I Was Just Thinking

I have had a lot of free time to think over the course of this very short spring break. The have been a lot of issues concerning the rights of humans. Well one of those issues is genetic engineering. Well genetic engineering is a very expansive category. A couple of the subjects are genetically engineered food and, maybe the most controversial, cloning. Now I have done very little research on both of these issues and can kind of see the views and concerns of the main two sides of these issues.

Genetically engineered food can be useful to increase the amounts of vitamins and minerals in different types of food. In addition if one also combines cloning with genetic engineering it could be very easy to end world hunger by increasing the food supply. But....... would this be playing God? Maybe there is a reason that there is an abundant need for food and a short supply. I am not saying that this is deserving of anyone, but rather let us examine one of the reasons there are forest fires and what the effects are for them. Well in a forest there becomes a build up of organic waste like leaves, dead organisms, and so on the forest bottom. Well the process of decomposition can take quite a long time. Also in the process there becomes a build up of gasses. Well when a forest fire starts "naturally" the gross build up is eliminated along with, sadly, some of the organisms that are perhaps to slow to get out of the way (fact of life: the weaker of a species generally does not survive). These natural forest fires are nature's way of replenishing itself and starting over. It is kind of like pressing the reset button on your computer when it starts to bog down or is frozen. Once the extra organic waste is no more, this allows for the forest floor to sprout seedlings and new micro ecosystems have room to develop. And remember how some of the different species were also eliminated? Well now there is a lower demand of food (also a lower supply of food in a way), and new food for the new population density. Getting back to genetically engineered food and the world's food supply, well..... everyday people die of natural and not so natural deaths. There are many factors that go into balancing out the human population. One such factor is food supply verses demand. In nature there are examples of where there is a plentiful amount of food and therefore the population in that area tends to boom (one must also take into account the predator to prey factor). There will continue to be a large increase of the population until there is a higher demand for food and a lower supply. Then a fraction of the population will disappear and perhaps the process will start over again. The same goes for the human population, mess with the amount of food available and risk throwing of the carefully balanced population.

Now I know there are many dieing each day in some countries due to food shortage while in other countries there are those who each day waste a large percentage of food. We need to create a different method of distribution to fix this problem. Just a thought…..

Now cloning and genetically engineered humans; things that fill the pages of science fiction novels. This is a subject of both how far can humans go before going too far and morals. I will leave this issue open for discussion. I want to know how the general public of the class would approach this issue. Keep in mind that cloning and genetic engineering of humans can be very closely related to the cloning and genetic engineering of food.