Quote:
Originally Posted by godwin
We play God all the time.. eg one of my grad studies was the laser out neurons of little worms to help create mathematical models so we can understand the brain more. In fact I would argue, basic research (ie research that doesn't have any immediate tangible results eg CERN's LHC) we are all trying to be God.
The thing about injecting "fish genes" into tomato.. they still need to conform to the ATGC construct, the way I think about it is cutting and pasting instead of typing in an a Shakespeare play by hand.. which way would you think would cause more errors? Some of the rice we eat every day are cross bred with wheat (so they require less water).. in nature that would not happen too... much like salmon genes in tomato. You can't really pick and choose because just because it is salmon genes it doesn't smell fishy.. it still follow the ATGC rules.
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Studying to play God? j/k lol. Wouldn't your study be more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, as opposed to playing god. I mean, when you were doing your research, did you ever feel like you were playing god, or more like you were trying to learn something. Same with the LHC, I think it's more geared towards the pursuit of knowledge, instead of having the power to create, take or give life.
IMO, selective breeding has a higher probability of happening in nature, compared to copying and pasting genes into different species. I mean, there was a dog study within the same species that allowed the fastest to breed, and since the fastest would breed, it would evolve the dog into a totally different animal. However, the dog was domesticated.
It could also be said that the strongest male deer, walrus, whatever animal competes for breeding rights would be able to pass on selective genes by the same pressures of dominance. This happens in nature.
Can you say that copying and pasting genes from different class of animals (mammals, reptiles, or birds) would happen like that? Maybe it doesn't matter if genetic modification is natural or not, for all we know, we could be accelerating evolution.
OK, not by speed but by tameness.
About 12 minutes in.
Another, well known study.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Konstantinovich_Belyaev
About the copy and pasting thing, I've copy and pasted material into different revisions of reports, only to proof read it later and having the report make no sense unless revision is done. This doesn't happen with ATGC constructs? I suppose it's like comparing apples to oranges, the report writing and genetics metaphor.