Science is a creature that continues to evolve at a much higher rate
than the beings that gave it birth. The transformation time from tree-shrew,
to ape, to human far exceeds the time from analytical engine, to calculator, to
computer. But science, in the past, has always remained distant. It has
allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, but
never in history will science be able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic
engineering will undoubtedly do. With the birth of this new technology,
scientific extremists and anti-technologists have risen in arms to block its
budding future. Spreading fear by misinterpretation of facts, they promote
their hidden agendas in the halls of the United States congress. Genetic
engineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results,
specifically in the field of medicine. It will usher in a world where gene
defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past. By
understanding genetic engineering and its history, discovering its possibilities,
and answering the moral and safety questions it brings forth, the blanket of
fear covering this remarkable technical miracle can be lifted.
The first step to understanding genetic engineering, and embracing its
possibilities for society, is to obtain a rough knowledge base of its history
and method. The basis for altering the evolutionary process is dependent
on the
understanding of how individuals pass on characteristics to their offspring.
Genetics achieved its first foothold on the secrets of nature's evolutionary
process when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first "laws of
heredity." Using these laws, scientists studied the characteristics of
organisms for most of the next one hundred years following Mendel's discovery.
These early studies concluded that each organism has two sets of character... [continues]
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