Genetically-engineered jocks

[omelissokomos]

Gene Doping

Should gene enhancement, or doping, be permissible for athletes attempting to improve their performance? And if not, how can it be prevented?

Read all about it...

[nnnrg]

So what's the great and special virtue in having an accidental genetic combination that gives you good potential for a sport, as opposed to having deliberately used gene-mod therapy to improve that potential?

The effort and training are still going to be required, to achieve championship results, even if the baseline of performance rises due to artificial techniques.

After all, having a personal trainer was scandalous in the 1920s. Take a look at the movie "Chariots of Fire" sometime.

[Lucan]

enhancing etc... yes, but I would like to see more research, and need more studiies, as with steroid now to see the advancement test, studies have may it a more thought of using then the older days of no thought or a game plan. I wonder just how the gene, dna will place a bodybuilder's muscle shape? and the effects on the body, or mind, itself. As for testing bbers for the use should be easyier than with steroids but to myself I have always been to have contest for user and non-users. Just the way I look at it.

[Sporty_guy]

Originally Posted by nnnrg

The effort and training are still going to be required, to achieve championship results, even if the baseline of performance rises due to artificial techniques.

Though the article did say that even the mice that did very little physical activity gained muscle and strength..
And then there's the monkeys.. That was disturbing..

SG

I think the controversy hinges around the concept of the word "sport". The ancient Greeks had their professional atheletes who had acquired fame and wealth by beating mens brains out onto the arena floor. The modern world has based an entire huge segment of the economy on sports. Being a professional is not about fair play and brotherhood now any more than it was in Greece

Sports is big business. Big business plays to win. Sport has very little to do with it. This is going to happen. I suggest that atheletes interested in professional sports be made fully aware of the risks of gene enhancement and if they want to take that risk I say go for it. It's their choice.

However, the penalties against the industry for subjecting unwilling or uninformed players to drugs or techniques that they haven't legally agreed to should be enormous (in keeping with the enormous profits the business makes), to try to keep this behavior sane. The medical side of it should be performed and monitored by professionals. The results (failures as well as successes) should be published to try to keep the behavior sane. Legalize it & control it, to try to keep it sane.

I say divide the sports world into users and non-users. We all like our "bread and circuses" but how many of us would really pursue becoming a gladiator?

[ethernet_jock]

My $0.02.... listen to it or ignore it, I don't care...

This topic disgusts me. Chemical or Gene "enhancements" are incredibly expensive and only offered in the best of first-world nation concepts. Where's the true competitive spirit in that? I guess I still believe in the purity of competition and natural growth and excellence through hard work, not money.

While I realize that you're right, LG - about the TRUE nature of sport and that it really IS all about money.... can't we at least pretend it isn't and keep it as close as possible to real excellence? How much would the summer olympics suck if the US always won every single competition? boooooriiiiinnng. How lame would it be if it was always the richest of high schools and colleges that had the MOST oversized athelets that won EVERY single game (I mean, they already win most of them just by attracting the right players, but still...)?

I see kids aged 5 being pushed by their rich and self-serving parents to do everything to enhance their body and not really ever having a choice in what they really want to do in life or a chance to develop their creative or thinking skills. The next Einstein with the cure for AIDS in his head could be trapped in an NFL career because it's what his daddy thought he ought to do when he was 6. Hrm....

I just... ugh.... this frustrates and disgusts me. Just my opinion....

-Chris

[Sporty_guy]

Well said.

SG