Gregory Stock discusses the controversial issue of germinal choice technology (GCT) in his essay, "The Enhanced and the Unenhanced." Michael Pollan alludes to a potato called the New Leaf Superior that produces its own insecticide in "Playing God in the Garden." While Pollan's essay deals with the role of biotechnology to enhance agricultural products, Stock's essay points to the ways in which technology has helped humans in their development and claims that the genetic choice technology in particular will be the next hope for humanity. After reading Pollan, my views on the unnaturalness of technology, as well as its effects on diversity, are the same as they were prior to reading his essay. I believe that genetic engineering, in general, is unnatural, will be detrimental to the natural, can possibly be very dangerous, and will ultimately destroy national diversity.
Stock argues, "We are as natural a part of the world as anything else is, and so is the technology we create"(Stock 569). He is basically classifying humans as a part of nature. Therefore, according to Stock, since humans are nature, anything they create is natural by means of the laws of association. However, if we were to put Stock's theory into practice, then everything on Earth would be natural. For instance, a computer, a man-made breakthrough in technology, is natural according to Stock. As a result, I believe Stock's opinion on what constitutes naturalness is absurd. The altering of human DNA to allow for the selection of desired traits is not natural. I believe that human influence on a natural process will ultimately make the process unnatural.
There are several negative side effects to biotechnology. Pollan explains how "the bacterial toxin produced in my (Pollan's) New Leafs happens to be the same insecticide organic growers have relied on for decades"(Pollan 403). This can cause a major problem for organic growers as Pollan writes,
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