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jdunlop
jdunlop
00:10
What Robin said, yeah.
Also, it is hard to the point of incredulity (this is where the 'magic genetics' term came in) to confer immunity to pathogens without producing detrimental effects for the organism. There's an evolutionary adaptation that provides limited protection against malaria in humans, and malaria is a famously wily little pathogen. The adaptation, when partially expressed, makes it difficult for malaria to get into blood cells. When fully expressed, it's sickle cell anemia.
Obviously DNA does things. Equally obviously, with millions of years of red-in-tooth-and-claw evolution, there are still pathogens. Similarly, there are obvious trade-offs to be had in terms of animal properties. Even assuming you could dial up whatever traits you want, there are going to be detrimental effects. Could you make a better horse? Probably. Can you make a megafauna have regenerative properties that don't give it thousands of cancers? ... less likely.
 
5 hours later…
Demigan
Demigan
05:13
@RobinSaunders you seem to pretend that I said i would give complete immunity. I am saying that it would seriously cut down the amount of diseases, and that using a database with diseases to build into the horses you can cut that down even further as the horses would have their immune system already primed against common diseases.
This immunity would severely impact the ability for viruses to evolve and how many can do that as there is simply far less virus population to do so. Pretending that I make a strawman will pursuade others, but is not the way this site should work.
@jdunlop you might not have realized but I already used cut-down versions of real world animal properties. Such as rather than just self-amputating an entire leg it makes the act of amputation much easier. Additionally you could use chimera and vanishing twin mechanics to introduce multiple DNA sets into one body, allowing for multiple bodyplan sets to exist.
Would it be a nightmare to figure out what goes where and how to properly control function, placement, form and capabilities? Yes! But that is not what the OP is asking.
 
10 hours later…
Robin Saunders
Robin Saunders
15:20
I think there has been some miscommunication. I accept responsibility and apologize for my part in that, and will try to be more specific.

My comment about a strawman was referring to the second half of your previous message, where you wrote "To deny that [genetic engineering could transfer arbitrary abilities between animals] you might as well claim that a change in DNA is meaningless and that mutations do not exist", followed by things like "It must have been a magic dude in the sky, DNA does nothing!" and then implicitly accused me of "magic thinking" and "I'm against it so it can't be …

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