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Genetic engineering promises much in the fields, animal husbandry, food crops.
If we take genetically modified food, especially plants, we can improve crop fields for example.
It is all too easy that we forget about the risks. The risks are great.
Genetics are experimenting with the substance of life and the ultimate price could be the life itself.
Although I am not in favor of genetic engineering, there are several arguments for and against it.
Some people say that genetic engineering allows scientists to save endangered species from becoming extinct.
However I don't agree. I think that the society itself should prevent their extinction from happening in the first place. They should protect the environment in which those animals live.
Scientists even could recreate a "near-perfect" human being by eliminating life threatening inherited diseases and creating a perfect physical being.
But then again we would have a future world, where every human being would look the same and there would be no variety.
We would end up increasing the average life span of the people and thereby creating an imbalance between the amount of food available and the world population.
This could create a food shortage or even a famine.
Even some people say that genes exist that turn people into criminals.
It would be able to correct these anti-social genes that turn people into criminals, but however the natural balance of jobs in society would not be balanced and some other negative trait would probably take over.
I also think that the scientists don't know much about the long term effects. Experiments within the laboratory are limited to provide conclusive results even though many thousands of experiments have been made. The only true experiment is out in the wild, by which time we may be too late as we are experimenting with the entire world ecosystem.
It takes not much DNA to flip species over into something else, we cannot say as we lack sufficient data. Genetic engineering is a world of ignorance. There is far too little we know.
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