FREE ESSAY ON GENETICS

GENETICS

During the past decade, genetic engineering has been a very controversial issue facing our
world that ultimately questions our power as humans to control nature. Genetic
engineering has many potential benefits, such as curing all diseases, growing more food,
and altering our genes, but these advantages also cause some disadvantages, such as
overpopulation, ecological, ethical, and social issues, which all must be assessed before
we advance any further in this field. We should definitely move ahead with genetic
engineering because its advantages are very important to us, and its problems can be
addressed. 
Probably the most important reason why we need genetic engineering is to cure diseases.
Through genetic engineering, we will probably be able to cure many of the diseases
plaguing our world today. By altering genetic code, we can cure diseases, such as AIDS,
and increase the life expectancy of humans. We can optimize everyone's genes to certain
physical and mental characteristics. In 1991, the National Institute of Health patented
over 2,000 gene sequences from human brain DNA (Christianity Today, 1994). This indicates
that our ability to control every facet of human life is rapidly coming within our reach.
Despite many ethical issues opposing genetic engineering (read on), it will definitely
help us cure the sick, and that reason alone is enough reason for us to go ahead with
this new field of science. 
One of the main reasons why we should use genetic engineering is to solve our global food
shortages. Through genetic engineering, scientists can grow larger tomatoes, more apples
per orchard, and crunchier lettuce. With all the recent natural disasters and ecological
problems, such as El Nino, wild fires, and global droughts, acres of crops all over the
world are being destroyed. Places such as Florida and the mid-west are among the many
that are being hit severely. And with scientists predicting increased global warming, and
droughts in the future, genetic engineering is the only safe alternative to solving this
crisis. So far, the only genetically engineered product in the market is something called
the Flavr Savr tomato, which is engineered to stay firm longer than ordinary tomatoes
(The Economist, 1997). The principle behind transferring genes between plants is not new.
It is actually almost like hybridization (to produce crossbreeds), except more precise in
its method. With genetic engineering, scientists take individual genes from one plant and
insert them in another. There are no chemicals needed, such as those used on many crops
lately. Overall, genetically engineering plants to make them better tasting or larger is
a natural process similar to gene mutations, except it is controllable.
Another major advantage of genetic engineering is manipulating genes to change physical
and mental characteristics. Eugenics, a field of genetic engineering, has the potential
to manipulate human characteristics, such as intelligence and weight, to any
specifications. By making people more intelligent, we can shorten the years spent at high
school and college because people will be able to learn much faster than before. In turn,
this will make our global economy more efficient because there will be more people in the
work force at a younger age. No one will have to go to costly and timely exercise classes
to lose weight also. We will not have to spend money on making new health care programs,
and older people will be more productive. This technology will make our world much
simpler because it will save us valuable time throughout our life and, thus, focus our
intelligence towards more productive things, such as work and family. It will also give
us more free time to do what we want. The benefits of eugenics are clearly outstanding,
but if we get out of hand and do not regulate our manipulations of humans, we might cause
a catastrophe. 
As we excel in genetic engineering and discover more information about the human body, we
are met with new ethical issues that have never been revealed before. One of these issues
deals with treatment vs. enhancement. Most writers in the past have stated that when
genetically intervening with the human body, a distinction must be made between therapy
and enhancement. Neither therapy nor enhancement is totally morally correct, but therapy
is considered better than enhancement because it is trying to get rid of something that
has entered the system to cause harm. On the other hand, enhancement is aimed at making
the body better, or superior to someone else, which opposes the general Western belief
that all men are created equal. However, this ethical argument made by many writers,
scientists, and religious officials, all depends on each individual's standard of disease
and enhancement. One person might think that losing 100 pounds with genetic engineering
is enhancement, but another person might percieve it as therapy because the excessive
weight could be a result of hormonal imbalance and may cause disease in the future. In
other words, laws cannot be made that determine what is therapy and what is enhancement
because each human characteristic might directly or indirectly cause physical or mental
harm. This also means we really cannot determine whether certain kinds of genetic
engineering are morally correct (e.g. changing intelligence, weight, height etc.), and,
thus, we should just leave it to each individual to decide according to his/her values
and beliefs whether changing height is worse than curing the common cold. 
Another lingering ethical issue with genetic engineering concerns our right to act like
God. According to the Christian religion, God is the sole creator of life, and he/she is
the only one with the ability to create it, manipulate it, or destroy it. This
long-standing belief is probably the most crucial opposition to genetic engineering
because so many people believe it, and our society basically revolves around it. For
example, a statement signed by twenty-four religious leaders from a variety of religious
beliefs affirms that the gift of life from God, in all its forms and species, should not
be regarded solely as if it were a chemical product subject to genetic alteration and
patentable for economic benefit (Bioethics, 935). The opinions of religious leaders in
this statement should be respected, but there is no concrete proof to provide a
significant, considerable argument against genetic engineering. According to religious
leaders, this affirmation is self-evident. In that case, what does self-evident mean? The
only reason the belief that God creates everything is so commonly accepted or
self-evident, is because it has been accepted for about 2,000 years (tradition). Two
thousand years ago, this was our only explanation for the miracle of life. But our
society has changed greatly since 60 b.c. and, thus, some of our views and ethical
beliefs also might have to change . If our society had been run on a strict theological
code, we would not have advanced nearly as much as we have. This is because a strong
religious belief in a society takes much of our thought, in some sense narrows our
perspectives and, thus, keeps our society from excelling at a fast rate. One of the
largest religions on this planet, Christianity, promotes simplicity as a way of life. So,
instead of following religious affirmations on certain ethical issues, such as genetic
engineering, we should as a society scrutinize our theological perspectives, and alter
them accordingly to fit our new, contemporary world.
Aside from the ethical issues revolving around genetic engineering, there are also more
crucial ecological issues which must be assessed. When we genetically engineer animals or
plants to better serve our food supply, we basically replace certain genes with other
genes. This sounds quite safe at first, but what if by doing this we eventually diminish
the supply of a certain gene in an ecological system, or create a type of plant far
superior to all others. And then what if this plant reproduces and gets into a diverse
ecological system and kills all other plants there? The characteristics that are
engineered into an organism (plants and animals) might have innumerable negative
consequences. For example, we can genetically engineer beef cattle in such a way that we
increase cattle supply, in turn, causing an increase in a certain hormone which might be
carcinogenic. Or we can create certain plants superior to others, which might eventually
kill all other plants. Radically altering an animal and then having escape into an
uncontrolled environment could turn into a massive problem. Basically, by manipulating
gene pools and diminishing certain genes from different populations (plants or animals),
we might create an imbalance in the homeostasis of an ecology, which might lead to the
extinction of certain species.
The long term social result of genetic engineering might be catastrophic because of
narrowing of gene pools. With genetic engineering we will promote certain genes over
others. Most people that want their children to be genetically engineered will choose
pretty much the same genes which are considered by the general population better than
others. If the majority of the population in the world recieves the same genes, this will
be similar to mass cloning because everyone will have the same physical and mental
characteristics. In our current day, many cultures are distinguished by characteristics,
such as height, skin color, eye color, hair color, and certain behavioral
characteristics. By making everyone the same from at birth, we are fabricating one big
culture and unfortunately diminishing individual cultures and racial identities. Genetic
uniformity is not good because of the risk of having a harmful recessive trait emerge
into the gene pool. To avoid the risk of reaching genetic uniformity, we have to limit
the amount of traits that can be changed for each individual.
Another disadvantage of genetic engineering is potential overpopulation. By using genetic
engineering to cure all diseases, and perfect human genes, we will be able to increase
the overall life expectancy of humans as much as we want.Within our genes, each human has
a life expectancy (considering no outside forces interrupt), which is specifically
controlled by telomeres. By manipulating the telomeres (parts of chromosomes that control
life expectancy) we can program humans to live longer. This concept might seem great, but
it will result in severe overpopulation. Everyone has a right to live, but logically our
planet can only handle a certain amount of people. This does not mean we should go kill a
few million people, but we should defintely not artificially promote a greater
population. This overpopulation will cause a gap in our work force in the beginning since
there will be many more retired people than young people. It will also cause problems to
our current health care system, which can barely handle the population as is. When
dealing with genetic engineering, we should leave life expectancy alone and let nature
run its course. 
Genetic Engineering is a brave new world, which must be approached and scrutinized with
great caution. The main controversy circling genetic engineering concerns our ability and
right to control nature's course. Once we answer this question and many others, we should
definitely make the greatest effort to pursue with research and development in genetic
engineering. Overall, genetic engineering will be explored imminently because it offers
us control of nature and the world, and that alone is all we have ever wanted.