when i taught my undergrads as a grad student, and we were on the topic of biotechnology someone would always bring up how eating bioengeneered food could be harmful. so i explained it this way:
no matter what you are eating, carrot, pork chop, filet mignon, you are consuming (among other things) the dna of that thing. you have yet to turn green from your side salad, or sprout udders after cosuming a big mac, because the dna is degraded in your stomach.
human beings have been 'genetically engineering' food for as long as they have been around. we select two of the most proliferative tomato plants and cross pollinate them, so we get a whole batch of proliferative plants. then we take the most productive two from that batch and do it over. i did this for a summer when i worked for pioneer except we were criossing soybeans for their oil content. this is also BTW how natural selection works...only mother nature is doing the selecting.
Last edited by LabRat; 07-08-2004 at 10:06 AM.
Reason: spelling
|