are you for genetic engineering to a certain extent? ( take into consideration that perhaps once the flood gates are open, they are open for good)
are you for genetic engineering, period? ( you think it can improve PEOPle and their lives and so is worth any risk)
0voters
Simple question: why are people against genetic engineering?
(Although I am aware of many arguments, I would like to see if anyone could come up with different ramifications, reason being: I have a presentation on Friday and I need to include as many arguments as possible)
I think genetic engineering could be of benefit to humanity. But the way we seem to be going around copyrighting everything these days it might not work out to be a good thing.
GM has copyrighted a strain of corn that can cross breed with the natural kind. The offspring of this merger also has the copyrighted strain, so the owner of the corn must pay royalties. An example might be Farmer A lives next to Farmer B. A uses GM corn and pays royalties, but B uses natural corn. The wind blows pollen from Farm A to B, B how has new corn that is infected with the GM copyright. Farmer B must either destroy the crop, or pay royalties.
The problem would be in the future, if the genetically engineered people would have to pay royalties on their children? As if a human has copyrighted genes and their children also inherits this gene would the child be liable for royalties? I personally think this would be wrong. I don’t believe any gene should be copyrightable, only the process of modification.
Another issue with engineering is: “Breed out diversity, and you breed in weakness.†[Ghost in the Shell].
Also, if you can create people with potential IQ of 160+, companies would automatically start testing future employee genes. To see what they’re made of and if they might have defects or low IQs. People would be judge by what their genes said they are capable of.
I know it could be used for a good cause, we don’t know what it will come out of it yet… also, i don’t trust those who are in power to let them deal with it.
It could also be used for evil, suppose Hitler was able to clone himself… how bad would this be?
Go against nature is dangerous. Whether we want it or not, nature still controls the world is ways we can’t and we can’t destroy nature cos we need it to survive.
I’m for genetic engineering in some cases, and against it in others.
I’m against using G/E for making designer babies, where the parents decide what their child will look like and have them genetically altered to fit that description.
I’m for G/E when it involves curing diseases, if you find out that your child will have diabetes, hemophillia, or sickle cell and with G/E they could be cured, why not.
Use G/E to either save lives or improve someones life, but don’t use it to make designer babies (although I’m sure this will happen).
I don’t think corporations would be able to demand royalties for the offspring of geneticly enginered people. They reason they get royalties for the offspring of strains of corn is to protect the corporations. If I didn’t have to pay GM for the corns offspring, what would stop me from buying only one kernal of corn, then use the kernals it produced to plant my fields. After a couple of plants my entire fields would be the new strain of corn. GM would put millions of dollars of development just to have every corn farmer purchase one kernal of corn.
Honestly genitic engineering scares me a little bit. It’s something we’ll be able to do, but I’m sure we’ll do it before we completely understand the long term effects of it. Last I heard some of the cloned animals have had serious long term health problems.
Do you not trust them because you know them personally and they are untrustworthy or because you don’t know them at all?
If you were to clone hitler he wouldn’t pop out of the carrier dressed in nazi fatigue trying to kill the first jew he saw. You can’t clone minds. Not yet atleast. That would be pretty weird though. Besides hitler # 2 wouldn’t be in power of Germany anyway so it’s not like he could really do anything even if he was able to talk… or walk.
Arguably everything can be considered nature. Now if you have to classify man made things as a part of some freak accident that isn’t in anyway related to nature then alright. What about the millions of little technological advances that you evolve your life around? What about humans themselves assuming you don’t consider us a part of nature?
I honestly don’t see anything wrong with that. Yea it may be unmoral but I’ve always had a thing against morals anyway. My question to you is why not?
Aren’t they already? Do we assume mentally challanged people can do the work of everyone else? Don’t we have tests to approve of peoples abilities?
Good point but come on… you know you want to have spidey senses. With the amount of people and the limited amount of ability cost morals and all the other factors accounted for I doubt anyone would even end up practicing that form of breeding.
If you want a designer baby you obviously have some sort of plan or goal for your child. You might make them stronger cause you want an athlete, or more intelligent so they’re some award-winning scientists. My problem with this, is just because someone has more potential doesn’t mean they’ll reach that potential.
The environment that someone is raised in plays a huge part in how they turn out. I’ve heard people talk about cloning Einstein, but just because someone has the same genetic makeup of Einstein, doesn’t mean he’ll end up being a great physicist, he may have the potential to, but he has to realize that potential.
They’re more factors in life that determine how someone ends up than their genetic makeup. If you want your child to be an athlete, or a scientist, or whatever I think you’re wasting your time changing their genes. You should just love your child for who they are, not for who you want them to be.
i presented on Friday, and as usual, not many people in my class cared enough to argue with me, I really don’t know why they take this course … anyways I’m glad people here have something to say.
( if you are interested, my topic was Pro Cloning/ Pro Genetic Engineering)
cloning/g.e are great for many reasons, i got most of my points from humancloningfoundation.com, so for those who are against it, take a look. The nonprofit foundation itself is interesting, they offer to store some of your deoxyribonucleic acid (D.N.A.) and clone you when it becomes legal.
I would also like to sincerely thank cba for mentioning:
I’ve been trying for so long to explain to people that anything that happens is natural because it is happening . Therefore nothing that occurs can be ‘unnatural’…anyway, i hope you understand the argument.
edit: sorry about the bad gateway, try looking it up on a search engin.
Hmmm…
I fully agree with CBA and Silver, I was not always of this view, for I like many others believed that humans should be careful when playing God. I still hold this view now, but I also realize that there is much more to the point CBA and silver are making, so I looked up ‘unnatural’ on http://www.dictionary.com and got the following relevant definitions…
1.In violation of a natural law.
2.Inconsistent with an individual pattern or custom.
3.Deviating from a behavioral or social norm
Anyone having studied the philosophy of law know about Aquinas, Austin, Hobbes, etc and the concept of natural law, it’s all based on Divine Law which makes natural law very hazy and controversial. So deciding what is unnatural is problematic. The second definition makes me think that unnatural things are actually good, for we cannot stagnate even if we wanted to. We are always progressing in one form or another. I personally have found myself going against individuals patterns or societal customs. The third definition to me is hypocritical. It is because of social norms that Socrates was killed and so have many others. How many people were burnt at the stake for being seen as witches…how many people were killed for their radical political views? I say the social norm is what is unnatural, and what is natural but rarely happens is for people to be themselves which leads naturally to individualism, difference, and deviance from constraints.
Lastly, I think the word ‘unnatural’ is misleading and erroneous. It presupposes that we know what nature and God intends and that anything that isn’t covered by that umbrella is defined as ‘unnatural’. This leaves no room for progression, creativity, or freedom.
All in all, I think the point CBA and Silver are making is a very important one and I didn’t want to let it go unnoticed, so I make a whole post for it.
I agree, I think that genetic engineering is inevitable and we should accept it with open arms. In fact, not only is it inevitable, it is already being practiced here in the U.S. For a large sum of money those who can afford it are able to gentically alter the sex of their child.
Although I believe that we need to go forward with progress, we also must take this step into the future with the most delicate care. There are just too many scary thoughts as to what could happen if genetic engineering were allowed to reign free, without restrictions.
Just imagine, what would happen if they messed something up and mutations began to erupt throughout the world? or even worse, what if the government decided to rid the world of discrimination by making us all the same. Wouldn’t that suck?
In some ways, I prefer being who I am because of chance. It makes me original. I would hate to have been designed or genetically perfected. If anything, genetic engineering needs to stick to ridding the world of disease and other unneccesary genetic defects.
Exactly. So what’s it matter if the people are biologically the same? Twins triplets all exist. No one has a problem with them (maybe with the olsen twins) so why does it matter if people design their babies? I wouldn’t do it because I enjoy the idea of mixing stuff. It’s just cool to me to see what one of the possibilities would be if you combined me with someone else. But that’s just me. You may think that’s abnormal but it’s how I look at the creation of children.
It may just be an obsession with comics and x-men but seriously mutations are exagerated. It’s not like we don’t have defected humans running around. But yes that would be a concern is the government cloning people. Like star wars they’d clone an army and kill everyone and make me sad .
So you wouldn’t want to be a twin? Maybe being a twin would lose its appeal if it became to popular but I don’t think I’d mind.
Personally I think the whole genetic engineering stuff is over exagerated. People make it to be this big freak show that they’ve never thought could exist when we’ve had the elephant man and Andre the Giant running around. My only fear would be the exploition of it. Like the government turning corrupt and making everyone blonde with blue eyes. Or creating an army of monsters. Another fear would be social discriminations. Naturally they are going to be outcasted because people aren’t acustomed to the unusual. It’s extremely complicated and precise anyway. I doubt we will see an abundance of the stuff in our lifetime. Although scientists are working on making a cell which is kinda cool. The simplest cell ever to exist. It’s got less guts than the current smallest because its so much work to make complicated things. They’re making it so it dies shortly though. I’ll leave it here…
Because they haven’t proved themselves worthy of my trust. There is nothing any world leaders has done to stop atrocities against humanity, animals, and nature… I have no reason to trust them.
cba1067950
I agree,… you can’t. Doesn’t mean you can’t brainwash them either. The Nazis were a brainwashed army, a brainwashed society, so is many others. Hitler could have clones himself many times, clones what he thought to be the pure race… brainwash them… and created a society of cloned freak people.
If we have diseases, is because we must die… otherwise there is no birth control. Medicine is very wrong to tray to make humans live for 150 years… we are not supposed to.
Everything is against laws of nature, and this is just another one. I hate it and find it completely sick.
Well what exactly would you propose they do to gain your trust? Run experiments and keep their record clean? Banning these types of experiments doesn’t really help the trust situation.
Exactly you don’t have to clone people to brainwash them and make an attempt at taking over the world. It doesn’t matter if they are clones or not they are still subjectable to brainwashing just like you and me.
I’m just curious… have you ever taken any form of drug (not as an insult. I’m just wondering.)?
I agree that it is a problem for population control and the like but people want what they want. They don’t want to die which is natural. They will strive to find ways of saving themselves. Besides with that mentality brainwashing a group of people to take over the world wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Sure they’ll kill off a bunch of people but atleast we’ll have less of a population problem.
Finally if we aren’t supposed to be living what are we supposed to be doing?
Maybe they could stop lying to the masses, at least we would know what they are up to. They could also administrate the countries to their people not to multinational corporations.
I’m just curious… have you ever taken any form of drug (not as an insult. I’m just wondering.)?
Yes, when I was young my mother gave me drugs. Nowadays I only take pills for cramps (too painful to even walk) and those sprays for blocked nose… when I have it. I don’t take anything else.
I don’t think Medicine shouldn’t exist and we should all die from flu, or whatever, but perpetuating life to an absurd age is… well… absurd. We are not supposed to live 150 years old, we know that… otherwise… we would live normally till 150 and not extremely decrepit.
Yeah maybe. Still, I prefer being more natural and less designed. Either by brainwash or by medicine. You can’t deny that it will be used for ‘evil’… it has been used… anthrax and many other biological weapons… everything is possible… and the ‘everything is possible’ in the wrong hands it’s not good. But again… maybe we blow ourselves up and nature can leave with out us in peace.
I haven’t read most of the above quotes but what I have read sounds good (not that I agree/disagree with anything said, but the arguments were thoughtful)
Just one thing I will mention
Clementine, you said:
From what I gather, you’re saying that the “natural” age limit of a species is that which it can live normally up to. So in other worlds we really shouldn’t live passed 30, and anything after that is “unnatural” because human intervention has allowed it
Look back 300, 200 even 100 years ago, the life expectancy of people has risen (not including many third world counties, even though the too generally live longer now) because of medical advancement, genetic engineering is no different. There also SO MANY overlooked applications of this technology all of which will help maintain life. Isn’t that the reason we have any medicine, to sustain life for as long as possible? So who’s to put a predetermined date on how long a person should or is “supposed” (as you put it) to live? Who’s to say what a ‘natural’ life span is?
I was going to say the same thing but silver got to it first. Knowing you are an atheist, and knowing that you are somewhere in your twenty’s (this is of course is just a guess based on previous discussion), I would wonder why you would say such a thing? Are you sure that you are willing to die at such an early age as 18-30? In fact, if you have children, you would most likely have already died b/c most mothers died during child birth.
Medicine and technology have been a wonderful gift of life! Take what you can get b/c that is all you have. Progress is wonderful! I almost wish that I had been born 1000 years in the future. Maybe by then life expectancy will be 500 years. Wouldn’t that be cool? or would it?
I didn’t want to talk about this subject anymore. Because the fact is that I don’t think we should ‘play’ with nature like that. That’s a personal view… I don’t want humans to live 150 years, I don’t want to live all that (I mean, I do, but I wouldn’t force myself to do so)
Not for me. I think medicine started wrong… I see it as a way to improve your quality of life, not sustain life so you can live infinitely. I see medicine as a good thing, don’t misunderstand me. But if you think logically and not emotionally, if every living human only dies at age 150 (or even more) how would the world be? Can you imagine it? We must die for new people to have space to live, to bring new ideas, new experiences…
People used to die much younger from lack of quality of life… illness and diseases that were caused most of the time because of society itself. Take a poor country for example… Ethiopia, or even Brazil (not all poor, but still loads of poverty). Why people might die young (about 40)? Because they don’t have good conditions… good water (which we polluted), food (which we kept them from having), cold (cos they are not allowed to have houses if they don’t have money)… from all that come diseases that let them die early. If you give them good conditions they will leave more. Still, when the body says ‘I can’t take it anymore’ then it dies… naturally.
And that’s how I see medicine, not something that challenge nature, but something to improve the quality of life of any living thing.
A person with AIDS or cancer… they suffer from pain and distress, and the only thing medicine can do is to improve their quality of life…If there was a cure, i would like them to have it, of course… but they would still live to certain age… a natural age…
Again, that’s a personal view, there is nothing there that can be judged as right or wrong, it is how I feel about it.
Skeptic.
I have lived a quarter of a century already and obviously I wouldn’t like to die is 5 years, I haven’t done 10% of want to do in my life. But then it’s very selfish to say I would like to live 300 years to do what I want. We live in a group, in a society, and as far as I can see we should have the conscious to keep this group moving, and not being so selfish about what WE want. If everyone live till 300, what would this world be like? I don’t like to even think about it. Also, it would be to everyone, so, another thing to be unfair about. You are poor, so you live 80, I am rich, I live 300 so I can explore 3 of your generations.
I don’t see why me being an atheist can have any affect in that. Is not because I don’t believe in God that I want mayhem and I think everyone should do what they find is better for them. Believe it or not, I am extremely moral… and funny enough, based in that simple thing that Jesus said… don’t know his right words but he said something about not doing to others what you don’t want for yourself… and a bit of Kant’s ‘if everyone do the same…’
I don’t think is right for me to live 300 years, I don’t think is right for anyone to live that long… and I don’t think is right for some to be able to do so and other don’t.
You also said that you want to live 150 years but don’t want to at the same time because of the problems of people living 150 years would bring. In further learning from our discussions I believe you are not contradicting yourself. If I may I will try not only to clarify your point but also to suggest a viable conclusion with some imperical evidence.
There is a certain responsibility that happened to come along with all our rationality, reason, and all other advancements. We haven’t really been keeping up to this responsibility as much as we should. It is this responsibility that I think is what Clementine is getting to. We have medicine, which is in a way playing God because we are trying to stop what has naturally occured. So we have this privilege of stopping diseases and sicknesses that a few decades back, as Silver stated, topped our average living age to approximately 30 years of age. So now we have medicine and we can live 70 years of age. I also must agree with Silver that the argument against what is natural and unnateral is a controversial one. Nevertheless, the added forty years to the average person of 6 Billion carries some serious responsibilities…the land needed to house those same people for another 40 years is much greater. The resources, elements, plants, meat, steel, plastics, textiles, etc,etc - is enormous. So what if I was to say that people should live as long as they can, as long as they work as hard in keeping the earth healthy as they do in keeping themselves healthy. Ie. Keeping themselves informed of world events, planting trees or plants, using environment friendly products as much as possible - one of the best ways to do something in nature is to just spend time with her (as we should do with each other).
About over-population, well we can look to China and their limitations on how many kids to have. Maybe we can implement similar strategies in decreasing levels of birth. For those who believe homosexuality to be natures population control, well homosexual percentages are rising. Furthermore, the percentage of women who cannot have children is rising as well. It is undecided whether it is rising because of any external factors or whether it’s just a gradual growth along with the population increase. Personally, I think it’s because of all the chemicals in our foods, pollution in the air, etc etc. This means that adoptions are in the rise. Which is again a form of population control. There are some theories floating around about food and land sources. Peter Singer is one of the advocates of vegetarianism, he did some profound research which led to very probable results that vegetation and crops can feed more people with less land. There are some ways in which to preserve the land, by growing crops for a while and then leaving the earth to rejuvenate itself and then do the same thing again. This way we can feed more people, leave more space, and preserve the land.
One of the most interesting people I have ever read about is Buckminster Fuller. He is definitely worth looking into for exactly these kinds of problems “how to do more with less”. Fuller’s view is that the earth has provided more than enough for us, we just have to learn how to use it properly without destroying it.
You also said that you want to live 150 years but don’t want to at the same time because of the problems of people living 150 years would bring. In further learning from our discussions I believe you are not contradicting yourself. If I may I will try not only to clarify your point but also to suggest a viable conclusion with some imperical evidence.
There is a certain responsibility that happened to come along with all our rationality, reason, and all other advancements. We haven’t really been keeping up to this responsibility as much as we should. It is this responsibility that I think is what Clementine is getting to. We have medicine, which is in a way playing God because we are trying to stop what has naturally occured. So we have this privilege of stopping diseases and sicknesses that a few decades back, as Silver stated, topped our average living age to approximately 30 years of age. So now we have medicine and we can live 70 years of age. I also must agree with Silver that the argument against what is natural and unnateral is a controversial one. Nevertheless, the added forty years to the average person of 6 Billion carries some serious responsibilities…the land needed to house those same people for another 40 years is much greater. The resources, elements, plants, meat, steel, plastics, textiles, etc,etc - is enormous. So what if I was to say that people should live as long as they can, as long as they work as hard in keeping the earth healthy as they do in keeping themselves healthy. Ie. Keeping themselves informed of world events, planting trees or plants, using environment friendly products as much as possible - one of the best ways to do something in nature is to just spend time with her (as we should do with each other).
About over-population, well we can look to China and their limitations on how many kids to have. Maybe we can implement similar strategies in decreasing levels of birth. For those who believe homosexuality to be natures population control, well homosexual percentages are rising. Furthermore, the percentage of women who cannot have children is rising as well. It is undecided whether it is rising because of any external factors or whether it’s just a gradual growth along with the population increase. Personally, I think it’s because of all the chemicals in our foods, pollution in the air, etc etc. This means that adoptions are in the rise. Which is again a form of population control. There are some theories floating around about food and land sources. Peter Singer is one of the advocates of vegetarianism, he did some profound research which led to very probable results that vegetation and crops can feed more people with less land. There are some ways in which to preserve the land, by growing crops for a while and then leaving the earth to rejuvenate itself and then do the same thing again. This way we can feed more people, leave more space, and preserve the land.
One of the most interesting people I have ever read about is Buckminster Fuller. He is definitely worth looking into for exactly these kinds of problems “how to do more with less”. Fuller’s view is that the earth has provided more than enough for us, we just have to learn how to use it properly without destroying it.
Wouldn’t the productivity increase as well? The knowledge the people had wouldn’t be lost. The people would become more and more informed faster. The amount of people would have to increase which would be a problem but if the technology advances fast enough it might be possible for people to survive.
.
I’ll leave it here…