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On 23/05/2020 14:38, John K Clark wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:mailman.8.1590241089.23343.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span
style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Sat, May
23, 2020 at 5:22 AM Ben via extropy-chat <<a
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>>
wrote:</span><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div><i> <span class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>This
is why no-one has made more than trivial progress with
genetic engineering to produce novel features. People talk
excitedly about using CRISPR to give people things like an
extra thumb, or extend our vision into the ultraviolet. We
have no clue how to do things like this,</i></div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style=""><font size="4">Well, we know
how to make macro changes in fruit flies, such as sprouting
antennas from their eyes, and to make flies that have no
eyes at all, and to make a extra pair of legs grow out of
the head. Fruit flies have 14,000 genes while humans only
have slightly more, 24,000.</font></div>
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<br>
I think it's more accurate to say that we stumbled upon how to do
these things through experimentation (why would anyone set out to
deliberately do the things you described? They're not exactly
obvious goals). I'm fairly certain that if you asked a fruit fly
genetic researcher how to give them tentacles, they'd be stumped.
We're still at the stage of breaking things to see what happens.
Designing new features from scratch is a completely different
proposition.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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