What is genetic engineering?

There is a reason why the word genes is linked in the last few blog posts.  A great deal have a wrong idea of what genes are.  I have read about people believing that genes are something artificial added to food.  Presumably those had never heard of genes before there was talk about genetic engineering.  Some genetically engineered organisms then started to be sold as food.  Something which was and is controversial.

In reality genes are the same as hereditary characters.  They are made of DNA which is a substance shared by all life on Earth.  Single ones or combinations of them code for specific characteristics.  Even if an organism carries a gene it is not necessarily expressed.  Other genes can stop it from coming to expression.  Or it is only expressed under certain conditions.  Such conditions can’t be taken for granted.  Taking them for granted leads to the influence of genes being overestimated.

In modern times it has become possible to transfer such hereditary characters from an organism to another.  Previously this has only been possible if the organism can be crossbred.  This is normally only possible within genera or families.  Then it is pure random chance which hereditary characters are transferred.  Moreover the result may be a sterile organism.  If the result of the crossbreeding survives at all.  With modern genetic engineering there are no such limits.  Specific hereditary characters can be transferred between any organisms.  However, this does not always work.  So people have to make several attempts to see if it has worked.

Please note that only the selected characteristic is transferred by genetic engineering.  Other characteristics associated with the organism it is taken from are as such not transferred.  The supposition that the method does seems to come from prescientific ideas of crossbreeding.  People imagined crossbreeds we now know to be impossible.  The organisms are simply too different.  Modern knowledge of possible crossbreeds have then been applies to genetic engineering.  This is a false analogy giving wrong idea of the result.

Another myth is that the genetic engineering would be transferred to the consumer.  Food and medicine from such organisms is believed to make oneself genetically engineered.  This based on the belief that hereditary characters transferred artificially would work in a different way.  No such difference exists.  Sensible people with the opportunity eat many different organisms.  Many foodstuffs contain DNA existing naturally in them.  Genes transferred by genetic engineering are made from the same substance.  Consequentially they are also broken down in the body the same way.

Finally I want to point out that artificial is not the same as harmful.  Just because something is made in laboratories it is not necessarily dangerous.  Certainly harmful and dangerous substances can be made in such environments.  But it is not the lab environment itself but exactly what is made determining the risks.  The same methods can be used to create something dangerous or harmless.  It is as such what it is used to determining if it is good or bad.  Which is my attitude to genetic engineering too.

 

Uploaded on the 10th of July 2025.