[mayanksinghal]

> Humans suck at predicting stuff.

But surely humans beat randomness at many if not most tasks. This argument is not as much about whether we get sharper teeth or not, as it is about possibly saving a kid about a genetically inherited disorder. You may consider human suffering to be what defines humanity, but those who suffer most certainly don't.

[crpatino]

The article explicitly mention that this is not the case. If anything, it poses the question of how much genetic engineering is too much.

And about betting randomness... I recall sometime reading about this certain ethnic group, which is taboo to single out and which has a disproportionate amount of Nobel prize winners (amongst other interesting features). The work describe how this people had both, compared to baseline population, higher than average IQ and higher than average propensity to some rare autoimmune disease that affects the brain. It turns out they had a higher incidence of several genetic mutations that each individually made you smarter (thus adaptive), but when found in the same individual made him sick.

Now, extrapolate this to a bunch of helicopter parents, micromanaging optimization to this or that characteristics in their own kids genotype. To me it sounds to much like a bunch of script kiddies merging commits to an arcane, critical, undocumented legacy system.

[Ygg2]

Good point, but evolution works on larger timescale. Are we any good at building bridges that can last more than millenia? How about two? How about twenty five?

I'm just saying humans tend to optimize for the short term.

Suffering is essential because without suffering, there is no empathy.

I'm reminded of the episode http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Masterpiece_Society_%28e... in which a technology created to help blind, helps crew to save the society, which couldn't conceive it because it was too perfect.