On BioTechnology Research

Who, in their right mind, would doubt the inherent danger of abuse of a newly developing technology by parties seeking to obtain financial gain and/or power?

I was discussing the issue with a lawyer friend, who is studying the legal implications and the existing conflicts of Biodiversity Protection laws as opposed to Human Artificial Insemination laws and the laws concerning genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or genetically engineered organisms (GEOs) in agriculture and cattle farming. Our talk went past the moral and ethical altercations of the subject and quickly into the sphere of the pragmatic implications.

In this day and age, it is inconceivable that any thinking person would hesitate for a millisecond to accept as truth that any new technology that had military or political application would instantly be put to use; especially one that can be researched under the banner of medical and socioeconomic development.

Such is the case of biotechnologies. The warnings that are screamed to the four winds are quickly quieted and buried under criticism from the interested parties, who in financial alignment with the secularist extremists in the general media, manage to promote carefree research in controversial fields. Those who raise red flags are instantly branded as “retrograde” or “religious fanatics” or even “anti-scientific” and “superstitious”. Yet, even scientists have to concede that they cannot fathom the ripple effects of interfering with the process of natural selection.

We, in our arrogance, allow ourselves to believe we already control the knowledge and the technology necessary to manipulate the genome of living organisms. We, who can’t see into tomorrow with sufficient clarity to foretell the weather, feel that we can account for the myriad variables involved in meddling with the Ecosystems of our faintly mapped abode, the Earth, by promoting certain desirable traits in our crops and in our cattle over those already selected by millions of years of natural selection.

It is true that we have been doing it for centuries by cross-breeding cattle and crops, and with already measurable impact on natural balance. However, it is one thing to give Nature a push and a completely different one to bypass Nature altogether. Now we are changing the DNA of certain crops and animals, and we are making new organisms that are bound to break the balance of our ecosystems beyond what's already history.

Why do we do it? We do it for money. We do it irresponsibly in order that some corporations may profit and fund presidential campaigns. We do it, claiming that we are doing it to satiate the hungry, but the fruits of the research are not aimed at that goal, are they? We do it, claiming we are healing the ill, but the cure comes at steep prices. Let’s not kid ourselves that such advancements are meant to be altruistic. We do it for money.

And in the name of profit margins and presidential campaigns, we pursue this research without sufficient pause. We don’t wait for important impact research results. We don’t give ourselves the time to evaluate whether the fact that there is something we can do with science necessarily means that we should do it. We don’t stop to think that there can be irremediable adverse impacts that could affect the very survival of the Human Race. We don’t question the inevitable possibility of abuse from parties wishing to employ these advancements in promoting social segregation or other political agendas. And then we pay for our collective folly.