quotations about genetic engineering
Genetic engineering is to traditional crossbreeding what the nuclear bomb was to the sword.
ANDREW KIMBRELL
"Animal Patenting: Impact of Bioengineering on Altering Animals", The Environmental Magazine, April 1994
When one adopts a theological perspective, one can certainly understand the qualms that religious leaders might have about genetic engineering. The Judaeo-Christian tradition has been staunch in its belief that God created living things "each according to its own kind," with the clear implication that species are fixed, immutable, and clearly separated from one another. Nineteenth-century and contemporary opposition by religious factions to Darwin and Darwin's notion of the origin and flux of species illustrates the significance placed upon fixed kinds of religious groups. For humans to meddle with species, to possibly create new species, to blur the lines between species, and, indeed, as Darwin did, to argue that humans and animals are continuous, is to erode the special place of humans and to trade comfortable predictability and order for uncertainty.
BERNARD E. ROLLIN
The Frankenstein Syndrome
We do 'custom-tailor' mice. We view them as the canvas upon which we do these genetic transplantations.
HOWARD B. ROSEN
"Biomedical Researchers Scurry to Make Genetically Altered Mice", San Jose Mercury News, February 8, 1993
In the twenty-first century, genetic engineering will do more than merely eliminate Siamese twins and alligator-skinned people. It will make it hard to find a person with even a slight overbite or a large nose. I can see that future and it makes me shudder.
LES MARTIN
Humbug
Genetic engineering has never been about saving the world, it's about controlling the world.
VANDANA SHIVA
attributed, GrowTest
The early microbe could repair ultraviolet damage to genes simply by borrowing a spare gene from a neighbouring microbe or using enzymes to make itself a fresh copy.... The gene shuffling enabled the bacteria to make a great deal of evolutionary progress. In a very real sense, we are trying to mimic this progress now with genetic engineering, which, as we will see in the next chapter, is the transfer of genes between species. The difference between bacterial promiscuity and genetic engineering is that the latter is targeted and under the control of human consciousness (itself a product of evolution).
SUSAN ALDRIDGE
The Thread of Life: The Story of Genes and Genetic Engineering