genetic modification = molestation and perversion of mother nature
it's profitable, but so is a meth lab.
As in most things, I tend not take extreme views regarding the concept of GMO. I know that there is the potential for abuse and negative results based upon greed and profit motivation......the quick fix answer which does not have enough information or foresight to make something safe has already been shown to be a concern with projects already in production. However, the idea that the letters GMO automatically conjure up something akin to molestation or perversion seems a bit over the top. I would equate this type of thinking with the idea that man shouldn't fly because nature didn't give him wings or that man shouldn't develop antibiotics because nature intended us to get sick and possibly die......its just too bad.....get sick and die.
The reality is, at least in my view, that Nature has no great wisdom. It survives and flourishes as the result of major trials and errors. Countless species and their DNA have been lost forever without any intervention from man over the millenia. Nature randomly mutates DNA in reproduction. The most adaptable DNA survives and passes on its DNA to its progeny. The less adaptable, less successful DNA formulations die out naturally and their DNA dies with them. To ascribe intelligence to this natural process and proclaim its superiority to man's potential scientific intervention I think fails to consider all of the failures and defects that Nature has created and continues to create. There are probably even some natural random genetic mutations that are due to exposure to natural chemical compounds and/or radiation that have absolutely nothing to do with man and his corruption of nature.
When man uses cross breeding and hybridization he is interfering with the natural process. It is not quite gene splicing or causing genetic material to turn off or on, but it is one step in that direction. We have no problem with doing this non-natural cross breeding of animals or plants but it is a major ethical issue if anyone says, "hey, let's try it with humans."
So before we just proclaim GMO of the devil, pause should be taken to consider its potential benefits. Close attention has to be paid to what is being modified and the potential negative effects of any such modification. There will be errors made but the potential for speeding up the beneficial process that man has tried to perfect in hybridization is virtually limitless with scientifically engineering changes in the natural world. This process needs to be transparent and appropriate labeling of products that have been modified are musts.
Your understanding of evolution by natural selection is profane. On the point of nature having 'No great wisdom', while it is true that evolution does not design things intelligently, it nonetheless designs biological organisms
perfectly in the sense that these will work in equilibrium and co-efficiently within complexities of changing environments throughout the span of time. There is a saying in music that sometimes you have to 'listen to the notes that aren't played'. EBNS is like this. It does not produce organisms which are invulnerable, because this would make all life effectively impossible as such organisms would outstrip the energy and resources available to them, and would then themselves die out as a result. Evolution is an equation that sets parameters, checks and balances, through probabilities...indeed, the equation of EBNS is at once so complicated, yet so simple, that it is unlikely that if it did not feature as a mathematical syllogism of the material world to be unearthed and articulated, no scientist, nor mathematician that has ever lived, could have conceived of it. Evolution is not an automobile engineer. It is not designing organisms to be mechanically flawless in the sense that they are invulnerable; it is designing organisms capable of both attacking and defending, of hunting down and escaping, which results in an eternal, continuous ramping-up abilities in organisms throughout successive generations. It is not the end result that is important, but rather the process itself, and its continuance, that ensures biological harmony. Consider cheetahs and gazelles; one is designed to chase down the other, the other is designed to outrun and outmaneuver the other. Both have evolved to accomplish these goals and are designed with exquisite discrimination. The result is that sometimes the cheetah gets the gazelle, and sometimes the gazelle escapes the cheetah. In the larger arena of biodiversity, this arrangement has implications for other life. Hence, there is an equilibrium in the appropriation of energy in a complex system; that is, this arrangement makes sense, and is perfect within our synergistic, material universe as governed and defined by the laws of thermodynamics (especially considering the first Law thereof, which is something else you opaquely have no grasp of). Nature does not create 'failures'; not in the sense that you mean--this is an anthropological concept which is not reflected in the biological world.
Side note: Take a look around. What evidence is there, exactly, that human beings are better suited to driving the direction of life, according to your observations, exactly? Why would you assume that Human beings would do anything other than replicate, extrapolate, and exacerbate the pure, unmitigated fucking disaster they have effected unto themselves and everything else in existence both historically presently? Does the idea that we'd do better really sound like a smart bet to you?
You infer that nature is cruel. It is. But it is necessarily cruel. For unnecessary cruelty--the sort that is expressed in all manner of depraved and sadistic acts of physical and psychological torture limited only in scope and detail by the human imagination, you need human beings.
Snakes eat mice. Human beings tie razors to the spurs of roosters, make dogs fight to death for entertainment, and consider bullfighting a sport.
We are, in fact, the only organism in existence that inflicts cruelty, knowing it to be cruelty.
Additionally, you seem to be confusing lemarckism with Darwinism in your assertion that: 'The most adaptable DNA survives and passes on its DNA to its progeny'.
No. That's not how it works. DNA does not, cannot 'adapt' to the environment, as a reactionary process to the conditions of the natural world, at the molecular level. Adaptation is driven by random mutations which either succeed, or do not succeed in said environment ipso facto. As it is worded, you are expressing the inverse of this, which is, as I have said, Lemarckism (eg, Giraffes have longer necks from straining to reach leaves at higher and higher levels).
['i]When man uses cross breeding and hybridization he is interfering with the natural process[/i]'
..is the most scientifically illiterate sentence of your entire post. No; Hybridization is not interfering with the 'natural process'. Insects, fish, and even mammals readily hybridize without anthropological interference and have done since, well, probably since they entered existence. Hybridization is, while rare, one of the key mechanisms by which the probability of survival is increased within a species. Mutations also occur at an increased incidence in hybridization. What you are referring to, in an extremely abstract way, is artificial selection. That is, the process whereby human beings select genetic traits in plants and animals based on anthropogenic preferences. This has nothing to do with Genetic modification whatsoever,
because hybridization can only occur between species which share very large amounts of the same genes.That is, hybridization, as far as we know, cannot occur between organisms of different orders. Most hybrids occur within a Genus.There has never been an example of an interordinal hybrid, which is, excuse me, exactly what GMO's are. GMO's are abominations; they could not, as a result of either natural, or artificial selection, have occurred as a result of the processes of gene swapping which occur in the natural world. GMO is the process of splicing genetic material from seperate organisms, which are not related, to create monstrosities.
Unless of course you think it is possible for fireflies to procreate with mice, and that's why we now have mice that glow in the dark through luciferase proteins? I can assure that you no matter how lonely fireflies or mice become--it ain't going to happen.
Ridiculous.
Oh--any by the way---all those artificially selected organisms are ultimately useless in the conditions of the world. Stick a poodle out in the environment of a wolf (common ancestor of all dogs) and see if can take down a moose. And so it is the case with all animals. In fact, one only has to look at 'feral' populations of pigs, dogs, and cats to see that these organisms become stronger with successive generations exposed to natural, not artificial, selection.
'
I would equate this type of thinking with the idea that man shouldn't fly because nature didn't give him wings or that man shouldn't develop antibiotics because nature intended us to get sick and possibly die......its just too bad.....get sick and die'.
Where did you pass the bar--French Guinea?
Antibiotics are designed to work with our own DNA, and neither change, nor augment,, DNA at any level. Genetic modification is precisely the opposite; it is, by intent, the process of augmenting gene sequences in natural organisms to create unnatural organisms. The science of antibiotics and aeronautics is well understood, and when it was not, the risks associated with proceeding in experimentation did not equate to 16th particle of that presented by GM Research. Moreover, planes and antibiotics are inherently
necessary. GMO crops are not
inherently necessary inventions, because we already have non GMO crops which are capable of feeding our populations. They are, as it stands, inherently unnecessary. Nobody
needs to eat GMO crops. Monsanto needs people to eat them to expand their margins. It is what it is.
So please, do me favor; the next time you want to express an opinion relating to a scientific principle, or matter--that is, one that has a provable, falsifiable, objective reality in the material universe, you could at least make the effort to to become at least quasi-scientifically literate. If you don't understand the how, you shouldn't even be thinking about the why. Consider first that you might not even know what you don't know.
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