I appreciate the comment. I think many academically inclined follks probably have similar views to yours. Let me explain my thinking here:
What troubles me most is how little attention is paid to emotional attachment, which is arguably the cornerstone of healthy development. This reads more like a plan for growing babies in vitro than raising actual children.
If I were to go into the ins and outs of emotional attachment, this already long post would have been at least twice the length. And seeing as I am not an expert in the area, I hardly think it would have been useful to the average reader.
Of course emotional attachment is important. It’s one of the most important things for happy, healthy childhood development.
But there are many good books on that topic and I don’t think everyone who writes about any aspect of childhood or babies needs to include a section on the topic. If you think there are good resources people here should read, please post them!
You can’t predict or engineer how a baby will turn out.
It’s certainly true you can’t predict EXACTLY how a baby will turn out, but you CAN influence predispositions. In fact, most of parenting is about exactly this! How to change your child’s environment to influence the kinds of things they do and the sort of person they become.
Honest question: do you have kids?
Sadly I do not have kids yet! I hope to have them in the next few years.
Also, much of the terminology you use feels superficial or misapplied. Science and education aren’t just about memorizing buzzwords – they require deep understanding, and that takes time, context, and mentorship.
I don’t see how this is at odds with genetic engineering.
I’m a medical doctor, and what strikes me again and again is how people assume that complex systems – like human beings – can be “figured out” with enough reading or clever design
I think it’s fair to say that the entire field of medicine is one big attempt to do exactly this. I don’t see how gene editing differs from what we try to do with drugs.
(e.g. hypertension isn’t caused by a single gene)
Where exactly did I say this?
But did it ever occur to you that these ‘optimized’ new people might come with new problems and diseases? Biology tends to work like that: you push on one part, something else breaks.
Yes, I have in fact considered this. There are several different ways to assess how big of a problem this could be:
You can look at genetic correlations between different diseases to see if there’s some kind of tradeoff. When we do this we see that the correlations are generally (though not universally) weak, and when they do exist, they actually tend to work in your favor, meaning decreasing the risk of one disease is more likely than not to result in a tiny reduction of others.
You can just look directly at people who have low genetic predispositions to various diseases and see if they have any issues at different rates from the general population. And the answer here again is generally “no”.
Together these imply that it should in fact be possible to significantly improve health, intelligence, and other aspects of what makes life good without necessarily making that many difficult tradeoffs.
Also, just based on what we know about evolution it shouldn’t actually surprise us that much that we can increase overall performance, especially when there has been as big of a shift in the environment as what we’ve experienced in the last few hundred years.
It would be nice if your critique actually addressed some specific concrete issues you have with the post or its ideas. The one specific example you gave (me thinking hypertension is caused by one gene) isn’t even something I said. I’m not even sure where you’re getting that idea from.
Thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate your willingness to engage in dialogue.
To clarify: I didn’t mean to imply that you literally stated hypertension is caused by a single gene – rather, I was pointing to a broader pattern I noticed in your post, where complex traits seemed to be discussed in a somewhat reductionistway. That might not have been your intent, but that’s how it came across to me as a physician who deals with multifactorial conditions daily.
I also understand that emotional attachment wasn’t your focus – fair enough. Still, I think omitting it entirely risks presenting a view of childhood development that’s skewed towards instrumental or mechanistic thinking. For people unfamiliar with the developmental literature, that can unintentionally reinforce the idea that kids are optimization projects rather than human beings growing in relational contexts. If that wasn’t your goal, I’d just gently suggest flagging this limitation more clearly.
On the topic of predictability and engineering – sure, we can influence predispositions, but the point I was trying to make is epistemological: the level of uncertainty and interdependence in human development makes the engineering metaphor fragile. Medicine, to your point, does aim to “figure out” complex systems – but it’s also deeply aware of its limitations, unintended consequences, and historical hubris. That humility didn’t come through strongly in your piece, at least to me.
You clearly put a lot of thought into the genetic correlations and tradeoffs, and I don’t doubt your reasoning there. But I do wonder: do we really know enough about gene–environment interactions to be confident in the long-term effects of shifting polygenic profiles at scale? Especially given how much of our current “environment” is in flux, including things like diet, social structures, and digital exposure? These aren’t rhetorical questions – just areas where I think caution is warranted.
Again, I don’t mean this as a takedown – your post made me think, and that’s valuable. I just wanted to voice a perspective from someone who works directly with real human variability every day, where even “favorable” traits often come bundled with unexpected downsides.
On the topic of predictability and engineering – sure, we can influence predispositions, but the point I was trying to make is epistemological: the level of uncertainty and interdependence in human development makes the engineering metaphor fragile. Medicine, to your point, does aim to “figure out” complex systems – but it’s also deeply aware of its limitations, unintended consequences, and historical hubris. That humility didn’t come through strongly in your piece, at least to me.
Perhaps so. But the default assumption, seemingly made by just about everyone, is that there is nothing we can do about any of this stuff.
And that’s just wrong. The human genome is not a hopeless complex web of entangled interactions. Most of the variance in common traits is linear in nature, meaning we can come up with reasonably accurate predictions of traits by simply adding up the effects of all the genes involved. And thus by extension, if we could flip enough of these genes, we could actually change people’s genetic predisposition.
Furthermore, nature has given us the best dataset ever in genetics, which is billions of siblings that act as literal randomized control trials for the effect of genes on life outcomes.
If I felt that the world was suffering from excess genetic engineering hubris, then I might be more cautious in my language. But that is not in fact what is happening! What is happening is humanity is being far too cautious, mostly because they hold a lot of false assumptions about how complex the genome is.
We have this insane situation in reproductive genetics right now where tens of thousands of children are being born every year with much higher genetic predispositions towards disease than they should have because doctors don’t understand polygenic risk scores and would rather implant embryos that look nice under a microscope.
do we really know enough about gene–environment interactions to be confident in the long-term effects of shifting polygenic profiles at scale?
It depends what your standard is: if the bar we need to meet is “we can’t make any changes that might result in unpredictable effects”, then of course we can’t be confident.
But if the bar is “we know enough to say with high confidence improve the life of the child”, then we are already there for small changes, and can get there relatively soon for much larger ones.
Hi Nabokos,
I appreciate the comment. I think many academically inclined follks probably have similar views to yours. Let me explain my thinking here:
If I were to go into the ins and outs of emotional attachment, this already long post would have been at least twice the length. And seeing as I am not an expert in the area, I hardly think it would have been useful to the average reader.
Of course emotional attachment is important. It’s one of the most important things for happy, healthy childhood development.
But there are many good books on that topic and I don’t think everyone who writes about any aspect of childhood or babies needs to include a section on the topic. If you think there are good resources people here should read, please post them!
It’s certainly true you can’t predict EXACTLY how a baby will turn out, but you CAN influence predispositions. In fact, most of parenting is about exactly this! How to change your child’s environment to influence the kinds of things they do and the sort of person they become.
Sadly I do not have kids yet! I hope to have them in the next few years.
I don’t see how this is at odds with genetic engineering.
I think it’s fair to say that the entire field of medicine is one big attempt to do exactly this. I don’t see how gene editing differs from what we try to do with drugs.
Where exactly did I say this?
Yes, I have in fact considered this. There are several different ways to assess how big of a problem this could be:
You can look at genetic correlations between different diseases to see if there’s some kind of tradeoff. When we do this we see that the correlations are generally (though not universally) weak, and when they do exist, they actually tend to work in your favor, meaning decreasing the risk of one disease is more likely than not to result in a tiny reduction of others.
You can just look directly at people who have low genetic predispositions to various diseases and see if they have any issues at different rates from the general population. And the answer here again is generally “no”.
Together these imply that it should in fact be possible to significantly improve health, intelligence, and other aspects of what makes life good without necessarily making that many difficult tradeoffs.
Also, just based on what we know about evolution it shouldn’t actually surprise us that much that we can increase overall performance, especially when there has been as big of a shift in the environment as what we’ve experienced in the last few hundred years.
It would be nice if your critique actually addressed some specific concrete issues you have with the post or its ideas. The one specific example you gave (me thinking hypertension is caused by one gene) isn’t even something I said. I’m not even sure where you’re getting that idea from.
Thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate your willingness to engage in dialogue.
To clarify: I didn’t mean to imply that you literally stated hypertension is caused by a single gene – rather, I was pointing to a broader pattern I noticed in your post, where complex traits seemed to be discussed in a somewhat reductionist way. That might not have been your intent, but that’s how it came across to me as a physician who deals with multifactorial conditions daily.
I also understand that emotional attachment wasn’t your focus – fair enough. Still, I think omitting it entirely risks presenting a view of childhood development that’s skewed towards instrumental or mechanistic thinking. For people unfamiliar with the developmental literature, that can unintentionally reinforce the idea that kids are optimization projects rather than human beings growing in relational contexts. If that wasn’t your goal, I’d just gently suggest flagging this limitation more clearly.
On the topic of predictability and engineering – sure, we can influence predispositions, but the point I was trying to make is epistemological: the level of uncertainty and interdependence in human development makes the engineering metaphor fragile. Medicine, to your point, does aim to “figure out” complex systems – but it’s also deeply aware of its limitations, unintended consequences, and historical hubris. That humility didn’t come through strongly in your piece, at least to me.
You clearly put a lot of thought into the genetic correlations and tradeoffs, and I don’t doubt your reasoning there. But I do wonder: do we really know enough about gene–environment interactions to be confident in the long-term effects of shifting polygenic profiles at scale? Especially given how much of our current “environment” is in flux, including things like diet, social structures, and digital exposure? These aren’t rhetorical questions – just areas where I think caution is warranted.
Again, I don’t mean this as a takedown – your post made me think, and that’s valuable. I just wanted to voice a perspective from someone who works directly with real human variability every day, where even “favorable” traits often come bundled with unexpected downsides.
Perhaps so. But the default assumption, seemingly made by just about everyone, is that there is nothing we can do about any of this stuff.
And that’s just wrong. The human genome is not a hopeless complex web of entangled interactions. Most of the variance in common traits is linear in nature, meaning we can come up with reasonably accurate predictions of traits by simply adding up the effects of all the genes involved. And thus by extension, if we could flip enough of these genes, we could actually change people’s genetic predisposition.
Furthermore, nature has given us the best dataset ever in genetics, which is billions of siblings that act as literal randomized control trials for the effect of genes on life outcomes.
If I felt that the world was suffering from excess genetic engineering hubris, then I might be more cautious in my language. But that is not in fact what is happening! What is happening is humanity is being far too cautious, mostly because they hold a lot of false assumptions about how complex the genome is.
We have this insane situation in reproductive genetics right now where tens of thousands of children are being born every year with much higher genetic predispositions towards disease than they should have because doctors don’t understand polygenic risk scores and would rather implant embryos that look nice under a microscope.
It depends what your standard is: if the bar we need to meet is “we can’t make any changes that might result in unpredictable effects”, then of course we can’t be confident.
But if the bar is “we know enough to say with high confidence improve the life of the child”, then we are already there for small changes, and can get there relatively soon for much larger ones.