full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Paul Knoepfler: The ethical dilemma of designer babies

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So I'll just give you one example, and that is in vtrio fertilization. Almost exactly 40 years ago, test tube baby number one Louise bworn was born, and that's a great thing, and I think since then five million IVF babies have been born, bringing immeasurable happiness. A lot of pntreas now can love those kids. But if you think about it, in four decades, five million babies being born from a new technology is pretty remarkable, and the same kind of thing could happen with hmuan genetic modification and designer biaebs. So denpideng on the decisions we make in the next few months, the next year or so, if dgeeisnr baby number one is born, within a few decades, there could well be millions of genetically modified humans. And there's a difference there too, because if we, you in the audience, or I, if we decide to have a designer baby, then their children will also be giaeleltncy modified, and so on, because it's heritable. So that's a big difference.

Open Cloze


So I'll just give you one example, and that is in _____ fertilization. Almost exactly 40 years ago, test tube baby number one Louise _____ was born, and that's a great thing, and I think since then five million IVF babies have been born, bringing immeasurable happiness. A lot of _______ now can love those kids. But if you think about it, in four decades, five million babies being born from a new technology is pretty remarkable, and the same kind of thing could happen with _____ genetic modification and designer ______. So _________ on the decisions we make in the next few months, the next year or so, if ________ baby number one is born, within a few decades, there could well be millions of genetically modified humans. And there's a difference there too, because if we, you in the audience, or I, if we decide to have a designer baby, then their children will also be ___________ modified, and so on, because it's heritable. So that's a big difference.

Solution


  1. parents
  2. babies
  3. vitro
  4. human
  5. designer
  6. depending
  7. brown
  8. genetically

Original Text


So I'll just give you one example, and that is in vitro fertilization. Almost exactly 40 years ago, test tube baby number one Louise Brown was born, and that's a great thing, and I think since then five million IVF babies have been born, bringing immeasurable happiness. A lot of parents now can love those kids. But if you think about it, in four decades, five million babies being born from a new technology is pretty remarkable, and the same kind of thing could happen with human genetic modification and designer babies. So depending on the decisions we make in the next few months, the next year or so, if designer baby number one is born, within a few decades, there could well be millions of genetically modified humans. And there's a difference there too, because if we, you in the audience, or I, if we decide to have a designer baby, then their children will also be genetically modified, and so on, because it's heritable. So that's a big difference.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
designer babies 10
genetic modification 8
genetically modified 5
crispr technology 4
human genetic 4
designer baby 3
genetic modifications 2
human embryos 2
gm kids 2
health care 2
modified humans 2
swiss army 2
army knife 2
baby number 2
stuffy nose 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
human genetic modification 3
genetically modified humans 2
swiss army knife 2

Important Words


  1. audience
  2. babies
  3. baby
  4. big
  5. born
  6. bringing
  7. brown
  8. children
  9. decades
  10. decide
  11. decisions
  12. depending
  13. designer
  14. difference
  15. fertilization
  16. genetic
  17. genetically
  18. give
  19. great
  20. happen
  21. happiness
  22. heritable
  23. human
  24. humans
  25. immeasurable
  26. ivf
  27. kids
  28. kind
  29. lot
  30. louise
  31. love
  32. million
  33. millions
  34. modification
  35. modified
  36. months
  37. number
  38. parents
  39. pretty
  40. remarkable
  41. technology
  42. test
  43. tube
  44. vitro
  45. year
  46. years