Myths regarding Genetic Engineering

"Genetic engineering has been turned into this Frankenstein technology and a lot of it is due to ignorance" - 2003 Nobel Prize winner South African scientist Professor Sydney Brenner

A killer tomato from the movie "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"
in which Tomatoes were genetically modified and turned into
killers. A likely outcome of genetic engineering?
I think not.

There are many myths regarding genetic engineering, propagated especially by the science fiction of past and modern society in which genetic engineering has almost always been the gateway into an imaginative man made hell. Remember the animated TV series of the 1980's "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?" Or the more recent movies like "X-Men" in which humans with genetically mutated genes develop super powers and fight to destroy or save humanity? How about the X-Files in which cases of genetically engineered organisms turn into weird things that kill people?

The idea that we could "create a new species" is also a Myth related to genetic engineering. While we can modify an existing species, actually creating a new one from scratch is much beyond our current technology. Also the idea of creating a super species of mutant monsters that could destory humanity is also a myth.

The idea of the creation of the chimera (the greek monster with the head of a goat, snake, and lion) is also far fetched. In actionality, todays chimera's are organisms that have genes from another organism added to their own (remember the glowing mice?).

Another often heard myth is the idea of combining two species to form some weird combination of the two such as the grassapple shown below:

While it would be possible to combing a grasshopper's genes with that of an apple, it would not look like the above picture. Nor could the apple develop legs or antenna any more than the grasshopper could be made of plant cells and not animal cells.

A cow that has a cheetah skin? Once again, highly unlikely.

 

Since the dawn of time, science fiction writers have looked at the world around them and asked "what if?"
50 years ago, the idea of genetic manipulation was science fiction. Today, genetically modified foods are sold in supermarkets by the thousands. So will we ever be able to make a dinosaur as in Jurassic Park? Or give ourselves super powers like in X-Men? Or combine a grasshopper with an apple? Probably not. But then again...

"There is no such thing as Science Fiction. It is simply tomorrow's fact". - Isaac Asimov