down to the last gene


was having gp lecture yesterday on the biotech century and its impact on the commercial world..interesting stuff..i dun profess to know much about this whole thing[im an arts student!], these are some of my honest thoughts


'biotechnology' brings to mind things like cloning, gene manipulation and therapy[yup..all the science-y stuff] and possibly images of geeky-looking white coated scientists who tinker in the labs all day.. but the things that they handle are not just any other kind of chemicals or reagents.. they are the building blocks of life! yup..all the genes and chromosomes that makes life possible for us homo sepians. its really quite scary when you think about the amount of power that these pple hold in their hands...


they have been successful in cloning insects and animals from fruit flies to cows and the latest being a dog[it's snuppy i think]. some have even claimed to have done in on humans[ baby eve from south korea though the lab does not have an independent body's validation]. i guess that in no time when they are able to reduce the failure rate for reproduction cloning, there would be large scale attempts to clone humans too with procedures like the pre-selection of genes and all the other what-nots


we know that genes determine your physical traits in life - tall, short, fat, thin, pretty.. and is the cause of illnesses like down's syndrome, turner's syndrome.. some even argue that they affect your inteligence and behaviour too. it is really quite amazing that the mere 46 chromosomes that fit into the nucleus of a cell are able to to decide our 'fate' in life [or so they say] if we the created are so complex already, imagine what is the creator like?


sometimes i just have the nagging suspicion that we have placing too much emphasis on this minute genes..are they really responsible for everything that happens and everything that we do? or are they just the best excuses to give for anything unexplainable? does life completely come down to only the genes that are in us?


is there a gene that makes people lazy? or another that makes people suicidal? one that makes people think that God exists? are our individual personalties and temperaments only based on what exists in a double helix in our cells?


there is more that i want to say but just am unsure of how to put them down..
maybe next time..

-How great Thou art-
oh Lord my God when i'm in awesome wonder
consider all the works Thy hands have made
i see the stars, i heard the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed


glad to be created in the image of God
down to the last gene