Genetic Modification: Beneficial or Disturbing?

[azure2007]

Genetic modification is used on both animals and plants, and in the future there is a possibility that it can be applied on humans. So what is your view on this?

 

Beneficial?

Disturbing?

 

Please reply!

[ecoli]

why can't it be both, depending on the situation its being used.

[Mr Skeptic]

A genetic modification could be beneficial, harmful, neutral, or a trade-off. An intentional modification would tend to be beneficial or a trade-off. Whether the modification is disturbing or not is partly subjective, and also depends on what is being modified to do what. Modifying a disease to be extra virulent, for example would be a disturbing but beneficial modification.

[SkepticLance]

Genetic modification can be either or both. However, in my opinion, it will be essential to continued human survival and progress. This will apply to crops, where extra food will need to be grown to feed the hungry millions, and extra biofuels grown.

 

It will also apply in the end to humans. My favourite is resistance to radiation for space travellers. Even a round trip to Mars would expose the travellers to enough radiation to almost guarantee a case of cancer. To actually live in space, or travel to another star would be a death sentence. However, some organisms can tolerate much larger radiation doses than humans, and a little genetic manipulation would result in a human who can tolerate 1000 times as much radiation as the current model can.