Agreed, it's an interesting thing to think about at least. The nature vs nurture debate is practically as old as time itself but it feels like we're no closer to an answer outside of "it's a bit of both." But how much?
Take ten or twenty thousand children, take over a fairly large portion of a midwestern state, build a large and complete environment for them to live in including towns, museums, theme parks etc. and raise them as normal Americans but absolutely 100% avoid introducing them to the concept of religion until they're 25.
Before the oldest turns 24, that small city would just sublime into a higher plane, leaving behind nothing but a beautiful prairie and a fresh minty smell.
I'm not meaning dump 20,000 children alone in the left half of Wyoming, I mean, keep them with their parents, hire teachers, teach them math and science and...basically a history that replaces a lot of "and they believed their gods said" with "the ruling class decided they wanted to". What happens to children when they are raised in a functioning, supportive, nurturing society that does not contain religion or superstition?
Actually just stop allowing anyone with "defective" genes to reproduce.
I am fully I wouldnt exist in this hypothetical world (-11 vision in both eyes), but I would be curious what would happen if we only ever let perfectly healthy people with no genetic defects have kids.
Like would it eventually just become a perfect world where nobody needs glasses or asthma inhalers? Or would we die off because not enough genetically "perfect" people exist to make this plan work?
Any malady that could get through would, in theory, be able to destroy nearly everyone. If the response that would grant immunity to future generations were a mutation with a negative side effect attached, you've just ended humanity (assuming any survived). We've lost plant species to similar.
This one example ignores a whole host of other problems with the idea.
I really want someone to just really start messing around with the human genome, see the limits of gene expression. Let's add horns, let's add tusks, let's add tails, and wings, and carapaces, and antennae, and claws, let's just see what happens. Human evolution has gotten so tired and trite; let's add some spice.
Most research on human embryonic stem cells - currently impossible in western countries due to ethics concerns.
Theoretically, if a few stem cells from every embryo early on and frozen that might be a huge boon for them once they grow up to adults with potential health issues. Need a new heart? Grow one in a lab from the preserved cells - perfectly compatible.
Currently these kinds of things can't be explored, and whilst the ethics may be dubious the potential medical benefits left on the table are astonishing.
no joke but i remember reading something about this aagggeesssss ago where a group of researchers modelled the effects of no more mozzies on the food chain and found that, because barely anything fucking eats them, their eradication would be negligible
Here's a very unethical linguistics experiment that I think would be interesting:
Raising a group of children completely isolated from any language, spoken or otherwise. They would not be fully isolated from people, but those people would not be able to communicate with each other in the vicinity of the children (no speaking, no gestures, etc.) Of course, to isolate them from language would mean strictly controlling their lives (very unethical). Could they communicate with each other, and maybe even develop a language?
What happens to them after? There are a lot of logistical issues to figure out if about 1/3 of the population of the planet suddenly couldn't feed, dress, or care for themselves at all.
I'd like to see if we can build hybrid computer systems using cultured animal tissue (like Cephalopod or maybe GMO human / Cephalopod), basically grown onto an array of tiny wires. Push sensory information through the tiny wires and see if the lump of cells can learn. If it does, put it in a Eva. Or a butler robot. Or a robot vaccuum.
Idk. Its an idea for a scifi novel I've had. Some company does this and what people don't realize is the supposedly autonomous systems making their lives easier are fully conscious but live tortured existences. It would get more and more lovecraftian as the cephalopod hybrids some how take over (I was thinking maybe cancer? or networked mind) and start chopping everyone to bits. Maybe they try and eat them but they have no mouth, like how an octopus arm when detach will hunt and try to feed a non-existent mouth.
I think that's a black mirror episode (what dystopian shenanigan isn't, nowadays?) , something like they copied your mind digitally and then (cruelly) trained the copy to become your perfect digital assistant.
Raise a group of a dozen newborns with absolutely zero contact outside of their own group. Food and necessities get provided of course, but no language learning, no nurturing, no generational teaching.
What kind of community do they form when they are old enough to grasp such things? Do they develop their own language; or a different method of communication entirely. How do they stratify their society, or even do they?
At a certain point, when they are old enough, introduce challenges that only work if they cooperate with one another. See what happens.
Seems pretty tame compared to various other answers, but keeping people under anesthesia longer than expected during surgery and seeing how it affects things like memory or personality.
Supposedly after an open heart surgery I had gone through over a decade ago, my mother swears my personality changed. Though I can't remember if that's true because my memory has felt, in a sense, kinda foggy since then. So I wanna know if it was because I was under for longer than expected or because the surgery itself.
I would wager that it's more to do with the surgery itself. Even transient hypoxia from blood not getting to your brain for a little bit can make a big difference. Anesthesia is used very frequently with rare complications, but complex heart surgeries have higher complication rates.
Sounds fair enough that it could have just been the surgery. I'm nowhere near a medical professional, but I can totally see unforseen complications having happened to me.
Put a hundred toddlers on an island. Leave a few older children that will disappear a few years later that are taught to fish/hunt/gather. See what kind of language develops, or what kind of civilization. How many survive?
It is VERY unethical. Add variables to other islands, such as the amount of children, and what you teach them.
Tbh I don't think anything would really get done. Politicians would just recycle the same super popular ideas to prevent themselves from getting lynched.
It'd be like how video games companies are just churning out safe titles they know will sell really well, but with our government instead of video games.
About gene modification, assuming it were to fully work without risks, it would still only be ethical if the patient were to consent, which not everyone would.