I'm borderline working in the field (I only play with DNA in computers, not actual living things) and I haven't heard this distinction in terminology before.
I certainly don't think any of these techniques are intrisically evil, but I do think it's worth paying attention to what is being done with them, good and bad.
I also confess I don't quite understand the degree of opposition to fish genes in tomatoes - the reaction is strong enough that there's clearly something that triggers many people sense of "fundamentally wrong". But DNA is DNA, and from an evolutionary perspective, allowing viruses (engineered or not) to mess with your DNA is far "worse". But of course, that's "natural".
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-03-01 01:03 am (UTC)I certainly don't think any of these techniques are intrisically evil, but I do think it's worth paying attention to what is being done with them, good and bad.
I also confess I don't quite understand the degree of opposition to fish genes in tomatoes - the reaction is strong enough that there's clearly something that triggers many people sense of "fundamentally wrong". But DNA is DNA, and from an evolutionary perspective, allowing viruses (engineered or not) to mess with your DNA is far "worse". But of course, that's "natural".