It doesn't only bother me practically. Yes I did consider the fact that they'd have to compete, though I didn't consider the fact that they evolve all the time anyway, that's a good point. BUT, especially if they're talking about something as drastic as eating up a significant amount of carbon in the air, it will change the ecosystem. It'll pose the same danger as moving animals across continents.
But really it bothers me in a different way. I'll say morally, for a severe lack of better term. Maybe existentially. It doesn't sit right with me that we'll be living amongst creatures created in a lab, and that there's no way to differentiate them. I don't believe in God, but I like that we exist within a certain biological framework, it just feels like part of our identity. That the players are allowed to change the rules bothers me.
Your dog is genetically engineered. Your tomato. Your children. And I don't mean in the lab, but the usual way, by using your intelligence to choose suitable stock and then breeding until you get what you want. The shortcut in the lab is just faster and cheaper, not different in any basic or ethical way.
But that old-time genetic engineering still plays by the rules of nature, so to speak. Grafting branches between trees is pushing it a little. Splicing genes, not to mention synthesizing them from scratch, I think is pretty clearly of a different nature.
Golden delicious apples were a sport. Any really new feature in evolution is. The advantage of doing it in the lab is, its lots safer. You know what you're getting - just what you wanted. Not all the other random accidental changes you couldn't measure. Grandma's better tomato could actually make you sick - she had no idea what she was doing and no control over the process.
It has the potential to be different in the way that building a 747 is different than breeding a bird to be able to carry people across the Pacific Ocean. Either may be possible, but it's different.
I don't understand, you will never create a 747 with bird genes. In fact, they can do nothing with this technology that could not have been done by infinite monkeys with gene-splicing equipment. The only difference I see is the speed.
But really it bothers me in a different way. I'll say morally, for a severe lack of better term. Maybe existentially. It doesn't sit right with me that we'll be living amongst creatures created in a lab, and that there's no way to differentiate them. I don't believe in God, but I like that we exist within a certain biological framework, it just feels like part of our identity. That the players are allowed to change the rules bothers me.