I hesitate to appeal to future technologies to solve problems, but perhaps we will soon be able to simulate enough of the human genome and cellular functions that, in addition to in vitro work and animal models, actually introducing mutations into living humans will be unnecessary.

I think the scale is much different. Torturing terrorists(which I strongly do not support) is not being done to save the species from going extinct.

If I had to pick between some terrorists being tortured and everyone being wiped out, I would pick for the terrorist to be tortured. Although, this hypothetical scenario is nothing like the current situation.

Whether the survival of many is worth more than the suffering of one is a debate that goes on in the case of torturing suspected terrorists for information about terror plots. There is far from a consensus view there, so I doubt there will be one here.

People are selfish and are probably going to want their children to be designed with optimum genes. It might be pretty hard to find people who are willing to volunteer to design their children with mutations.

It would have to be some kind of mandated policy for commonly used genes to have mutations. If people understood the risks involved with everyone having identical genes, it’s possible society would willingly vote for such a policy.

Would it be ethical to allow people to be designed sub par?

If all individuals are weighted with equal importance, then I think the answer is yes. The survival of the species is more important than a few individuals.

Creating mutations would be less risky than reproducing sexually. Mutations that we are certain would completely prevent the individual from functioning could be prevented. Such mutations wouldn’t provide any survival benefit.

Still, I don’t see how you could justify causing likely harm to an individual for the possible benefit of the human race. At least, not against their will – I suppose it would be perfectly acceptable if the person consented, as a ‘likely harm for possible benefit’ sounds very much like most medical trials I’ve seen.

I think it would be true in many instances. There are many cellular processes that need to perform the exact same function in most of the animal kingdome

In your example, a purple haired energy efficient child would want almost all of the same optimum genes as a lethargic child. A chicken would even want some of the same optimum genes.

Attributes like hair colour, body weight, sexuality, proclivity to sports – all of these are attributes where people will hardly ever agree on the best choice. So, some people will have children with purple hair, some will have asexual children, some will have small but energy-efficient children and some will have lethargic (but still healthy) children.

It is only in the case of the former attributes where I fear deliberately enforcing variation (meaning, sub-optimum performance) is morally questionable, and such a requirement is unlikely to be needed for the latter attributes.

The mysterious nature of science fascinates the scientist but terrifies the common public. Every invention is mistrusted when launched. That is what is happening with cloning. People are afraid of creating a Frankenstein.

Personally I feel that cloning individuals shouldn’t be approved easily.
The only reason I’d vote for cloning would be related to species that are going extinct.

By the way we have discussed the importance of genetic engineering in plants, in the post Organic Farming + Genetic Engineering = The New Organic?

However, most biological processes are the same whether you are a mouse or a human. Take the krebs cycle for example. If you are an organism that breathes oxygen, you are probably going to want this process optimized in the same way. The krebs cycle isn’t the only process that falls into this category, over half our genes match up with similar genes in most animals.

This leaves us with two options:

1.Optimize these processes for everyone. This hurts diversity, and might make us very vulnerable to things like proviruses.
2.Create Mutations.

I didn’t know they were keeping tabs on unusual crop seeds. That’s very interesting! I agree that something similar should be done for us. In a way I guess NCBI is already stepping into this role.

By the way… You have an interesting website!