Does the influence of group selection in evolution provide an argument against genetically engineering humans?

Andymanec, Thank you for your answer. I share your ethical concerns, but I am afraid that ethical transgression is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line between correcting a deficiency and providing an enhancement. I know a number of people who are okay with genetic engineering and are unconcerned about crossing any lines. The group selection idea was to show how genetic engineering might be counter-productive, creating monsters instead of better humans. Assuming that it takes a few generations for the psychopaths to fully show themselves, it may be too late to reverse the process, since it is now the psychopaths who are making the choices.

I'd be inclined to say no. I don't have any links to give you, but my argument comes from more of an ethical and philosophical standpoint than a technical one. One of the main rules of ethics is that you can't derive an "ought" from an "is". Long story short, evolution explains what happens and how, but not what *should* happen.

The ethical concerns and problems with informed consent - and the boundaries of parental consent - kick in before we start having to worry about population genetics, in my opinion. When it comes to treating genetic diseases, parents clearly have the right (and I'd say duty) to give consent for modification on behalf of their hypothetical unborn child. There's a point of diminishing returns, though... modification to vastly improve their quality of life versus modification to give them a slight statistical edge in something specific in the future versus cosmetic modification. You start getting close to the limits of what parents can ethically consent to - the point at which modification is less about the child and their best interests, and more about the parents' wishes. That kind of modification is ethically on par with giving a child performance-enhancing drugs to boost athletic ability, or getting them tattoos and serious body modifications.

If we were to reach that point, though, I don't think it would be too much of an issue. A complex trait like altruism is likely only partially genetic, and under the control of multiple genes. Unless we were consciously trying to eradicate it, and made a widespread effort to do so, we'd probably notice the problems before it effected us on a societal level. With individual modifications, as opposed to statistical changes throughout an entire population, the results would probably be more noticeable. We'd probably notice "hey, we shouldn't make Modification X anymore" rather than our descendants suddenly becoming psychopaths and collapsing society.

Still, the ethics case makes a much more convincing argument for me. We shouldn't make frivolous modifications because it's wrong, rather than because of fairly vague potential problems down the road.