Talk:Designer baby/Archive 1

Survey

I was wondering if you could all let me know your views on Designer Babies, this would come in handy for an assignment that I am doing about Designer Babies.

I suggest the movie Gatacca for a further exploration of the possible social ramifications of the designer baby movement.

What? I am writing a report on designer babies and would like to know just how much the parent can change about the baby. Can they just say blue eyes blonde haired boy or can they say a high cheek-bones strawberry blonde smokey blue eyed baby girl?

The Talk:Designer baby page exists to discuss the content of Designer baby article in order to improve it. So this may not be right place to find answers to your questions. However, the answers people provide you could be useful material to expand the article. --Loremaster 18:57, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

It is currently possible to select the gender of one's child through various means (with varying degrees of accuracy; see Sex selection), but directly engineering the embryo is not currently possible. In theory, with a complete knowledge of the human genome and the power to build it from the ground up, one could edit everything about the child, though this level of power is nowhere near possible for modern humans. As of right now, the only thing remotely similar to a designer baby is PGD

POV check

This article seems to be overtly endorsing designer babies without presenting any opposing positions.

I agree. We should use the information provided in the external links to improve and expand the article. --Loremaster 16:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

C'mon you guys--it's about a designer baby... What's so POV or NPOV about it? A designer baby is basically...what a designer baby is supposed to be. However... I'm not in favor of it simply because it isn't right.

I've removed the biased content as well as the POV check tag. However, we still need to expand the article so I added an Expand tag. --Loremaster 14:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added a little technical background information on the topic. --Oobasogie 21:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)oobasogie 14:43, 8 Aug 2006

I've replaced the Expand tag with an Improve tag. --Loremaster 22:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent contributions are making a POV check tag necessary. --Loremaster 21:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I added the recent info on DB concerns and AAAS findings as background. As the page stands now, the info generally reflects mainstream thoughts in the bioethics community regarding this technology. Oobasogie 22:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)oobasogie

Now that the article has been improved by Metamagician, I've removed the POV check tag. --Loremaster 14:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hm, now it's the opposite, now it's way to anti-Designer Baby. The only good things about it is some in the end. Should be fixed.Ran4 20:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Working on it. --Loremaster (talk) 16:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

One Point Of View

'I think that 'designer babies'seem at bit strange thinking about the fact that you may be able to choose your childs eye colour, hair colour, height, abilty to learn e.t.c. I think that this is ok to stop dieases or cure them, but I don't think it is right to be able to choose how your child looks and their personality, because it just seems not righht. Plus I think it would be boring if everybody was clever, average size e.t.c. because their would be no individuality.' Ms Stevens, GSCE Biology Student*--84.43.34.152 15:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is it looked down upon so much? People that adopt a child would look for a certain hair eye colour or gender. I don't think that the government has the right to tell people that they can't have some say. 15:33, February 19 2007 - Kritish

I think the reasons is a Brave New World style problem, in which someone might breed people to work in a factory or something of the like, of course in the Brave New World the world controllers have the people's best intrest at heart. 70.56.87.77 (talk) 02:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The Talk:Designer baby page exists to discuss the content of Designer baby article in order to improve it not personal views such as whether or not a designing babies is a good idea. --Loremaster (talk) 02:24, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

regarding POV

Despite the pejorative nature of the term "designer baby", a growing minority of social theorists consider the notion of a designer baby, once the technology is shown to be safe, to be a responsible and justifiable application of parental procreative liberty. The usage of genetic engineering (amongst other techniques) on one's children is said to be defensible as procreative beneficence, the moral obligation by parents to try and give their children the healthiest, happiest lives possible. Some futurists claim that it would put the human species on a path to participant evolution.

Without a citation, referring to a growing minority of anything is biased, so i removed that section —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.66.28.155 (talk) 01:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

I have rephrased the first sentence of the paragraph and added citations. --Loremaster (talk) 02:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Hundreds of Scottish couples are being offered a revolutionary screening service to create "designer babies"

• It is the first time such a service has been offered north of the border, and last night at least eight Scottish health boards said they would consider funding the treatment on a case-by-case basis.

--Mais oui! (talk) 09:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

And your point is? --Loremaster (talk) 16:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

I watch over 125 articles and Designer baby seems to be one that attracts the most vandalism. Why is that? And is there anything we can do about it? --Loremaster (talk) 15:57, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a move proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Designer baby → Trait selection — Whereas the term "designer baby" is pejorative, I propose that the article be renamed to "Trait selection". Bob A (talk) 07:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I strongly oppose. --Loremaster (talk) 09:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Why? Bob A (talk) 18:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Google hits: 199.125.109.102 (talk) 20:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Designer baby 428,000
  • Trait selection 27,000

That's not really relevant. Bob A (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it is. It is indicates that the word "designer baby" is popular and is used by many journalists, academics and laymen when discussing the issue of a child whose hereditary makeup would be, using various reproductive and genetic technologies, purposefully selected ("designed") to be the optimal recombination of their parents' genetic material. It therefore deserves it's own article. That being said, feel free to create and expand an article on trait selection. There is no good reason why both articles can't exist. --Loremaster (talk) 23:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

But I would suggest that the trait selection article be about plants, not humans or animals. 199.125.109.102 (talk) 00:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

That's actually a good point. "Designer baby" refers almost exclusively to humans while "trait selection" includes plants, animals and humans. That's another reason why "designer baby" should have it's own article. --Loremaster (talk) 00:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Then the name should be "Human trait selection". Trait selection shouldn't have its own article separate from that for "designer babies" because the phrase refers to the same thing. Bob A (talk) 00:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. "Designer baby" has a specific connatation that "human trait selection" doesn't have. It therefore deserves an article of it's own to discuss it. --Loremaster (talk) 00:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it tends to refer to the same thing regardless. Anyway, what connotation does it have which isn't contrary to WP:NPOV? Bob A (talk) 01:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I doesn't refer to the same thing: “designer baby” refers to a child while “human trait selection” to a technique. An article about the former allows to discuss how the word itself is used to market liberal eugenics to parents or how children might feel stigmatized because they are referred to as designer babies. --Loremaster (talk) 05:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I misspoke. They each express the same concept. It's analogous to the difference between "write" and "writing": they're both complements of the same concept. Furthermore, there's no reason for which the article can't discuss the word "designer baby" if it has a different title. Bob A (talk) 08:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Although your analogy is ridiculously poor, I actually agree with the rest of your argument. --Loremaster (talk) 10:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, a search on google indicates nothing about the proportions of usage by journalists and academics. Secondly, I believe that NPOV and other considerations take precedence over which one is more common. Furthermore, by analogy, a google search for "shit" returns 110,000,000 results, and "poop" returns 12,100,000 results, whereas "feces" returns 4,480,000 results, and "defecate" returns 1,090,000 results. Bob A (talk) 00:59, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Trait selection is a far broader term than designer baby. There are, however, 11 news stories using "designer baby", 1 using "trait selection", and none using "human trait selection". The academics, however, almost exclusively use trait selection. But they are rarely referring to designer babies. If ever. 199.125.109.126 (talk) 05:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Bob A, perhaps I didn't express myself properly. First, whether or not the number of results should be taken into consideration, unlike User:199.125.109.126, my point was more that through a google search you can find many reliable sources (mainstream journalists and academics) who use the expression "designer baby". Second, NPOV guidelines has never been and should never be interpreted as preventing colloquial, pejorative, loaded or even vulgar terms from having articles otherwise, to use your example, "shit" wouldn't have an article. As for other considerations, tell us what they are otherwise you sound like you are making stuff up. Ultimately, you have haven't made a good case so I will continue to strongly oppose this move. --Loremaster (talk) 00:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The article shit is about the word, not the phenomenon. The other considerations are that something like "trait selection" would be more accurate and more proper. Bob A (talk) 01:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:NCON seems to suggest that in descriptive names, NPOV does take precedence over which appellations are more common.

Where articles have descriptive names, the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.

For instance, a recent political controversy in the United States was nicknamed "Attorneygate" by critics of the George W. Bush administration. The article discussing the controversy is, however, at the more neutrally worded title Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. A descriptive article title should describe the subject without passing judgment, implicitly or explicitly, on the subject.

Bob A (talk) 02:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Comparing the word “designer baby” to “Attorneygate” is ridiculous. To argue that the word violates a NPOV is dubious. However, I suggest we follow the example given by articles for the colloquial word “test tube baby” and the scientific term “in vitro fertilisation”. --Loremaster (talk) 04:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand. test tube baby (disambiguation) is a disambiguation page and in vitro fertilisation is the actual article. That seems exemplar to me. Anyway, the term "designer baby" seems obviously pejorative to me. It's derived by comparison with "designer clothing", and consequently carries with it all of the negative connotations of that word. It essentially implies that parents who use these technologies aren't primarily concerned with their children's well-being. Bob A (talk) 08:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

What's hard to understand? It's a compromise you should be happy about. That being said, according to Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations (ActionBioscience): “In 2004 the term “designer baby” made the transition from sci-fi movies and weblogs into the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as “a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.” This coinage was prompted by recent advances in genetics that may make such babies possible.” Hmmm...--Loremaster (talk) 09:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Loremaster, why did you move the page to Designer baby (disambiguation) when it isn't a disambiguation page? Bob A (talk) 19:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for the confusion. Last night I was using a computer whose malfunctioning web browser was preventing me from editing the article properly. Now that I am on a different computer I've deleted content in the article in order to downsize it to a disambiguation page. It's up to you now to create an article for human trait selection. --Loremaster (talk) 22:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

You're doing it wrongly. In order to preserve the history, the article should be moved using the move function. I'm moving it back for now. Bob A (talk) 01:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Uh... that's what I did! I'm moving it back again. Let's discuss and resolve this here to avoid a “move war”. --Loremaster (talk) 06:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

What I meant was that one shouldn't move pages by copying and pasting. Why do you want to reduce this article to a disambiguation page and start a new one from nothing? Bob A (talk) 06:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't copy and paste anything. I used the Move option the first and second time. Now feel free to go into history to copy and paste the content (which is riddled with the word “designer baby”) you think is useful for the human trait selection article. --Loremaster (talk) 06:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

That shouldn't be done because it destroys the history. Why do you want to reduce this article to a disambiguation page rather than move it to the new name and perhaps make a disambiguation page at the old one? Bob A (talk) 07:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Because if we change the title and focus of the Designer baby article to human trait selection, it will have to be completely rewritten. Regardless, can you please just do the move yourself and re-write the article accordingly so we can get this over with? --Loremaster (talk) 15:21, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• For one thing this article can not be moved to "Trait selection", because that is a much broader topic than "Human trait selection", and it really shouldn't be moved at all, in my opinion. I would suggest starting a new article, Human trait selection, as suggested above. 199.125.109.88 (talk) 20:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There's not currently an article about "trait selection", so I don't think it's a problem. Bob A (talk) 20:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, there's not really any need for this article. The articles on Preimplantation genetic diagnosis and Human genetic engineering are much more developed and cover the same topic. This article could even be seen as a POV fork. Bob A (talk) 21:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Bob has seen the light. ;) --Loremaster (talk) 22:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Suggested Edit

This statement "Lastly, humans have never experienced the effects of genetic structure alteration." is simply not true. Humans experience genetic structure changes every day. That is to say that we are constantly experiencing mutations. Unless this is suggesting that people who are pro-designer baby seek to convert genetic transition to a molecule that is not DNA (which, if true, would need a citation)this phrase needs to be reworded, clarified, or removed. --DFM III