quotations about genetic engineering
A largely unrecognized danger of the obsessive hysteria surrounding genetically modified foods is crying wolf. I fear that, if the green movement's high-amplitude warnings over GMOs turn out to be empty, people will be dangerously disinclined to listen to other and more serious warnings.
RICHARD DAWKINS
A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
The possibility of genetic engineering is one of the most important concepts to arise in the history of mankind because, for the first time, a living creature understands its origin and can undertake to design its own future.
ROBERT SINSHEIMER
attributed, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1971
The early microbe could repair ultraviolet damage to genes simply by borrowing a spare gene from a neighbouring microbe or using enzymes to make itself a fresh copy.... The gene shuffling enabled the bacteria to make a great deal of evolutionary progress. In a very real sense, we are trying to mimic this progress now with genetic engineering, which, as we will see in the next chapter, is the transfer of genes between species. The difference between bacterial promiscuity and genetic engineering is that the latter is targeted and under the control of human consciousness (itself a product of evolution).
SUSAN ALDRIDGE
The Thread of Life: The Story of Genes and Genetic Engineering
In the twenty-first century, genetic engineering will do more than merely eliminate Siamese twins and alligator-skinned people. It will make it hard to find a person with even a slight overbite or a large nose. I can see that future and it makes me shudder.
LES MARTIN
Humbug
Genetic engineering has never been about saving the world, it's about controlling the world.
VANDANA SHIVA
attributed, GrowTest
Genetic engineering is to traditional crossbreeding what the nuclear bomb was to the sword.
ANDREW KIMBRELL
"Animal Patenting: Impact of Bioengineering on Altering Animals", The Environmental Magazine, April 1994