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Asked by tpeng to Mike, David, James, Suze, Will on 20 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by mahin.
Question: What is your view on genetic modification and cloning?
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Mike Dodd answered on 13 Jun 2011:
I think that genetic modification of food might be the only way to overcome the world food shortage. Whilst organic might be fine in this country, it doesn’t work in other parts of the world. Organic farming can usually only produce a fraction of the possible amount of food from the ground. In the developing world there is a real need for crops that can survive in harsh environments. Fertilizer is expensive and many pests are becoming resistant, similar to antibiotic resistant bacteria. Genetic modification of plants to make them resistant to pests offers an alternative that doesn’t require expensive fertilizers and could increase the number of crops that can be harvested. Another modification is rice that can grow in salty environments, this means farmers can grow rice closer to the sea and in areas that flood. I feel that genetic modification offers the best possible future for feeding the world.
Cloning is another matter. The idea of cloning animals and humans, I think is wrong. Cloning has the problem that each cell has an “age”. This is determined by the number of times that it divides. The problem with cloned cells is that you take the nucleus from one cell and implant it into another, but it keeps that cells “age”. This means that all the cells in the cloned animal will be biologically older than they should be. Hope that makes sense
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Suze Kundu answered on 16 Jun 2011:
Hi Tpeng and Mahin.
I agree with Mike. Genetic modification of food is necessary in less developed countries, as changing things like a crop’s resistance to frost, or its resistance to catching a specific plant disease, and improving the plant’s genetic make up to make it tougher and more likely to survive is really important, as the percentage of crop that you get from the number that you had initially planted will go up, or in other words the yield increases.
I’m not sure what I think about cloning in humans yet. There was another question about cloning for organ transplants, and the ethical, moral and medical, not to mention emotional factors are just too high, and I can’t really get my head around it. It would depend on each individual case, and reason for feeling that cloning is their final option.
What do you guys think about GM and cloning?
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James Marrow answered on 17 Jun 2011:
GM’s an interesting area. Done intelligently, it’s essentially a way of accelerating natural selection to bring out the characteristics that you want of disease/drought resistance. The problem can come from the “law of unintended consequences” – care needs to be taken with GM crops if they can interact with the environment around them.
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William Eborall answered on 20 Jun 2011:
There are also some genetically modified plants that have been made so that they are healthier for us to eat such as “Golden Rice” (
) which contains beta-carotene which is used in your eyes. Lots of people in Asia don’t have enough beta-carotene in their food and risk becoming blind because of it. Golden rice could help prevent this.Another example is purple tomatoes (
) which contain a chemical which might help prevent us getting cancer.
Comments
Suze commented on :
By the way, with regards to human genetic modification, for things like ‘designer babies’ that have really strong genes for fighting off illnesses, or being taller, or being more muscley, etc, I think that is a terrible idea. This much messing about with the human genetic code cannot be good, and who knows what the knock on effects would be decades down the line? I don’t think that is worth the risk at all.
threestarwolfie commented on :
I don’t think that cloning or human genetic modification is right. The bottom line is, it’s unnaturel. I don’t like a lot of thing that happen in science etc. now, but this is something that I have no debate about. I can not think of one case where I would be accepting of the idea of either, and quite frankly, to me, human genetic modification is shameful. It’s like saying that you aren’t happy with your child and you want to chane it as, essentialy, that’s what it is. It’s like saying you aren’t happy with your own flesh and blood. So, by now, I think you guys have gathered that this is NOT something I agree with at all, well, in fact it’s more that I lothe it and the idea of it and the concept of it and the image it portrays.
You asked what I think? That’s it right there. Watered down to fit in a box.
ThreeStarWolfie.
Suze commented on :
ThreeStarWolfie I absolutely agree. And where do people stop? ‘I don’t want him to have blue eyes, I don’t want her to have blonde hair’. It would be like a Build-A-Bear workshop. Only with babies. It’s very wrong, and very a dangerous path to start going down.
threestarwolfie commented on :
Exactly! That was my thought track too, but like I said, it was watered down. And even then would that be the end? What with people who want their perfect ppets to win them prizes in their shows. Surely they would argue, if this became available, that if it was vaid for humans, why not for their cats or dogs or whatever. And also, those “perfect people” may start to see themselves as superiors. That we are not as good as them because we don’t have their perferction. In my view, society is already wrecked enough as it is, this wouldn’t help a single bit.
eirlyamae commented on :
ThreeStar took the words right out of my mouth.
Also, in the case of genetically modifying your child to prevent hereditary diseases, it’s like saying people with that are not proper humans. Also, with the current debate on the legalisation of Assisted Suicide, it will add to likely event where society will frown upon and pressurize those with disabilities to take their own lives. This may snowball to the point where children and people with only minor disabilities, such as dyslexia, are so embarrassed and ashamed of their condition that they will request this “help”. They would be treated as a burden on society, after all, if they can be stopped from being born, why should they be allowed to go on living? To say the least, this would be the thoughts of society should genetic modification become available to all.
Will commented on :
Hi eirlyamae. I broadly agree with you, but can I put a scenario to you.
What if I man in his 20s finds out, after watching his father die of it, that he has Huntington’s disease. This disease means that at sometime during his mid to late life (30 – 60 years old) he will start to show symptoms of and eventually die from the disease. But the man has already met the love of his life and they want to have a child. This child will have a 50% chance of also having the disease.
Would you support the use of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to create their baby in a lab, screen the embryos for the disease, and implant an embryo which is unaffected?
This would eradicate a fatal disease from a family line and allow the couple to have a baby without the guilt of thinking they may have transferred a death sentence to it at conception?
This would, by most I think, be seen as a good thing. However the same technique can be used to chose eye colour.
I just want to illustrate that always with the genetics debate are huuuuge grey areas.
Suze commented on :
Well, I think we only have to look to the plastic surgery phenomenon to see how far this obsession with so-called perfection has taken some people. The fact that it is an accepted thing that Hollywood star’s faces won’t be moving much after the age of 40 due to the amount of botox that they have injected into their faces in an attempt to look young is mad! People can get surgery for anything these days, and it scares me. Personally, I think they end up looking far from perfect…
It’s a very slippery slope, that’s for sure.