OK so you don’t know what nucleotides are, right?
OK I’ll be more specific:
Word are composed of letters, yes? Sequences of letters. In the manner that songs are composed of a great number of musical notes. You would admit this?
I’m not terribly musical, but suppose that the very simple song, “chopsticks” does contain the musical note, middle C, OK? Suppose that.
Now let’s say Mozart likewise has a song that contains the musical note middle C —following me?
Would you say that the act of “borrowing” middle C from “chopsticks” and putting it into this more sophisticated song has the effect of POLLUTING and ADULTERATING the more sophisticated song?
Cuz:
We have reprogrammed E. coli to make insulin, ok? We snipped in DNA sequences to make a slightly altered organism. This made insulin for diabetics. And with similar mechanisms growth hormone was made to make stunted kids grow properly.
You grow it up, and then harvest the protein, and inject it into patients —done alll the time. The same basic principle is used at community colleges, even (though without injections, obviously).
And not only was that good and commercially valuable, but I didn’t think of this new E. coli as being evil, or somehow less “E. coli”-like.
I didn’t hate the E. coli, but it was happy to be my medicine slave. It never complained or anything, and it did it’s job (?) well.
It was in the garden, and.....it seemed almost like I was SUPPOSED to pick it up and use it.
I am reminded of a picture I once saw of an anti-biotech protestor. She was holding up a sign reading "NO DNA IN OUR FOOD!"