Genetic Engineering - Good or Bad?

I vote: GOOD
Farmers and Botanists have been doing it for years and it has only helped us. (was called selective breeding which is just a way to use the best genes)

[Sir Kenyth]

Hmmm! Most genetic engineering is beneficial. Plant engineering in particular. How do you think we get such high yields, large fruits, and ranges of growing climates? It used to be called selective breeding. The goat/spider thing is wild though. There must be somthing similar in goat casein to the chemical structure of spider silk. I know it sounds wierd to most people. You must understand that casein is a protein already used to make things you would never associate with milk. Things like glue!

[Calaethis Dragonsbane]

I still say its very much like pandora's box... once its out, and you, we screwed up human DNA, will we be able to fix it?

[johnny]

It's a good thing, us humans have to explore the unknown. It might cure horrible disseases in the future, or even prevent some. On the other hand, i'm sure people in the militairy will try to make use of it for their own purposes.

[/)eathKiller]

Pigs dont have sentience they can't truley thing for themselves outside of instict, neither can labrats, I say that Natural law gives us the right to do whatever we want with such creatures. The only animal in the entire kingdom that we shouldn't test with is Dolphins due to their sentience and inteligence, all other creatures are fair game, no matter how endangered, because through genetics we can always re-create those creatures with the greatest of ease! We should just keep on experinmenting until we make uses for every little thing, the same should be done with all sciences like physics. We should keep designing machines and equiptment that will take us off of this world and we shouldn't stick byt he same ideas. Fuel consumption is another thing that I feel is being wasted too much. We shouldn't place dependencies on unreplinishable things any longer, we must better the world through science, and any ASPCA supporter who would rather place a lab rat over a person with Alzheimers, then I'm sorry, BUT THEY ARE NOT HUMAN. We should also allow human cloning! Forget about all restrictions Science should be a playing feild, like sports. We need to enter a new golden age and renesance by supporting Creativity RATHER than Questioning it or even mentioning Morality! The only Morality is Human Survival as a whole that is all we should care about and nothing more!

[Scholarcs]

I think it is a bad thing. I have seen what it can do for good, and for bad. However the bad far outweighs the good.

Most crops in America are now contaminated with GE material. Even the so-called organic crops have been naturally cross-pollinated to contain some of this material.

There was a case a few years back of when a new crop was released for field trials in a deserted part of the US. The crop ended up contaminating a nearby field, and as a result, entered the human food chain. In a nearby town, dozens of people died, and hundreds are paralysed after eating this GE food.

Scientists have mixed jellyfish genes into mice, to make them glow in the dark. Not the hair, just the skin, eyes etc. If they can do it to mice can they not do it to humans? This is not for the betterment of mankind, this is just creating something abnormal because we can.

Now that it is out there, we can never take it back in. After the end of this month the government will be voting on whether to allow GE organisms in the country. I hope the vote no, but unfortunatley I think they will vote yes.

[Neb]

/)eath, if we continue to put humans above all other creatures on Earth, even above the Earth itself. We're going to end up with a ruined world and a huge population of humans which we lack the resources to support with food, clean water, clean air and luxuries.

If there's anything we should experiment on then it should be prisoners. The worse a crime they're imprisoned for the more inhumane the experiment done on them should be. That would discourage crime. And it'd stop us hurting innocent animals and instead make us hurt guilty criminals.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Neb: /)eath, if we continue to put humans above all other creatures on Earth, even above the Earth itself. We're going to end up with a ruined world and a huge population of humans which we lack the resources to support with food, clean water, clean air and luxuries. If there's anything we should experiment on then it should be prisoners. The worse a crime they're imprisoned for the more inhumane the experiment done on them should be. That would discourage crime. And it'd stop us hurting innocent animals and instead make us hurt guilty criminals.

Would you say the same thing if your dad was in prison, for let's say a bankrobbery ?

[Neb]

Well, a bankrobbery isn't so bad, as long as they don't hurt anyone while doing it that shouldn't be cause for testing. But if my dad had shot two people while robbing the bank then I'd say "Hell yes!", if he'd killed two people and it wasn't in self defense then he would have NONE of my sympathy.

[AliCat]

I'm against genetic engineering, and I do think there's a big difference between selective breeding and the ability to put a human's arm on a goat. I also feel that there hasn't been nearly enough research on the effects in the long run of genetically engineered food, and we will pay for this one day. We already do in the amount of food that comes to the market bigger, more colorful, and absolutely void of flavor -- what other lovely effects might it have?

As for using stem cells from human embryos (or whatever it was from), I have a HUGE problem with that, morally. Why can't they just collect cord blood from women who don't wish to save it themselves at childbirth? Women give birth every day -- there must be a surplus of this!

Neb, using prisoners for experimentation like that is pretty much what Hitler did, isn't it? I don't want to go that way.