Originally Posted by
elcruxio
Nope. Not even close to the realm of possibility.
That deafness cure was one gene in one very specific type of cell in one small location inside the ear and the result was an increase in one type of protein. And that wasn't exactly easy.
The human genome has around 3 billion base pairs, and we don't know what most of those do. I'm almost 100% sure we don't know which genes make for good athletes or why. And even if we did, changing them would be extremely risky, because there's so many interactions between all the cell level processes. Change the wrong one and suddenly you're producing prions.
On a different website, years ag, I used to get into arguments with... let's call them "Non-Darwinians", and they would make declarations like "There are no beneficial mutations!" because of course most known mutations are deleterious. We identify deleterious mutations because they do bad thngs that cause people to go to the doctor, where they are investigated and identified
But how would you identify a beneficial mutation? It could be a mutation that reduces the chance of getting a particular cancer, or that prevents you getting hypertension, or that makes you more resistant resistant to cold viruses, or that makes you a better athlete. Nobody's going to go to the doctor because they DON'T get sick, or because they keep winning. So beneficial mutations are out there, but go unidentified. I guarantee you that everyone in the pro peloton has one or more beneficial mutations relative to the general population. It probably isn't the seme genes in everyone - you can get to the same place by different routes.
So, how could we know which gene out of 30,000 should be altered, and how to alter it - which bases to change, and to what?