Honestly all the philosophical tangents you want to go off on.. the results are the same.. worms / creatures in the lab get destroyed for our knowledge.. then in our modern (Western and Asian) universities.. the IP is then licensed via the IP department of the universities to the highest bidder or benefactor.. Like it or not that's how modern universities operate especially at these tight budget times and most people are just not that interested or want to spend time to learn about it.
Some people ask whether "garage" type research is possible. I would say it is highly unlikely, not so much of lack of will and brain power, but money. The machines required for genetic research are highly precise and very repetitive and is just out of the price range of most "backyard innovator". A microscope I used was a quarter of a mill, that needs a few thousand to calibrate every 50 hours. You can do some of the science at the backyard garage.. but not even at the same magnitude of speed at a properly equipped lab unless you have the backing of likes of Nathan Myhrvold. Since we are a automotive forum, I will use a car analogy, in the past to improve yield, we used fertilizers, selective breeding to gain a great deal of advantage in yield, so think of then as the time of the 70s muscle car era, "no replacement for displacement".. GMO is the tweaking of the degree of cam and changing the mapping of the engine.. unless you know the ASIC of the ECU of how to reprogram it or desolder it to understand it.. you can't improve it.. even if you can improve it, the gain is very very minimal. You just can't use a set of socket and minimal knowledge of science to do that kind of work.
One fun fact about DNA is even between different classes of animals we still share a great deal of genetic material... because on the basic level all creatures goes through mitosis, generate power through mitochondria etc etc.. the basics are the same. If you want to really differentiate you should concentrate your argument on the proteonomic level rather than straight DNA... Not to mention, things plants and fish, they also experience simliar evolutions pressures and have simliar adaptations like bioluminescence etc. Like it or not plants and animals are not as dissimilar as you think especially on the DNA level, the difference comes with how the DNA is expressed.
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Originally Posted by DragonChi
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.
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