[taneq]

Species go extinct all the time, and the world doesn't end. Wiping out one species deliberately will probably not be a disaster. Letting mosquitoes continue to exist is just as likely to "bring along with it an endless string of unforeseen consequences, one that could possibly be worse for humans than the problems we have now" as not doing so.

On the other hand, we should probably do some due diligence before deciding to embark on a mosquitocide, just to try and swing the odds in our favour.

[soft_dev_person]

I think the "how" is more important. Genetic modification sounds awesome, and really dangerous. If it's not just right, or if the potential of unforeseen mutations occurring is above zero, I think we risk too much regardless of the benefits.

I.e. please be completely certain that the GM offspring mating with female individuals will not result in some other side effect...

[ghshephard]

Other than movies, do we have any evidence that "GM offspring" (whatever that means, turns out defining "GM" is not as straightforward as one might suspect), are, in any way more likely to be dangerous than plain, vanilla, two-mosquitoes having babies offspring?

Because, here's the thing - we do know the implications of letting these mosquitoes live. 100s of thousands of people a year die. Every Year.

[soft_dev_person]

Do we have any evidence that it won't?

If you believe the Monsanto GM corn documentaries, releasing GM into the wild may have bad effects (intended or otherwise) outside the designated population. Plants are obviously not the same as insects, but I would prefer to err on the safe(r) side.

Edit: Also, a known bad is often better than an unknown.

[ghshephard]

The known bad is hundreds of thousands of people dying every year. It's pretty hard to conceive of how a laboratory tested solution which kills/slows down mosquitoes could be any worse than that, particularly when all sorts of genetic modifications are occurring by the billions in nature every single day without any testing/verification.

You know what would turn around everyone's attitude in about 7 days flat (probably fewer) - have those hundreds of thousands of people dying a year be white, rich, Americans. Every conceivable solution to wipe out the mosquitos would be developed, and rolled out with zero debate (and I mean zero - there wouldn't be a single naysayer of any merit)

[marcosdumay]

There are miles of difference between altering an organism so it'll survive better against predators or poisons, and altering an organism so it won't reproduce.

People shooting any GM advance on the same basket as if every change was the same irks me. It's similar to talk about how computer malware is harmful, thus you must never install anything on your PC.

[StavrosK]

> if the potential of unforeseen mutations occurring is above zero

The potential of unforeseen mutations occurring is 100%, GM or no. How do you think species evolve?

[soft_dev_person]

I guess you just confirmed my point.

[StavrosK]

If your point is "genetic modification is no more dangerous than normally-occurring mutations", then I did.

[noir_lord]

If it goes wrong and they end up breeding super bloodsuckers, worst case we put them all through the bar exam ;).

[ascorbic]

"Regardless of benefits"? If they were killing hundreds of thousands of people every year in the US and Europe, would you feel the same? There's a risk associated with eradicating anything, but here the risk/reward balance is a little different than otherwise. It's worth a bit of risk to destroy the number one killer of humans worldwide.

[digital_ins]

We definitely should. I'm sure there are factors in the ecosystem that rely (but maybe not depend) on mosquito presence.

That's why I love the idea of being able to genetically modify them to produce only male offspring. It provides a nice, asymptotic curve way of culling the population without dramatically changing their ecosystem overnight

[taneq]

Yeah, even if there are no obligate mosquivores, we're perturbing a chaotic system, which is defined by sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Any action we take (including none at all) is going to have some arbitrarily large (or small) effect on the future state of the system.

If it works exactly as described, the 'only male offspring' modification should be nice and side-effect-free. But then, evolution is a big-numbers statistical game. Who knows what interesting variations we'll see..

[digital_ins]

it's quite possible that mosquitoes that don't require a male to procreate will take dominance. I think there are wasps like that...

[taneq]

True, species with heterogametic females (such as some reptiles) will revert to parthogenesis if no male is available. If mosquitoes are like that (are they?) then that could lead to all sorts of interesting consequences after a dedicated push to release infertile males.