Coyne discusses the idea of artificial selection—animal and plant breeding—in which "it is the breeder rather than nature who sorts out which variants are 'good' and 'bad'" (127). This means that often the trait that a breeder is selecting may not be fit for the animal or plant in nature. By breeding organisms, it seems that people are using technology to undermine evolution. Coyne also discusses the advancements that
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Effects of Technology--Breeding, DNA Sequencing, Medicine
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I believe that technology has both pros and cons in terms of its effects on evolution. It really depends on what technology you’re talking about and how it is being used. When Coyne discusses natural and artificial selection, he distinguishes the two by saying that artificial selection produces diversity quickly, while natural selection acts over a long period of time (p 126). If you’re saying that humans are the “breeders,” who decide which traits are favorable and which are unfavorable, and then breed individuals with favorable traits, I think that this sort of “technology” is entirely a good thing with virtually no cons. Applying this idea to the theme of Science, Technology, and Society, I think human intervention in plants and animals has a lot of positive ramifications. We learned during the biotechnology unit that humans already use DNA technology in various scientific applications, such as: diagnosing diseases, gene therapy, DNA fingerprinting, environmental cleanup, and to make transgenic animals. Going off what we learned, humans could genetically engineer medicinal plants, and could cure fatal illnesses and diseases as a result. By creating more medicines, or even more effective medicines, the cost of medicine could go down. Considering the state of the economy and the recent health care reforms that passed, artificially selecting plants would prove to be economical for the nation, as well as the world. In terms of artificial selection in animals, humans could breed animals with favorable traits (Coyne mentioned pigs, cows, and sheep on page 127) in order to provide more products for the consumer market (such as more meat, milk, sheepskin, etc.). Also, humans interfering with artificial selection is smart because, simply put, we are the smartest race. Humans know about plant and animal traits. We’ve studied animals and plants long enough to know what traits are favorable, and what traits are unfavorable in different environments. We can break down traits from a genetic perspective. Since we have so much knowledge of plants and animas, we should use the knowledge, speed up evolution, help the economy, and make more medical advancements. Coyne himself says, “Darwin knew that it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to accept that natural selection could create much greater diversity over a much longer time” (p 128). Even Darwin knew that artificial selection was a possibility, and did not object.
ReplyDeletePriyanka makes good points on the topic, however, I believe technology is a good thing. As Coyne said, "Natural Selection does not yield perfection-only improvements over what came before. It produces fitter [italicized], not the fittest [italicized]. And although selection gives the appearance of design, that design may often be imperfect" (13). Technology is just "correcting" the imperfect genes obtained through natural selection so that the organism can survive and reproduce.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the organism will keep on growing. But this leads to a logistic growth as the animals will reach the carrying capacity. “Carrying capacity…..is the maximum population size that a particular environment can sustain” (Campbell 1183). Once the population reaches carrying capacity the population will no longer grow. The population will fluctuate along the line of carrying capacity as there will be limited resources for the organisms to make use. Sometimes there will not be a major increase in population as there would always be competition and predation that would prevent the population from increasing. So the point is that technology is a good thing as it just helps the species to grow and survive like evolution but technology helps the population “artificially”. Technology also does not have a huge impact on the population as predation, competition and/or limited number of resources also prevents the population from growing. Technology can be used so that the organism doesn’t completely vanish (extinction).
Also, as priyanka said, "Since we have so much knowledge of plants and animas, we should use the knowledge, speed up evolution, help the economy, and make more medical advancements." All these reasons prove that technology on the whole is a good thing.
Priyanka brings up great points on the benefits of human intervention and biotechnology for our health and economy. Someone of the opposite perspective would argue that the genetic downhill that we face due to technological advances and the reproduction of "bad genes" will lead to an eventual decrease in survival rates. In the theme Science & Technology, people of this view would see the two forces, natural selection and technological advances, working against each other to promote de-evolution.
ReplyDeleteTo address this view (which was suggested by Coyne), one must remember that the case is not dealing with evolving organisms and constant technology. Though at a different rate, technology too evolves, improving efficiency and effectiveness.
Bruce Lahn, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, has speculated that "instead of the traditional Darwinian process that has dominated the evolution of life for the last several billion years since its inception (whereby mutations are introduced randomly and subsequently selected according to fitness), humans will be able to introduce non-random, designated changes to their own genetic makeup" (qtd. in http://www.bendweekly.com/Science/3284.html).
Advances in technology that allow humans to choose these changes are not necessarily bad things; technology and natural selection can cooperate and work in the same direction. For instance, if someone with an inherited disease is saved by the works of such technology, his/her offspring is not automatically doomed. As generations progress, changes in technology will continue to aid the affected offspring in both prevention and treatment until technology perhaps evolves to the point that a genetic disorder can be removed completely from a line of descendants. According to the Human Genome Project, today procedures such as gene therapy already function as precursors to the possible future technology in eliminating genetic diseases by targeting and "fixing" the inherited gene (http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/project/about.shtml).