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Asked by to Edward, Ian, Mathew, Naomi, sakshisharda on 17 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
Question: What is your opinion on genetic engineering, and the ramifications of these studies? I, myself, think that it's the greatest leap in biology since vaccination. But, y'know. I'm interested to hear what a real scientist thinks on the subject.
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Ian Stephenson answered on 17 Jun 2014:
You can’t decide not to learn stuff because it might be dangerous to know. You should absolutely do the studies, and then use that information to use it safely.
In some ways its just a more efficient way of what we’ve been doing for years – breeding plants and animals to specific specifications. I doubt there’s some magic combination of cells that nature hasn’t discovered that are particularly dangerous.
However there are obvious ethical issues, but most of those are about what we do with the knowledge, rather than having the knowledge. Human cloning might be wrong, so we shouldn’t do it, but that doesn’t make figuring it out and understanding how it could be done is wrong.
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Naomi Osborne answered on 17 Jun 2014:
Brilliant question!
I think genetic engineering is extremely important. The world’s population is ever growing, and if we want to keep on feeding it, genetically modified organisms will be crucial. For years crops and animals have been bred for desirable traits but this takes a long time and is unpredictable – like Ian said, genetic modification is a more efficient way of producing a desirable product, saving time and money.
What are your thoughts on lab-grown burgers, zestywolf? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16972761
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zestywolf commented on :
First of all, thank you Ian and Naomi!
And to answer your question Naomi, it looks, and probably tastes brilliant! It’s amazing that we can do this sort of stuff now!