Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Gene Drive is a really, really bad idea

Scientists have the ability to very accurately edit the DNA of animals. This can create hereditary changes that are passed along to offspring. In other words, mutant animals can be created in a lab that can pass their mutations on.

This should worry you. Of course, the current proposed applications have somewhat altruistic reasons for pursuit. For example, they could modify the mosquito population so that they cannot carry malaria or other deadly diseases. So far, so good. However, if we’ve learned anything about the balance that was built into this world, it’s that making changes to any ecosystem will yield unexpected results. There’s simply no way to know what will happen when you release creature-changing elements into the wild.

That isn’t stopping scientists from pursuing it. In fact, they’re rushing through the process as quickly as possible to make real-world applications for the technique. We’ll let Scientific American elaborate below, but first let’s discuss the consequences.

This is a terrible idea. It can only be man’s ego that could take something this obviously bad and think that we can control it. There is no way that this ends well if it’s utilized. I could go on for much longer but then this would turn away from being any form of journalism into a conspiracy theory rant. Let’s look to Scientific American:

These issues need immediate attention, says geneticist Daniel Wattendorf at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia. Security concerns may mean that DARPA needs to start working on the technology before guidelines are drawn up, he adds.

Read more on Scientific American.

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