BillCosby

A question/thought........

So you go down to the Monsanto plant & pick out your kid..... You take out the check book as they hand you the forms....

Now it states that they guarantee your choices but what long term effects these gene alterations may not be knowable in advance & that they are not responsible for whatever may result...

The tomato-squirrel hybrid corn killed off all the bees???

The rat-green bean dog that glows in the dark makes the best guard dog cause w/ two heads it can look both ways @ one time........ It suites us... Animals are like slaves they just can't complain............

Once this shit is in the environment you or anyone knows what will happen.........

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Malkavian

I don't think it will be done this way. I don't think many people will opt for adoption over their own kids. Most likely, you'll be injected with custom built retrovirus, like HIV minus all the nasty bits. Or transposon. The retrovirus will ensure the delivery of the right genes into the right cells.

Lol, mutations happen all the time, and we are still alive and well. Genetic engineering is not something humans invented, it was going on ever since life began.

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Woof!

BillCosby

You miss a point here..........

Glowing rats........ Rats & jellyfish were very unlikely to be crossing anytime soon.......... The result is not a mutation....

Plants & animals evolved interacting w/in the environment & the environment has adjusted/mutated whatever right along..........

If for example an elephant & tangerine were to evolve together sometime in the future the environment would have evolved along w/ the evolution of this "new" species (or whatever you wish to call the result)........

introducing the elephant & tangerine w/out that evolutionary process of adjustments, adaptations etc w/in the species & within the environment could have unforeseen consequences..............

You are talking about trusting those unforeseen consequences to that trusted maker of agent orange..............

The resulting tree could be sterile & have great fruit & nothing happen....... Or it could have that & it's pollen crossed w/ some other plant in the environment causing things to go ape shit........ I guess we won't know for sure till it is done........

Like kudzu, rabbits in Australia & the mongoose in Hawaii... It was a good idea @ the time........ Unlike them we have no idea how to stop something like this from spreading........

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Malkavian

It's a genetic recombination. So... You get glowing rats. It sucks to be one in the wild, but otherwise i don't see major problems with that.
It's really not that difficult to predict. If it's sterile, nothing is going to happen. If it cross pollinates... You get new species. I still fail to see a problem. Those genes are not inserted at random, they confer specific useful properties such as drought and bug resistance. So... you get lots of resistant plants. But that's the whole idea... We want lots of resistant plants to keep agriculture running. Just keep them on dedicated fields. There are some legitimate concerns about allergic reactions to GM foods, but otherwise, i don't see what the big deal is.

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Woof!

The_Heretic

No, you're assuming the worst possible case scenario with no consideration of any benefits at all. This is in fact an unrealistic outlook, since some benefit has to occur for the technology to persist long enough to pose a threat.

You don't get the fact that it will become possible to alter a person's genetics even after they're born so that it would be as if they were conceived with the gene to begin with. And as the technology is perfected it'll be more widely available to help those in third world countries just as HIV treatments will become more readily dispensed.

If you're refering to evolutionary consequences understand that if a mutation occurs in an inserted gene the procedure to correct it will be identical to the procedure which wrote that gene into the genome in the first place.

No, you're overlooking the upside for ordinary people much the same way radical xstians overlook the upside of their apocalyptic beliefs. See, that's what you're espousing: A belief that it'll all end in disaster without exception. It tells me you really don't understand the science nor practical applications thereof.

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BillCosby

It is exactly the point... A new species now interacting in the environment w/ consequences you do not know. Nor may not know until it is to late...... & then you may not be able to do anything about.....

That decision. TO take that chance is being made not by the government but but a corporation w/ one goal.

What is worse it it a corporation that has already proven & still is proving just how ruthless & uncaring they are.........

Personally I would not want to be resting my nuts in the hands people like that.......


They are now doing like 100,000 more or less of these "experiments"....... Most will prob be cool... Will all of them be cool...???

How many of them have to go wrong to fuck up a lot of shit???

Then what??? Monsanto is going to do what??? Assuming they can do anything...........

I appreciate you & Malkavian discussing this....... I have only recently begun to examine this issue & have many questions.......

Personally I have reservations w/ companies, especially Monsanto, fucking around in the gene pool & patenting them..... IMO the processes etc is one thing but not the genes themselves.. THese should not be the exclusive property of anyone, or any country.......

I have around 50 questions/problems w/ this issue that lead me to believe that some, perhaps many, of the applications of this "science" is not necessarily in the best interest of humanity. Further the practices & actions of such corporations as Monsanto may result in added value to their share holders I am skeptical as to the value some of it will have for the rest of us........

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Malkavian

Well, that's the risk with all technology. There is always some risk of unforeseen consequences and side effects. That's why there are clinical trials and suchlike for drugs, for example. No different with biotech. I still fail to see why it is difficult to predict. A gene codes for a function. As a silly example you can insert bird genome into a rat. You get a flying rat. It's very predictable, and the details can be deduced by careful observation in controlled environments. You know what rats do, you know what birds do, you observe what your hybrid does... If it's something bad, you stop the project, or develop confinement plans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillCosby That decision. TO take that chance is being made not by the government but but a corporation w/ one goal. What is worse it it a corporation that has already proven & still is proving just how ruthless & uncaring they are......... Personally I would not want to be resting my nuts in the hands people like that.......

I don't think it'll be Monsanto et al for much longer. you don't need much to sequence a gene, the prices have been dropping dramatically lately. Pretty soon you'll be able to do it in your garage lol. Template design is trickier, but with modeling software, i'm pretty sure it'll be changing soon.

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Woof!

BillCosby

That is true there are prob several thousand students in this country alone that can do it in their garage....... Now there is a comforting thought.......

Contrary to what you have heard they can not control or know everything. There are many other factors here including environmental & triggers that they know much less about & w/ billions of possibilities may never know....

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

Rigged

Ok first off, this is something I know a little about. Bioethics is really an emerging field with 0 precedent to go on. So we are really just making it up as we go.

The question that would enter my mind is: how do we define life? Once we figure that out the rest seems easy. But that is a very hard question to answer isn't it?

IMO and from what I know, plants are not considered "life" like you or I...neither are domestic animals. Yes, they are living but they are not sentient and are really considered things or "chattels."

YOU CANNOT PATIENT HUMAN TISSUES/CELLS/BLOOD etc. You can't take some of my blood and find a cure for cancer in my cells, walk over to the patent office and say I want this patented as "smith's cure for cancer." That cannot be done (w/o express permission).

There are several cases I know that SupCt has struck that down. Now there is a loop hole, of course, anything DERIVED from human tissues is patentable. For example, you find a cure for cancer in my blood you get my consent, and run my blood though a machine that creates an enzyme. Now you CAN patent that. Since it is something completely different.

I don't know where you got your information but it's wrong. Corporations can only do what they get CONSENT for. They don't come in the middle of the night and steal your precious fluids. If you consent to have your blood patented, to bad you signed the waiver your right are gone. End of story. Again I caution people there is a lot of bad information out there about this issues and b/c there is no black-letter law yet states are all over the place.

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- Economist (on John McCain)

PursuitOfHappinessParty

Life has been patented and it's been upheld by the Supreme Court.

What my worry is that that will extend into the higher lifeforms, including humans. I also doubt that protection you mentioned would extend to processes or whatever derived from cloning, hence the uproar overy stem-cell research. The government itself has already been found to be squirrelly when it comes to DNA samples taken from innocent citizens in the course of criminal investigations.

Bear in mind I'm all for research and such, I just don't trust the government or corporations. Money is the deciding factor, and the Supreme Court is increasingly turning into a party entity.

Do you really trust the government and corporations to be ethical in this new BioEthics? You base that from what example?

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