Definitions of Recombinant DNA technology.

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Andrew Scarborough

Definitions of Recombinant DNA technology

Recombinant DNA technology, or genetic engineering, is artificially manipulating and modifying nucleic acid molecules to modify an organism or population of organisms, using a wide range of techniques and often involving heredity and reproduction. Some of the genetic engineering techniques involved in humans and animals include artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization (e.g., "test-tube" babies), sperm banks, cloning, and gene manipulation.

  The subject of genetic engineering, or recombinant DNA technology, is a difficult subject to take on because of the complex, ethical values surrounding the subject. Genetic engineering has advanced the understanding of many theoretical and practical aspects of gene function and organization. Saying that the use of recombinant DNA can only benefit humans may be correct in some ways, however there are many known negative sides to the argument of whether it should be carried out or not. There are also many unknown factors that come into play relating to this argument and there is much fear surrounding this part. Many well educated minds fear that the technology could create a perfect race of perfectly healthy human beings, with no faults (this is called genetic tailoring and gets a lot of media coverage, with the term often being labelled in the same lines as “designer babies”), they believe that an individual like this would not be human, because they have no imperfections and to be human is to have imperfections. They also believe that mistakes could be made that cannot be reversed, which they believe is a huge risk to take, making genetic engineering an even more delicate and fragile process than ever thought imaginable.

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The positive side of the argument, although is fairly plausible, often relates to unknown facts surrounding the process. The argument on the side for genetic engineering to go ahead is a valid one, however only really has legs to stand on due to its power of healing medically, because human instinct does not like the idea of tampering with nature and other such nature ethical issues. The thing that makes the subject interesting, furthermore, is that human instinct also does not particularly like the idea of many people dying, when there may be a cure for their suffering.

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