04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Genetics Gives Us New Powers, but Society Must Decide Whe...
Knowing what we now know about living systems—how they replicate and how they mutate—we are beginning to know how to control their evolutionary futures. To a considerable extent we now do that with the plants we cultivate and the animals we domesticate. This is, in fact, a standard application of genetics today. We could even go further, for there is no reason why we cannot in the same way direct our own evolutionary futures. I wish to emphasize, however—and emphatically—that whether ... 1 
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notesWe currently use genetics in the domestication of animals and crops, but whether it is ethical to go further with it, altering the genes of organisms, even ourselves, is up to society to decide.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Examples of Species Evolved through Human Artificial Sele...
The dog can stand for the success of other breeding programs. As
Darwin noted in The Origin, “Breeders habitually speak of an animal’s
organization as something quite plastic, which they can model almost as
they please.” Cows, sheep, pigs, flowers, vegetables, and so on—all came
from humans choosing variants present in wild ancestors, or variants
that arose by mutation during domestication. Through selection, the
svelte wild turkey has become our docile, meaty, and virtually tasteless... 1 notes
notesTurkeys, corn, broccoli, tomatoes, etc, etc, all bred from wild species into their modern domesticated forms.
