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 Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 2:58 pm
As Oni as told me in great detail some time back, they are currently splicing our foods to make them look a certain way, or have a certain flavor.
In the case of fast foods, they're using it to have as minimal amounts of meat in their burgers as possible and cut back on costs.
And in addition to the edible properties is genetic splicing, it is also used in trying to find cures and alternate sounces of energy.
So I ask you all, will is ultimately benefit, or harm human society as a whole?
*is now paranoid of Fast Food*
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:46 pm
I feel that genetic splicing of food is not necessarily a bad thing because one day our resources on the planet are going to dry up and then we are ******** up the river without an oar. I will say that I don't approve of genetically splicing food to save costs and reduce meat content in meat as you mentioned, because when I buy compact cow, I expect just that: compact cow. The whole thing of splicing tomatos to be bigger as well as gherkins/pickles to being bigger to fit a hamburger bun is cool, but it's not entirely necessarily - in regards to the fact that we have survived with the smaller varieties for many millenia.
Anybody see "Super Size Me"? In America, the small meal used to be the average large sized meal for an adult when fast food chains were originally created. Now there is several sizes, including the "Super Size" meals - half of which the sodas are just about a galloon of soda which is far from good for you. Back to the topic at hand!
Genetic splicing when it comes to other purposes, is extremely useful - sickle cell anaemia is helped greatly through gene therapy if I'm not mistaken? Stem cell research has so much potential for curing many a disease and disorder, however narrow-minded freaks stand in the way...tt's all right, they all thought Bill Gates was nuts for investing his life and money into computers...
I feel though, that genetic splicing would eventually do us a great deal of harm as we are a rather destructive lot us humans.
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:54 pm
Genetic splicing is traditionally sorted into three categories:
* Green is agricultural and experimental work.
* White is industrial applications.
* Red is medical applications.
We've seen that red splicing is valuable in aiding against such diseases as sickle-cell anemia, and white has much potential (read "Zodiac" by Neal Stephenson, though, and you'll see how that potential can be corrupted). Green splicing is what needs to be worries about. The FDA's standards are imperfect (but better than nothing) on this area, and scrupulous testing is the only thing preventing mass distribution of some sort of slow-acting poison to the public.
I'm cool with red and see the potential of white genetic splicing, with careful monitoring and regulation. It's the green stuff that worries me.
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Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:36 pm
I say genetic splicing is, by far, the best thing since spliced bread. ~.^ As a source to my convictions, I just need to point to, in the eyes of myself and some others, the greatest living American. No, it isn't Al Gore, it isn't Al Sharpton, and it certainly isn't George W. Bush. His name is Norman Borlaug. And you've probably never heard of him. The Greatest Living American?Quote: Through the 1940s and 1950s, Borlaug developed high-yield wheat strains, then patiently taught the new science of Green Revolution agriculture to poor farmers of Mexico and nations to its south. When famine struck India and Pakistan in the mid-1960s, Borlaug and a team of Mexican assistants raced to the Subcontinent and, often working within sight of artillery flashes from the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, sowed the first high-yield cereal crop in that region; in a decade, India’s food production increased sevenfold, saving the Subcontinent from predicted Malthusian catastrophes. The annoying thing is that some environmentalists- particularly those within Europe- are against the supposed "Frankenfoods" when they have the potential for- dare I say it?- ending global hunger. Their argument is that genetically-enhanced foods may cause health detriments, even though for the past several years, countless products- from soda, to cereal, to cotton- have been using genetically-altered materials with new terrible outbreak or allergy spoken of to date. Similar, less sophisticated methods have been used for years- splicing trees, or selective breeding to enhance certain traits within plants, for example. As for Norman, it's estimated that he's saved one billion lives because of the technology he provided. That's BILLION. With a B. I'll stick with my Frankenfood and keep my support with the scientists who know what they're doing, kthnx.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:21 pm
BIood Moon As a source to my convictions, I just need to point to, in the eyes of myself and some others, the greatest living American. No, it isn't Al Gore, it isn't Al Sharpton, and it certainly isn't George W. Bush. His name is Norman Borlaug. Paraphrasing Penn Jillette, eh? To be fair though, I don't think Mr. Borlaug spliced any meat products, and the cheap meat that was ******** around with for a fast food chain's expenses can't possibly be more beneficial to consumers than meat found anywhere else. It just can't.
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:30 pm
The_Wicked_Man BIood Moon As a source to my convictions, I just need to point to, in the eyes of myself and some others, the greatest living American. No, it isn't Al Gore, it isn't Al Sharpton, and it certainly isn't George W. Bush. His name is Norman Borlaug. Paraphrasing Penn Jillette, eh? To be fair though, I don't think Mr. Borlaug spliced any meat products, and the cheap meat that was ******** around with for a fast food chain's expenses can't possibly be more beneficial to consumers than meat found anywhere else. It just can't. XD Honestly, no. I was doing a speech on stem cells and gene therapy a few months ago, and his name came up. I'd be lying if I said I didn't watch that episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit afterwards, and I'd be lying excessively if I said I don't love the series, but the page I cited was the original site where I bumped into the name. On a side note, I got an A on the speech. =x
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