
7:32
Speaker 1: to select against that. So if you if you have
7:35
Speaker 1: a kid that has a disability, you can be like,
7:38
Speaker 1: I don't want that kid. But it prohibited selecting forum
7:41
Speaker 1: and the deaf community said, hey, um, if hearing parents
7:45
Speaker 1: can select hearing kids, deaf parents should be able to
7:48
Speaker 1: select deaf kids. So if you're gonna call deafness a disability,
7:52
Speaker 1: you need to change this this bill, which is a
7:55
Speaker 1: pretty cool thing to protest, if you ask me. I
7:57
Speaker 1: don't know how it felt about it. I thought it's
7:59
Speaker 1: still the no, Wow, this is gonna be a good
8:02
Speaker 1: one that I was utterly confused. That was like, why
8:06
Speaker 1: would you want your child to be deaf and be
8:08
Speaker 1: at a disadvantage straight out of the gate in life?
8:11
Speaker 1: But then I thought, well, is it a disadvantage exactly?
8:14
Speaker 1: That is a great, great question. So I don't know.
8:17
Speaker 1: That's where I ended up was did you know that
8:21
Speaker 1: percent that's the highest most recent figure I've seen of
8:25
Speaker 1: all down syndrome fetuses are aborted. I believe that right,
8:33
Speaker 1: And that's the same question. It's like some people are like, well,
8:37
Speaker 1: why would you want your kid to be disadvantaged? And
8:39
Speaker 1: we are or not not selected through IBF a boarded um,
8:46
Speaker 1: and so some people would say, why would you want
8:48
Speaker 1: your kid to have you know, your kids going to
8:50
Speaker 1: have a disadvantage And other people say, like, have you
8:52
Speaker 1: ever met a person with down syndrome? Like they're pretty
8:56
Speaker 1: awesome people, you know, And I think that that is
9:00
Speaker 1: That's just one argument throughout this idea of designing children
9:05
Speaker 1: savior siblings was also included in the bill in England
9:09
Speaker 1: let parents select embryos that would make suitable savior siblings.
9:12
Speaker 1: Very controversial. I read a couple of articles on this.
9:16
Speaker 1: Saviors Savior siblings are basically kids that you conceive initially
9:21
Speaker 1: with the purpose of being able to act as donors
9:24
Speaker 1: for their older brother or sister. Like you're you're the
9:27
Speaker 1: kid that you love is born with like bad kidneys.
9:31
Speaker 1: Have another kid that's gonna be a suitable tissue doner
9:34
Speaker 1: because you know ahead of time, before the kids even born,
9:37
Speaker 1: that it will be, yeah, so that they can give
9:40
Speaker 1: them one of their kidneys. Yeah, there was a article
9:43
Speaker 1: that I read where these parents had had had a
9:46
Speaker 1: quote unquote savior child and used you know, they said,
9:50
Speaker 1: what we ended up using was a teaspoon of umbilical
9:54
Speaker 1: blood that would have been thrown in the trash and
9:57
Speaker 1: that's what saved our other kids life. And this is
9:59
Speaker 1: not the designer child, it's not some freak of science.
10:03
Speaker 1: This is the reason we have this child. But doesn't
10:06
Speaker 1: make it any less valid. So I think ultimately it's
10:10
Speaker 1: how you treat the child after they're born. Well, you
10:12
Speaker 1: treat them as like your regular child. You put them
10:15
Speaker 1: in a closet and wait for the kidney. Sure, you'd hope.
10:17
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I mean like you can
10:19
Speaker 1: go down the road and say, well, having a savior
10:22
Speaker 1: sibling is also having a kid to strip for parts. Yeah,
10:27
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's another interpretation of the whole thing.
10:30
Speaker 1: So I mean, like, if if you are going to
10:33
Speaker 1: have your kid like that, is it valid for society
10:35
Speaker 1: to be like, well, well you can't do that. How
10:37
Speaker 1: are you going to treat your kid afterwards? Like? Is
10:39
Speaker 1: that one of the worries? How would they would treat
10:41
Speaker 1: the kid? I've never heard that as an argument. Yeah,
10:44
Speaker 1: because it's not like you can have a kid use
10:46
Speaker 1: all of their harvest all of their organs and kill them.
10:50
Speaker 1: Of course not so. I think it's it's like the
10:53
Speaker 1: effect that the impact it's going to have on that
10:55
Speaker 1: child and their own identity is like a human being
10:59
Speaker 1: and and unique individual human being, rather than a walking
11:02
Speaker 1: organ bank for their brother. I would I would think
11:05
Speaker 1: I would appreciate that growing up knowing that I was
11:08
Speaker 1: born with a higher purpose of potentially saving my older
11:11
Speaker 1: brother if he ever needed it. You know, sure, depending
11:14
Speaker 1: on how you're raised, you know, are you like Danny
11:18
Speaker 1: DeVito and twins right, or are you like the savior sibling.
11:23
Speaker 1: It's a great way to put it, like you're the
11:24
Speaker 1: savior of this other sibling. It just all depends to
11:28
Speaker 1: me on how the parents raised those those children in
11:31
Speaker 1: that abnormal dynamic that's fostered through our technology. Yeah. I
11:38
Speaker 1: can't imagine though, that a parent who would care enough
11:41
Speaker 1: about their one child to have another to save them
11:43
Speaker 1: would mistreat or shun the other child in any way.
11:48
Speaker 1: That just didn't make sense to me. I just opened
11:52
Speaker 1: my hands in a gesture of I don't know everybody,
11:54
Speaker 1: all right, um, so let let's talk about this, Chuck,
11:57
Speaker 1: let's talk genetics for a little bit. I had to
11:59
Speaker 1: go back and do some um genetics one oh one
12:02
Speaker 1: priming UM, and I did that. As I did, I
12:06
Speaker 1: realized that I wasn't going back and remembering it. I
12:09
Speaker 1: was teaching myself for the first time. In a lot
12:10
Speaker 1: of ways, I've never really gotten genetics. Even though it's
12:15
Speaker 1: so straightforward and cut and dried, there's always like, even
12:20
Speaker 1: if you read this Designer Children article, like these are
12:23
Speaker 1: two of our best writers, and like, it just doesn't
12:26
Speaker 1: come across quite right. Maybe it's just me so like
12:31
Speaker 1: me in numbers. So back in two thousand three, UM,
12:38
Speaker 1: the Human Genome Project announced that it had fulfilled its
12:42
Speaker 1: destiny and successfully mapped the human genome. And the human
12:46
Speaker 1: genome is the sum total of the information contained in
12:50
Speaker 1: the human DNA. That's right, right, Um, you're gonna say
12:55
Speaker 1: the word what DNA stands for, Oh, dioxy ribot clayic acid.
13:01
Speaker 1: I would say the oxy. Yeah, I've always heard dioxy,
13:05
Speaker 1: and then I was looking at that E. So either way,
13:08
Speaker 1: well done. Though. D N A and d N A
13:11
Speaker 1: is simply a couple of strands of sugar that form
13:15
Speaker 1: a helix of double helix, and they're joined by what
13:18
Speaker 1: looks like wrongs on the ladder sugar and phosphate. Yeah,
13:21
Speaker 1: okay um. And these wrongs are made up of nucleotides,
13:25
Speaker 1: one coming off of each of these strands, the little
13:27
Speaker 1: twisty ladder that we all love now. Um. So the
13:31
Speaker 1: wrongs of the ladder are made of these nucleotides, and
13:33
Speaker 1: when they come together, one on each side, they form
13:36
Speaker 1: this full wrong and those are called base pairs. And
13:39
Speaker 1: there's four types of nucleotides, right, that's right. There is
13:44
Speaker 1: uh at a nine sita scene, thymine, and guanine, and
13:50
Speaker 1: you put them together and what you come up with,
13:53
Speaker 1: ultimately is a four letter language for the blueprint of
13:59
Speaker 1: an organism. Pretty cool, not just making an organism, but
14:02
Speaker 1: maintaining it as well. And if you look along the
14:06
Speaker 1: strand of DNA, you're going to find little segments where
14:10
Speaker 1: this combination, if read by a ribosome uh can be
14:15
Speaker 1: used to explain how a cell can make a certain
14:18
Speaker 1: kind of protein, usually about three proteins on average, and
14:21
Speaker 1: proteins are what are used as the building blocks of
14:24
Speaker 1: cellular life and its functions, like everything from our behavior
14:28
Speaker 1: to like the structure of your eye is based on proteins, right,
14:34
Speaker 1: and your your genes. These little segments that are encoded
14:39
Speaker 1: along the d NA um that express these proteins are
14:42
Speaker 1: are blueprints for how to express the proteins. That's how
14:45
Speaker 1: they're made. That's what they do. That's right, right, that's right.
14:49
Speaker 1: We have betweens as a human. Everybody's so happy. You
14:56
Speaker 1: just do that. Human that just mess it up? Hmm,
15:02
Speaker 1: how about that? Had you've been designed properly, it wouldn't
15:05
Speaker 1: have happened. So what I thought was interesting that out
15:08
Speaker 1: of the three billion BASS bearers, it's about half and
15:11
Speaker 1: half of useful DNA and the rest are junk DNA.
15:14
Speaker 1: Yea junk DNA. And they don't think that it's like
15:17
Speaker 1: junk DNA, like it's it's totally useless. They think that
15:20
Speaker 1: possibly we haven't found the use yet, or they think
15:24
Speaker 1: that possibly one of the uses is that it says
15:27
Speaker 1: it tells um like stop like here's where, here's where
15:31
Speaker 1: this gene stops, or um, this is how much of
15:35
Speaker 1: this protein you should express, and this this adjacent gene
15:38
Speaker 1: that this junk DNA is next to, or it just
15:41
Speaker 1: provides like structure, like actual structure to the to the
15:44
Speaker 1: double helix. It's also possible that this is just um
15:48
Speaker 1: DNA left over that was deposited by viruses eons ago
15:53
Speaker 1: that that don't that don't express themselves any longer enough,
15:57
Speaker 1: because that's what viruses too. They insert their own d N,
16:00
Speaker 1: A and rs. It's right, they um. So you've got
16:04
Speaker 1: this DNA, it's making up chromosomes. You've got twenty three
16:07
Speaker 1: in your body. And as complex and as massive as
16:10
Speaker 1: the sounds, chuck, twenty pairs pairs, thank you, um, as
16:14
Speaker 1: as massive and complex as this whole thing sounds. Every
16:17
Speaker 1: cell except for a mature red blood cell, has a
16:20
Speaker 1: full human genome and many chromosomes in it, every cell.
16:26
Speaker 1: And that's just in the nucleus. That's crazy. It is crazy.
16:29
Speaker 1: So you've got all this. We've got a pretty good
16:31
Speaker 1: handle on this. The human genome. We've we've mapped it.
16:34
Speaker 1: Now we go back and figure out where the genes are.
16:38
Speaker 1: And they used to think that it was like nineties
16:41
Speaker 1: six percent of DNA was junk, and then they found
16:45
Speaker 1: out that, like if you look at the human genome,
16:46
Speaker 1: some areas are gene rich, there's a lot of genes.
16:49
Speaker 1: Other areas of gene deserts where there's very few. Right,
16:52
Speaker 1: we have to go back and look at this map
16:55
Speaker 1: and basically crack this code of this four letter line
17:00
Speaker 1: Widge and figure out what genes are, what what they do,
17:03
Speaker 1: and then ultimately how to manipulate them. And once we
17:06
Speaker 1: do that, we effectively have taken humanity out of evolution.
17:10
Speaker 1: That's right, scary, is it? I think? So our friend
17:16
Speaker 1: David Pierce would beg to different who the guy from
17:20
Speaker 1: the Happiness audiobook? We should ratchet up human happiness because
17:26
Speaker 1: we can. Boy, that's it's a interesting argument, That's all
17:31
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say. So, Um, we're already kind of at
17:35
Speaker 1: a very primitive form of this, aren't we. Uh Well, yeah,
17:40
Speaker 1: like I said, we we feasibly could choose eye color
17:43
Speaker 1: and hair color if we wanted to. Um, And then
17:47
Speaker 1: one thing we can definitely do is well, I guess
17:50
Speaker 1: we should explain about ib F for those of you
17:52
Speaker 1: who don't know. UM. In we first perform in vitro fertilization,
17:58
Speaker 1: which basically means when you're a couple and you're having
18:01
Speaker 1: trouble having a kid. They're a bunch of different steps.
18:04
Speaker 1: You can take a bunch of different routes you can take,
18:06
Speaker 1: and one of them is IVF, which means you take
18:09
Speaker 1: the sperm from the man, egg from the lady and
18:13
Speaker 1: you get them together outside of the human body to
18:17
Speaker 1: form a z eyegoat and then you put it back
18:20
Speaker 1: in the woman, uh and then she takes it from there.
18:24
Speaker 1: And it is can be expensive. It can be very
18:27
Speaker 1: hard on the woman, um on her body and and
18:31
Speaker 1: emotionally emotionally. I think it's probably hard on the couple emotionally,
18:37
Speaker 1: But dudes aren't pump full of hormones, you know. Um.
18:42
Speaker 1: So that that is what IVF is, and that is
18:43
Speaker 1: one way that you can have a baby if you're
18:45
Speaker 1: having trouble having babies. UH. With IVF came something called
18:49
Speaker 1: preimplantation genetic diagnosis p g D, which basically means, hey,
18:55
Speaker 1: we can look at at your stuff here, and if
18:57
Speaker 1: you are predisposed in your fanly to certain things like
19:01
Speaker 1: hemophilia A down syndrome tas sac syndrome, we can we
19:06
Speaker 1: can stop this process now and try again, right we
19:10
Speaker 1: can scream for it. Yeah, fine, And some of its intuitive,
19:13
Speaker 1: like with hemophilia A UH, if you and your husband
19:17
Speaker 1: both have that, that usually tends to strike boys more
19:20
Speaker 1: than girls, so they probably not use embryos that were male,
19:25
Speaker 1: likely male. They would use female embryos instead, which brings
19:28
Speaker 1: up the sticky point of choosing your gender. Yeah, um,
19:31
Speaker 1: some others we can you can find that evidence of
19:34
Speaker 1: that disease that say, um, I guess malfunctioning gene that
19:39
Speaker 1: creates that disease, because that's what disease is, UM and
19:43
Speaker 1: not use those embryos either. So we are we are
19:46
Speaker 1: kind of at this primitive state. But it's selective, it is,
19:50
Speaker 1: and these are tough decisions that couple's face in life. Uh,
19:54
Speaker 1: A lot of thought should go into this if you're
19:56
Speaker 1: out there going through this process, it's um, it ain't easy.
20:02
Speaker 1: And don't let anyone else tell you what you should
20:03
Speaker 1: or shouldn't do. You know there's a personal thing. Oh
20:05
Speaker 1: yeah sure, Um, so that's what's that's what's going on
20:09
Speaker 1: on the ib F tip. So yeah, the point is
20:14
Speaker 1: from that came um PG dye pre implantation genetic diagnosis,
20:19
Speaker 1: which is UM kind of right now the most widely
20:22
Speaker 1: available type of genetic engineering for couples looking to have
20:27
Speaker 1: a baby, right right, And like we said, the sticky
20:29
Speaker 1: point of potentially being able to choose your gender if
20:32
Speaker 1: you really want a boy, you've got three girls, and
20:34
Speaker 1: man I really wanted a boy. Um. And then in
20:36
Speaker 1: countries like China where they definitely want boys, it's like
20:40
Speaker 1: this could be the future that might upset the balance
20:43
Speaker 1: of of nature and how many boys and girls are
20:47
Speaker 1: born and what does that mean for the future. So
20:50
Speaker 1: I heard to UM to have a soft landing from
20:54
Speaker 1: their one child policy, which they're now starting to like
20:56
Speaker 1: relax they should have stopped at about twenty years ago. Yeah. Yeah,
21:02
Speaker 1: Does that mean they're in trouble? Does that mean we
21:04
Speaker 1: need to follow up like we recommended writers do on
21:07
Speaker 1: our podcast. Sure, I guess you just did. Oh okay,
21:11
Speaker 1: there was heard, UM, So chuck, we've got this. We've
21:16
Speaker 1: got this genetic screening. That's one way to do it.
21:19
Speaker 1: There's also another way, um that is a little further
21:23
Speaker 1: out as far as humans go, UM, and that is
21:27
Speaker 1: transgenderic therapy, which is where you take the gene of
21:30
Speaker 1: something else that desirous trait and inserted into some into
21:36
Speaker 1: the human right. So, what is actually adding a gene
21:41
Speaker 1: right where What we've been talking about to this point
21:43
Speaker 1: is unnatural selection. But it's been selection. It's like this
21:48
Speaker 1: is this is it appeared naturally, but we're gonna take
21:52
Speaker 1: away all of the other We're gonna reduce the chances
21:55
Speaker 1: that it won't happen, or we're gonna increase the chances
21:58
Speaker 1: that that will happen. This is straight up copying and
22:02
Speaker 1: pasting or cutting and pasting genes to create something desirable
22:07
Speaker 1: or new. That's right, And they already do this in animals, UM.
22:11
Speaker 1: So you know, if you can do it in animals,
22:14
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be long before you can do it
22:15
Speaker 1: with humans. And uh long term, maybe that means we
22:22
Speaker 1: can eliminate certain diseases by correcting this stuff along the way,
22:26
Speaker 1: right like before it happens. So that could be good.
22:31
Speaker 1: So so when you take a gene from one animal
22:35
Speaker 1: and UM and planted into another, that's um that's become
22:38
Speaker 1: a transgenic animal or a chimera, which is based on
22:42
Speaker 1: the goat, serpent, lion, fire breathing animal of legend from Greece. Um.
22:49
Speaker 1: They call it a chimera, which is kind of hurtful,
22:51
Speaker 1: I think, especially if you're a human and know what
22:53
Speaker 1: a chimera is, and you're a chimera, I'm sure you
22:56
Speaker 1: probably hurt your feelings. But um, thus far there aren't
22:59
Speaker 1: any human caimeras as far as I know. It's mostly
23:02
Speaker 1: the big one that we've actually talked about unknowingly before
23:06
Speaker 1: is a bio steel. The goat with the spider. Remember
23:10
Speaker 1: we were trying to figure out how they got spider
23:11
Speaker 1: silk from a goat and the one turns out. It
23:16
Speaker 1: turns out that spiders and goats share enough traits to
23:19
Speaker 1: where this ultra strong spider silk can be produced in
23:23
Speaker 1: the goat's milk. They have similar proteins. And they said,
23:27
Speaker 1: I don't know how they came across that. I'm sure
23:30
Speaker 1: they had some hint. I don't know why they would
23:31
Speaker 1: start with a goat's milk. Yeah, I don't know either,
23:33
Speaker 1: but the protein, you know, what would happen if we
23:35
Speaker 1: put the spider silk in this goat's milk? What rhymes
23:38
Speaker 1: with spider silk goat's milk. Let's try to start there. Um, yeah,
23:42
Speaker 1: it worked, but they figured out that like the spider,
23:45
Speaker 1: the protein and spider silk is similar to a protein
23:48
Speaker 1: and goats milk identical. And well, once you inject the
23:51
Speaker 1: goats jeans with that spider me like a glove. It
23:55
Speaker 1: starts producing a ton of that protein UM and its milk,
23:59
Speaker 1: and you harvest that protein and then start weaving spider
24:03
Speaker 1: silk and make the stuff called bio steel, which is
24:06
Speaker 1: really really good body armor. Yeah, and that's where we
24:09
Speaker 1: talked about it, right, Yeah, Body Armor podcast that you
24:12
Speaker 1: can find on our RSS feed. Yeah, which also happened
24:14
Speaker 1: to be our first ever UM listener request. Oh really Yeah,
24:19
Speaker 1: someone requested that and we acquiesced and we started getting
24:24
Speaker 1: all these emails. UM. So the point of that is
24:29
Speaker 1: is they're doing this in animals. There are scenarios where
24:33
Speaker 1: we could potentially do this with humans, but UM and
24:37
Speaker 1: another follow up article we read turns out that enhancing
24:41
Speaker 1: ourselves genetically could eventually lead to UM unknown consequences down
24:46
Speaker 1: the road. Uh. Specifically, in this case, we have learned
24:51
Speaker 1: that our human brain is evolving, it's getting larger, it's
24:54
Speaker 1: gaining more cognitive abilities as we evolve, and if you
24:59
Speaker 1: start to bring with natural selection via genetic modification, these
25:05
Speaker 1: things might not show up right away. It might show
25:07
Speaker 1: up generations later. So you might be doing something you
25:11
Speaker 1: think will help when and in fact, years from now,
25:14
Speaker 1: it might keep your brain from growing. Like everyone else's
25:18
Speaker 1: and this is just one example of something that could
25:20
Speaker 1: go wrong. Organisms evolve right through mutations. Well, we lack
25:25
Speaker 1: the foresight to know what mutation will be beneficial in
25:28
Speaker 1: what will be harmful years down the line. So even
25:30
Speaker 1: something that may be harmful immediately or somewhat harmful could
25:34
Speaker 1: be extremely beneficial decades, hundreds, thousands, millions of years from now.
25:39
Speaker 1: We would never know. That's too late. Once you've done it,
25:43
Speaker 1: Yeah you're done. No. I kind of had the impression that, like,
25:46
Speaker 1: once you start tampering, you could conceivably, you know, keep improving,
25:52
Speaker 1: but it would have to be constant. Well, and what
25:55
Speaker 1: this article points out, which is a good point, is
25:56
Speaker 1: natural selection is at its best when you've got a
25:59
Speaker 1: large gene pool. And if you're narrowing that gene pool
26:02
Speaker 1: for a reason you think is great, you're still narrowing
26:05
Speaker 1: the gene pool. And I think proponents of genetic engineering
26:09
Speaker 1: would say, well, that's fine, we're narrowing the gene pool.
26:12
Speaker 1: Who cares. We're taking full control of evolution, so evolution
26:15
Speaker 1: can kiss off. But this raises all sorts of questions,
26:20
Speaker 1: like some of which we've already touched upon, but like
26:22
Speaker 1: who decides what's ideal? Who decides what traits are good
26:27
Speaker 1: and what are bad? What happens when this becomes you know,
26:31
Speaker 1: commercially viable, but it's still extremely expensive than just the
26:35
Speaker 1: wealthy have designer children? Well, I mean, what kind of
26:38
Speaker 1: designer children do do we make that? I read this
26:41
Speaker 1: one ethicist who said that we have a moral obligation
26:44
Speaker 1: two genetically engineer and modify our kids so that they're
26:48
Speaker 1: not a harm to themselves or other people, which makes
26:52
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Like I can see how that
26:54
Speaker 1: is a moral obligation. Like, if you have the technology
26:56
Speaker 1: to improve people and improve society like that, you have
27:00
Speaker 1: to do it, you know. But then of course there's
27:03
Speaker 1: like the other side, it's like God, I don't know,
27:06
Speaker 1: we don't really know what we're doing here playing god? Yeah,
27:09
Speaker 1: because I mean, what happens if you make a kid
27:12
Speaker 1: that's awful little bit and like they're like just totally
27:16
Speaker 1: messed up, But they wouldn't have been if you hadn't
27:19
Speaker 1: tampered with them. Who's responsible for that? And in what
27:22
Speaker 1: ways are you responsible for it? Well? And more well,
27:24
Speaker 1: not more importantly, but additionally, where the line is drawn?
27:27
Speaker 1: You know, is it okay to say like, that's kind
27:30
Speaker 1: of like my baby had blue eyes? Right, No big deal? Right? Yeah?
27:34
Speaker 1: Was that the line? Or is the line? Like, um,
27:36
Speaker 1: maybe it'd be cool if they were athletic, right and
27:41
Speaker 1: super smart and had blue eyes and blond hair and
27:45
Speaker 1: then boom boys from Brazil? But what's the again, what's
27:49
Speaker 1: what are the problems with those things? Well? Yeah, you
27:52
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be athletic and smart, right. Or Happy
27:54
Speaker 1: is another one that David pointed out that I find
27:57
Speaker 1: tough to to to disagree with, Like, if you have
28:00
Speaker 1: the technology to make your kids happier, like ratchet up
28:03
Speaker 1: their baseline happiness is how we put it, Why wouldn't
28:06
Speaker 1: you do that? If you can make society a better
28:09
Speaker 1: place because everybody's happier, why wouldn't you do it? Well,
28:13
Speaker 1: just this is just a lot ee to me saying,
28:16
Speaker 1: you know, there's always far reaching consequences. There's always ripples,
28:19
Speaker 1: every stone you're throwing a lake, you know, like, what
28:24
Speaker 1: what else is going to happen? If everybody's happy? Are
28:28
Speaker 1: there downfalls or their setbacks? And there what's going on?
28:32
Speaker 1: I know it is a tricky, tricky subject. Anytime we
28:35
Speaker 1: bring up jeans, it becomes a tricky subject. It does,
28:38
Speaker 1: which is why they're fascinating, that's right, and why people
28:41
Speaker 1: really get up on their soapbox when they you know,
28:46
Speaker 1: this means a lot to a lot of people. Religious circles,
28:50
Speaker 1: scientific circles. A lot of folks are weighing in from
28:53
Speaker 1: different you know, circles. But you know what that means.
28:58
Speaker 1: It's it was just stupid. Okay. If you want to
29:03
Speaker 1: learn more about genetics, how stuff works is loaded with
29:07
Speaker 1: them articles on them on it. Yeah. Um, you can
29:10
Speaker 1: type in genetics, gens, designer babies, whatever you want in
29:14
Speaker 1: the handy search bar and it's gonna bring up some
29:16
Speaker 1: pretty cool articles. Do you recommend you wasted a year
29:19
Speaker 1: or two meeting them? Um? And I said handy search bar.
29:23
Speaker 1: I think so that means its time for listener mail.
29:27
Speaker 1: It's right, Josh, I am going to call this plug
29:30
Speaker 1: for our friends at q s a C. Remember meeting
29:34
Speaker 1: uh Sandra at trivia night in New York. She give
29:37
Speaker 1: us the hats the baseball Caps. Yeah, what what is
29:41
Speaker 1: the qu s a C Is the Quality Services for
29:44
Speaker 1: the Autism Compati. So this from uh Sandra. She's super sweet,
29:49
Speaker 1: very nice, and she says this, guys, thanks so much
29:52
Speaker 1: for humoring my over enthusiasm for my cause. Uh and
29:55
Speaker 1: my over enthusiasm for meeting you guys at trivia night
29:58
Speaker 1: who I look up to. It was an amazing night
30:00
Speaker 1: of randomness. All the other people on our second place
30:02
Speaker 1: team met in line total strangers. After my initial star
30:06
Speaker 1: struck nous died down, which never happens to me because
30:09
Speaker 1: I worked with famous people all the time and couldn't
30:11
Speaker 1: care less. I just felt like, Uh, it just felt
30:15
Speaker 1: like a night where I was hanging out with a
30:16
Speaker 1: few buddies I've known for a while. Um. She still
30:18
Speaker 1: about us start We're very partritable. It was just silly,
30:22
Speaker 1: Um she said, I felt that way about my whole
30:24
Speaker 1: table of strangers. Actually. Uh So, anyway, she told us
30:27
Speaker 1: that night about U S a c M organizaization she's with,
30:31
Speaker 1: and she says, I'm very passionate about QU S a
30:34
Speaker 1: C because they changed my life. Literally. I did a
30:36
Speaker 1: five k to support them because it was local and
30:39
Speaker 1: my nephew was autistic and I wanted to see if
30:41
Speaker 1: I could actually walk that far. She had broken both
30:44
Speaker 1: her ankles the previous year. Okay, I thought that was
30:46
Speaker 1: funny too. Um Man, I wonder if she was. Was
30:52
Speaker 1: it called cobbled? Cobbled? Was that in misery? Oh yeah,
30:56
Speaker 1: that's there's a name for the cobble. She hobbled. Hobbled
31:02
Speaker 1: cobbled would be if you just than I might even
31:07
Speaker 1: called hobbling. How yeah, you're hobbled, but that's like a
31:11
Speaker 1: a state. No, but the process by which Kathy Bates
31:14
Speaker 1: like broke the ankles, I don't want to talk about it.
31:16
Speaker 1: She it was called something like you're it was hobbling somebody.
31:20
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll look that up. That was so nasty. Anyway,
31:24
Speaker 1: I don't think Sandra was cobbled or hobbled. Uh So
31:27
Speaker 1: at the time, I had no clue who they were.
31:30
Speaker 1: Cusack made friends with everyone there and many people who
31:33
Speaker 1: worked there, and then three months later I actually started
31:36
Speaker 1: work there as an employee. I was in corporate television
31:38
Speaker 1: as a video editor for ten years and it beat
31:40
Speaker 1: down my soul. I was always volunteering and donating what
31:44
Speaker 1: I could, and I felt like, maybe nonprofit is what
31:47
Speaker 1: I should be doing. The opportunity arose and I took
31:49
Speaker 1: it and it has been life changing. Dudes, Since you
31:51
Speaker 1: guys are so excellent being philanthropic, I decided to see
31:54
Speaker 1: if he would be interested in knowing more. So, Josh
31:56
Speaker 1: mentioned you guys were considering doing a podcast on autism.
32:00
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get around of that at some point, right, Um,
32:02
Speaker 1: if you do, I have plenty of people that could
32:04
Speaker 1: answer a lot of questions and gladly pass along addresses
32:07
Speaker 1: and phone numbers. Q Sack has been around for over
32:10
Speaker 1: thirty years, truly amazing in helping the New York City
32:13
Speaker 1: and Long Island areas. So do you guys want to
32:16
Speaker 1: help support this great uh cause for autism? You can
32:21
Speaker 1: go to q s a c dot com or she
32:24
Speaker 1: has a bowling page and I think you do. Like
32:27
Speaker 1: she gets like a fundraisers going through bowling at www
32:31
Speaker 1: dot first giving dot com slash fundraiser slash Sandra sroka
32:38
Speaker 1: slash bowl and that is Sandra s O r O
32:42
Speaker 1: k A s um Sandra. And yeah she was. She
32:47
Speaker 1: was super nice and she's working for autism now. Very cool? Man? UM,
32:52
Speaker 1: can I give one more side out? We heard from
32:54
Speaker 1: another listener of course, Um, a listener named Emily Eisenman
32:59
Speaker 1: is run for LifeStraw. Did you see this to you?
33:01
Speaker 1: I did, and now I was gonna read that later
33:03
Speaker 1: let's let's go ahead do it now? Okay, yeah, alright, So, um,
33:06
Speaker 1: Emily is running for Life strow. She heard our podcast
33:09
Speaker 1: from two thousand ten on LifeStraw and she decided to
33:12
Speaker 1: raise a thousand dollars to buy lifestraws by running a
33:16
Speaker 1: thousand miles. Yeah. Um, and she is going to cross
33:20
Speaker 1: a thousand mile mark for the year this week. She
33:23
Speaker 1: may have already done it. Um. And she's proving to
33:26
Speaker 1: be a better funder than a better runner than a fundraiser,
33:29
Speaker 1: she says. So if everybody who listens to Stuff you
33:33
Speaker 1: Should Know would go help help her fundraise, it would
33:36
Speaker 1: be fantastic. You can go to www dot fundly f
33:41
Speaker 1: u n d l y dot com slash run for
33:44
Speaker 1: Life straw um, and you guys can go check that
33:47
Speaker 1: out and help Emily raise some money for LifeStraw. And
33:50
Speaker 1: if you are unfamiliar with LifeStraw, go listen to our
33:53
Speaker 1: podcast on that subject, which you can probably are going
33:57
Speaker 1: to have to find on our RSS feed as well. Yeah.
34:00
Speaker 1: Is um just you know what you do? You you
34:02
Speaker 1: Google or you get your favorite search bar and you
34:05
Speaker 1: type and stuff you should know rss feed and it's
34:08
Speaker 1: like boom right there, all of our shows ever, Yep,
34:10
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know RSS every single one. It's good stuff. Um,
34:14
Speaker 1: all right, well I guess that's it, right, That is it? Sir?
34:17
Speaker 1: All right? Uh. If you want to contact us, you
34:19
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K Podcast,
34:22
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34:25
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34:27
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