Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge

Unless you lived in a cave or just came down from another planet, you have either seen Jurassic Park, read the book, or heard a reference to it in some post of popular culture. And not just from the official movies or books. Since it came out there have been dozens of movies made along the same theme, bringing dinosaurs back to life. Now in the movie they found dinosaur DNA in mosquitoes trapped in amber, and plugged the gaps with frog DNA. From what I have read this would not have worked. Either the dinosaur DNA would not have been well enough preserved, or the frog DNA would have altered the organism beyond recognition. So does that mean we will never see these big creatures again? As one of my favorite sports personalities says, not so fast. While it’s true that we may never see the exact same beast again, minus some kind of time travel that allows us to go back and collect eggs, or at least DNA, from the living beast, we may be able to construct some kind of facsimile. Whether we should or not is another question, but that has never seemed to stop us from doing anything.
Now most people have heard of the Human Genome Project, which is mapping the genetic structure of humans and finding out what does what in the Chromosomes. What many people don’t realize is that we are doing the same thing with other organism, plants, animals, fungi and microbes. Eventually we will have a complete map of the genome of just about every organism on Earth, and soon to follow will be an understanding of what each gene does. From there it is a simple step to design organism with the traits we want, sheep with better wool, fruit trees with multiple crops each year, guard dogs with more intelligence, you name it. There are many who are protesting this technology, saying it leads to dangers from the engineered foods, or falling back on religious objections that only God should design living things. The fact of the matter is there is no way to stop it, short of forming a world government and police force, which raises objections with other people. You may be able to stop crops from being grown in your country. You will not be able to do anything about a private lab in Singapore.
Once every gene is coded then designer organisms can be planned and basically built. Computer studies can show us what to expect from certain genetic combinations, probably not one hundred percent, but still in the ball park. Then comes the difficult part, the trial and error of growing the beasts. So we want a fifty ton sauropod that generally looks like an Apatosaur. Or a Tyranosaur. And we build it. And suddenly we have zoos with animals that have never existed on Earth, but have a close enough resemblance to the originals that we can hang signs on the enclosures and let people come to ooh and ah over them. Of course there may other uses for smaller animals that have been genetically engineered. I don’t see where a giant sauropod or a large carnosaur would be all that useful in the modern or future world. But velociraptors or other smaller forms might be useful for security or warfare. Or modifications of modern animals, such as the war jaguars in Michael Moorcocks Dorian Hawkmoon series. Or genetically modified house pets for space colonies. People may protest, but if it can happen it will happen. I for one look toward it with mixed feelings. But the decision is not in my hands. Nor, really, is it in yours.