'Designer babies' yay or nay?

To those who doesn't know what this is, it's scientist had found a way to boost odds on genetic traits, certain facial features, lengthening the lifespan of the child, give powerful immune system, more athletic, better muscle development.

Most article I found were articles attacking the idea. Here's one:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/10/04/3862326.htm

My argument and a bit of a rant:

If you happened to think this is wrong, I think you, and many like you, are in some sort of misplaced denial. You've deadlocked your feeling on subject that doesn't come near to being relevant to the good the Designer baby program could bring. By kicking this to the curb, potential progress on the program's capacity to improve and perhaps remove all genetically linked diseases would be put on hold.

My argument on the other topic, the natural selection, would be, in a few years, when both are at equal footing in comparison, one would be deemed as cruelty and one would not.

And to those that argued by saying "It's not natural." Well, maybe you should be cycle back in the natural pool of randomness, see if this time you would come out unbroken. And you sound broken anyway, you should be cycle back and see what nature have planned for you this time around.

Ah, I remember hearing from a few futurists how parents will be able to modify some of the genetic characteristics of their offspring. I just didn't think it would be this much of a problem this soon.

From what I'm hearing, I don't think something like this will be available to the general public in a long time. But the idea of enhancing a baby to become more athletic gives me hope of a real-life Captain America happening soon.

This movie might have inspired a lot of people's fear on the subject, but I doubt it, the movie was pretty obscure.

Nay, verily.

Yay, in a forum about 'super'heroes and enhanced humans 'nay' would be counterproductive

Nay.

This

@jokertheshining: c'mon man, this is WAAAAY messed up. God created genetic diversity so that every human creature could see His Might and Wisdom, why mess with what God is choosing to do?

Easy yay.

No. What happened to "everyone is born special"? What if the parents make the kid athletic but he wants to be smart?

@ltlredwulf: By that logic God also invented a plethora of infectious diseases and we never should have created penicillin as it's messing with "what God is choosing to do" in you own words.

It seems like being able to make sure the children would be healthy before they were born would be a nice idea, but I don't know if customising them with your favourite eye/hair colours and facial features would be a good idea.

Not everyone believes in a god, so not everyone would see this as messing with a choice.

Wow..just wow. And to think there are many like you. There just has to be misery. If someone find a way to take it away, it always somehow tread onto some rules in your book, isn't that weird? (Think abortion.)

Maybe the ideals you worship are actually religiously solidifying Hell on earth? Imagine that, wouldn't that make you in the league with Lucifer?

@supernategames: Go to school and read books, like the good ol' days.

@ jokertheshining: @v_scarlotte_rose: @totalbalance: God did not create anything evil, man's free will to sin brought that upon himself. But God gave man the knowledge to create penicillin and other medicines. This is not medicine, it is messing with a creature made to God's Image.

I really have to pity those who don't believe in God. For them I have three questions:

1) what happens after death? Does one cease to exist?

2) What proof do you have that He does not exist?

3) besides the THEORY of evolution, how can the creation of life be explained?

:D

Yay only for disease, nay in every other regard, anyone who wants to customize their baby were unfortunately born too early for this to to fix their mental disease first.

They'd have to be really sure there's no side effects if they'd want it near my children.

Where's dat scan
...hmmm...wait there it is

I honestly feel I am wasting my time with this, but on the off chance you will see reason I will answer your questions anyway.

1) I personally believe that you cease to exist, thought and conscience are the product of electro-chemical interactions in your brain. When said interactions cease, you as a living thinking being cease to exist, your body continues to stay around until it decomposes though. But essentially yes, when you die, your dead, end of story.

2) Ignoring the fact that all common sense dictates one must give proof to the existence of something to confirm its existence, not disprove something to confirm it doesn't exist. By that logic I can say there is a tiny world too small to see or detect by any method that is populated with incredibly intelligent purple hippos with mustaches and then ask you to prove to me it doesn't exist, which you can't do since there is no way for you to gather any evidence of its non-existence since the very premise is not testable, the primary difference of science and religion is that science is testable. The God of the bible who intervenes in human affairs however doesn't exist as his biblical feats such as bringing plagues upon Egypt and freeing the Jews have been shown by archaeology to never have happened, so those events are simply lies. Disproving a deistic non-intervening god isn't possible since he doesn't leave any evidence of his existence leaving it as an un-testable premise, although a deistic god is rather pointless as he wouldn't do anything making his existence irrelevant anyway.

3) You are mistaking the theory of evolution for the study of Abiogenesis which is the study of how life originally came about, Abiogenesis is still a field filled with hot debate as we have not fully determined the original cause of life, although various radiation and chemical interactions seem to be the most likely from what research we have done.

Yay!!!!

I was going to mention Gattaca but it looks like i've been beaten to it

Yay.

@totalbalance:

They copied my idea to make an army of super soldiers

Oh, f*** no.

Nay. It's relatable to circumcision. I think we're better off leaving it to genetics and chance.

Nay.

Yay, I would have loved it if my parents could manipulate me to be born with a punk ass afro, or awesome abs........

Yay. It just sounds like the pros outweighs the cons by a landslide. What's the worst that could happen?

NO! JUST BECAUSE YOURE MY PARENTS DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO DICTATE WHAT I SHOULD BE AND/OR WANT. ITS MY LIFE, NOT YOURS. YOU ARE SO SELFISH!!

But seriously no

WHAT THE FRAG HAPPENED TO LOVING YOUR KIDS UNCONDITIONALLY?? WHAT IF I DONT WANT TO PLAY SPORTS??

My daddy taped episodes of Ben 10 for me rather than watch his favorite fishing show despite the fact that he doesn't care for cartoons and you know what? That's true love.

Don't know. I mean if a child is going to be born with a certain disease wouldn't it be right to prevent that? To save them a whole lot pain.

I can agree with the health aspect of it, but the superficial stuff? No thanks.

Whoever knows anything about genetics knows that these kind of approach would only very slightly decrease the likelyhood of unfortunate events, but it would be far from accurate.

By the way, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to play in favor of healty alleles (I mean for the ones linked to the onset of partly or completely ereditary illnesses). The rest would be pretty dumb to spend money on.