Saturday, January 16, 2010

ARTIFICIAL SELECTION!?!

Under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals, if any?

Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. “Charles Darwin used the term in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improve survival or reproductive ability.”
Imagine your self-enjoying a nice salad at a restaurant and later discovering that all the “healthy” vegetable that you have just consumed were artificially selected. Everyone tells you that a salad is a good choice and that it’s good for you, but in this case is it really? On daily basics we consume many artificially selected products with out us realizing and we never take a second to think about it and we can simply blame units. This topic is related directly to the pervious topic of designer babies. I had agreed that designing a baby was wrong but some how when I thinking of artificially selected plants or animals it seems different. Even though I know its wrong something in the back of my mind tells me that this is a different situation. But when thinking a baby is a living thing and so are plants and animals. And we should be cloning them or artificially selecting them. There are many advantages to artificial selection like disease. Which could be prevented by perceiving people/ animals/ plants that are genetically prone to certain hereditart diseases, and preparing for the inevitable. Implanting genes that code for antiviral as well can treat infection diseases. Animals and plants can be altered to show desirable characteristics. Genes could also be manipulated in trees for example, to absorb more CO2 and reduce the threat of global warming. Genetic engineering could also increase diversity and produce more variant alleles, which could also be crossed over and implanted into other species. It is possible to modify the genetics of wheat plants to grow insulin for example.
There are also disadvantages to artificial selection. Nature is a tremendously complex inter- related chain consisting of many species linked in the food chain. Some scientist’s believe that introducing genetically customized genes may have an irreversible effect with consequences yet unknown. Genetic engineering borderline on many moral issues, particularly involving religion, which question whether man has the right to influence the laws and path of nature.
The plants with desirable characteristics are grown by man and their numbers increase. But, plants without theses characteristics are less likely to survive, as they are not provided with the fertilisers and pesticides by man. Eventually, the species of the plant will vanish.
Many will say that artificially selecting or modifying the genes of animals and plants similar would save time, money and resources. But I don’t think that taking shortcuts is the better way to do anything. Yes, shortcuts take less time and energy. But at the end that by taking the shortcut that you have missed some steps and that it will affect the product. Then you realize that if you had done everything step by step there would have been no problem. Even at Mary ward for example, if you take the shortcut to complete units there will be consequences at the end. Whether it’s a zero because you copied someone’s unit or a low mark because you didn’t give your best. In my opinion I believe that artificial selection is wrong just like designer babies. Animals, plants and humans are all living things and we don’t have the right to clone or artificially select and believe that its against our religious belief and God. God has created everything and we are slowly changing things around us to benefit us and are also slowly killing plants and animals. Every one will have different opinions on this topic but all I can say is that I am going stick with natural products as best as I can.

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