Genetic Engineering Playing God or Scientific Progress
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Genetic Engineering: "Playing God" or Scientific Progress?
"Genetic Engineering is the use of several methods to manipulate the DNA of cells to alter hereditary traits or to produce biological products". There are many practices that fall under the study of Genetic Engineering, these include: cloning, stem cell research, gene therapy, gene splicing, as well as many others. Scientists have come up with many uses of genetic engineering, it can be used to repair a genetic defect, enhance an effect already natural to an organism, increase resistance to many diseases, and enable an organism to do something that it normally wouldn't do.
In today's society there is a large percentage of people that are opposed to the research of genetic engineering. Ethical issues are the primary reason people are highly against genetic engineering. For example, many believe that when cloning a human being with an identical genetic code, it would violate the basic human dignity and destroy the individual's uniqueness. The effect of cloning could lead to the development of a "superior class" of individuals (Bruce). Another concern is with scientists performing experiments with genetically engineered food is often associated with that of "playing the role of God" (Hines). If the rapid progression of genetically engineered food keeps advancing, the jobs of numerous farmers are in major jeopardy because agriculture will move off the soil and into biosynthetic factories, thus resulting in the elimination of all "natural" crops (Wachbroit)...