Great news, our species is going extinct and genetic entropy just trumped evolution

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Originally Posted by Rollo

1. You should care because with these defects, a new trial facing our species in the way of disease or environmental change could exploit an unknown weakness or engage a chain reaction within the cellular factories in our bodies we may have been otherwise immune to.
We've mapped the human genome, we've decoded a little over 5% of it.
And since every gene handles multiple functions and all are interdependent, ANY flaw is bad news.

You haven't convinced me that at this moment some colossal genetic domino effect is somehow going to strike my body. Likely, one's own family history of congenital disease is the best indicator, and my family's health is generally pretty good.

Environmental change is a different topic. If a global epidemic breaks and I'm not immune, or there is simply no food to eat, there's very little I can do about it. Not genetically at least.

Again, 'species' is just a semantic fiction. There's no inherent reason for the individual to care about the 'species', its just ideology. Explain to me why the survival of 'humanity' is inherently a desirable thing. I'm not saying it categorically isn't, but I'm not convinced enough yet to give a shit.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

2. We aren't fine, we're damaged.
To not fix it would be retarded because even if it doesn't end me or my kids or my grandkids, saving the species I think should be chief concern.
What other species would be so dumb as to not save it's own ass? lol

Every organism has some deleterious trait, every organism can be considered 'damaged' depending on the environment it finds itself in. We're not perfect, we're never going to be but I do agree that human technological and social development has likely increased the frequency of useless or deleterious genes.

To answer your last question. Every single species that has ever existed. But again, 'species' is just a semantic concept. No organism ever considers itself as part of a species and 99.999999% of 'species' that have ever existed have gone extinct.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rollo

3. You would want the original whole and in tact, because no one knows exactly how our cellular array should look. There may be giant pieces of the puzzle missing this study and modern science is simply oblivious to and hasn't seen before.

But what is the original? There are populations of many human individuals AND there populations and configurations throughout time. There is no fine line between what was human and what was not, nor is there a 'cellular array' of how we 'should' look based on a perfect individual. We look exactly how we should look based upon our natural history. Again, there is no such thing as perfection (except in an extinct species).

What is healthy for a population is genetic diversity.

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Originally Posted by Rollo

At any rate, I still don't see how we can fix this.
That is short of artificial selection, breeding non defect humans and not allowing ourselves to reproduce.
Which is a bummer :(

I still think with all the advances of biogenetics the solution would be artificially stimulated genetic diversity. There would be alot of failures, but the point is if the gene pool is diverse the species can withstand a variety of threats.

But yeah, the ride had to come to end some time. One way or another, or for whichever reason, human beings are going to force themselves, or be forced, to drastically reduce their population.

Disease, war, famine, selective breeding, genetic entropy, take your pick.

Personally, I find in an exciting time in history to live. Since humanity called itself 'humanity' , there has been a steady growth in population, and a fairly steady increase in knowledge and technology. We now live at a time where this has peaked and there is a likelihood that it will crash.

It is the first test of human consciousness.