Aug 23, 2023 03:58 PM
We could use CRISPR to cure mental illness. Should we?
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2023/...should-we/
EXCERPTS: Would you want to be cured of a disorder that most people consider debilitating if given the opportunity? Cancer? Sure. A heart condition? Absolutely. But some people might reject this opportunity.
Consider deafness, which is mostly genetic. It can be debilitating. [...] It’s linked to an increase in all kinds of illnesses. Your brain must work harder. That leads to elevated rates of anxiety and early onset dementia.
[...] According to one study, 46% of deaf people were concerned that manipulating genes to restore hearing could “devalue” deaf people. This question is further complicated considering that parents, most of whom are deaf themselves, would likely be making the decision rather than the patient themselves.
[...] Deafness is by no means the only controversial gene editing target. While technologies like CRISPR have been used to treat physical ailments such as sickle cell anemia with relatively little controversy, it has yet to be used to treat any mental health conditions, such as depression or PTSD. This is not only due to the technical difficulties involved in applying gene editing to something as multi-genetic and dependent on environmental conditions as mental health, but because of the ethical concerns raised by tweaking the human brain, the seat of human identity. The entire conversation, however, was limited by the fact that the possibility was hypothetical.
Not anymore. What seemed fantastical only a few years ago is now inching toward reality. [...] Now that it appears that some mental disorders could be treated using gene therapy, the more profound question arises: Should we?
[...] Some physical ailments would seem to be appropriate candidates for gene tweaking. For example, Huntington’s disease, which is universally fatal, is caused by one rogue gene. ... That brings us to the prickliest issue: ethics.
Is it appropriate to use gene editing to treat mental conditions? There is no one pat answer.
For example, although autism is usually associated with lower intelligence, some forms of it are highly correlated with high intelligence, and some possible alleles have been identified. It’s called savant syndrome. In the not-too-far future, we may find other conditions that are classified as “disorders” to have at least some benefits. How far along the road to Gattica will we go? One New Jersey company claims it can use DNA measurements to warn prospective parents about which embryos might be very low in intelligence... (MORE - missing details)
Can climate policy change the weather?
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/can...he-weather
EXCERPTS: A new paper just out prompted this post — Birner and colleagues quantify how accurately we can assess carbon emissions, working backwards from atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. They assume a world with an emissions plateau (at 2019 levels) and ask when they might be able to identify if countries are misreporting their emissions — For instance, if countries underreport their emissions by a large enough amount, then a gap should open between atmospheric concentrations and the implied emissions.
[...] What does this exercise show? I suggest three lessons.
First, climate policy can indeed have detectable impacts on the global earth system and we can begin to detect these impacts in less than a decade, so perhaps by 2035 for a SSP1-2.6 trajectory that starts in 2025. Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work.
Second, for those who expect that climate policy can result in detectable impacts on the climate system — at more-likely-than-not levels of certainty, say, more than 50% — then it will be well into the second half of the century before such attribution is possible for the effects of climate policy on global average temperature and (much) longer than that for global precipitation change.
Third, for those who believe that climate policy can be used to detectably affect the weather that you or I experience, that is simply a fantasy borne from today’s overheated claims of attribution and the fanciful idea that emissions are a disaster control knob. In the lifetimes of everyone reading this and our children’s lifetimes, the attribution of changes in extreme weather to climate policy at high levels of confidence is not expected to be possible. Don’t take it from me, that’s straight from the IPCC...... (MORE - missing details)
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2023/...should-we/
EXCERPTS: Would you want to be cured of a disorder that most people consider debilitating if given the opportunity? Cancer? Sure. A heart condition? Absolutely. But some people might reject this opportunity.
Consider deafness, which is mostly genetic. It can be debilitating. [...] It’s linked to an increase in all kinds of illnesses. Your brain must work harder. That leads to elevated rates of anxiety and early onset dementia.
[...] According to one study, 46% of deaf people were concerned that manipulating genes to restore hearing could “devalue” deaf people. This question is further complicated considering that parents, most of whom are deaf themselves, would likely be making the decision rather than the patient themselves.
[...] Deafness is by no means the only controversial gene editing target. While technologies like CRISPR have been used to treat physical ailments such as sickle cell anemia with relatively little controversy, it has yet to be used to treat any mental health conditions, such as depression or PTSD. This is not only due to the technical difficulties involved in applying gene editing to something as multi-genetic and dependent on environmental conditions as mental health, but because of the ethical concerns raised by tweaking the human brain, the seat of human identity. The entire conversation, however, was limited by the fact that the possibility was hypothetical.
Not anymore. What seemed fantastical only a few years ago is now inching toward reality. [...] Now that it appears that some mental disorders could be treated using gene therapy, the more profound question arises: Should we?
[...] Some physical ailments would seem to be appropriate candidates for gene tweaking. For example, Huntington’s disease, which is universally fatal, is caused by one rogue gene. ... That brings us to the prickliest issue: ethics.
Is it appropriate to use gene editing to treat mental conditions? There is no one pat answer.
For example, although autism is usually associated with lower intelligence, some forms of it are highly correlated with high intelligence, and some possible alleles have been identified. It’s called savant syndrome. In the not-too-far future, we may find other conditions that are classified as “disorders” to have at least some benefits. How far along the road to Gattica will we go? One New Jersey company claims it can use DNA measurements to warn prospective parents about which embryos might be very low in intelligence... (MORE - missing details)
Can climate policy change the weather?
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/can...he-weather
EXCERPTS: A new paper just out prompted this post — Birner and colleagues quantify how accurately we can assess carbon emissions, working backwards from atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. They assume a world with an emissions plateau (at 2019 levels) and ask when they might be able to identify if countries are misreporting their emissions — For instance, if countries underreport their emissions by a large enough amount, then a gap should open between atmospheric concentrations and the implied emissions.
[...] What does this exercise show? I suggest three lessons.
First, climate policy can indeed have detectable impacts on the global earth system and we can begin to detect these impacts in less than a decade, so perhaps by 2035 for a SSP1-2.6 trajectory that starts in 2025. Make no mistake, mitigation is important and it can work.
Second, for those who expect that climate policy can result in detectable impacts on the climate system — at more-likely-than-not levels of certainty, say, more than 50% — then it will be well into the second half of the century before such attribution is possible for the effects of climate policy on global average temperature and (much) longer than that for global precipitation change.
Third, for those who believe that climate policy can be used to detectably affect the weather that you or I experience, that is simply a fantasy borne from today’s overheated claims of attribution and the fanciful idea that emissions are a disaster control knob. In the lifetimes of everyone reading this and our children’s lifetimes, the attribution of changes in extreme weather to climate policy at high levels of confidence is not expected to be possible. Don’t take it from me, that’s straight from the IPCC...... (MORE - missing details)
