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The GloFish “Controversy”


tonyjuliano
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On 6/23/2021 at 5:24 PM, ARMYVET said:

When was the last time you saw a 35lb turkey in the wild?  Thats GMO for ya.

I believe there are, as of yet, no GMO turkeys on the market.  The differences between the ancestral form and the modern, factory-farm raised birds has all been accomplished through selective breeding.  For better or for worse.

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On 6/23/2021 at 7:48 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

I believe there are, as of yet, no GMO turkeys on the market.  The differences between the ancestral form and the modern, factory-farm raised birds has all been accomplished through selective breeding.  For better or for worse.

Well they still taste like crap lol

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Personally I have no problem with glofish. Their origins are pretty cool, and someone saw a potential for sales started selling them. My problem is that they can reproduce naturally but you can't breed them because they are patented. 

@ARMYVET

On 6/23/2021 at 4:22 PM, ARMYVET said:

Then the definition should be updated!....modification by adding foreign or eliminating of dna is MODIFIED.  Unmodified...is leaving it the hell alone like nature intended it.  Unfortunately Ethics....the stuff that makes people ask IF they should do something rather than CAN we do something is almost extinct.   

Sorry no disrespect is intended.

One could argue that if no foreign DNA if being added and you are only suppressing or removing  natural traits then the same end result could technically be achieved by selective breeding.

Many of the fish we keep and virtually every breed of cat or dog people keep as pets have had their genetics modified by humans, just over many generations rather than in a lab. 

I personally have no problems with GMOs as long as they're are produced/used responsibly.

I think there should be 3 rules.

1 modifications must be shown to have no ill effects on the organism.

2 modifications must be shown to have no ill on any people or animals that may consume the organism.

3 modified genes must be 100% recessive in order to prevent its introduction into the wild except in cases where that's the whole point. 

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On 6/23/2021 at 6:29 PM, ARMYVET said:

Evolution which is what I think you were getting at has always made changes for adaptations for the betterment to the best of my knowledge.  I am not saying its an absolute but I cannot think of any changes that were made that hurt a species unlike what man has accomplished.

Ohhh nooo it’s 2:00am but I have to do the bio teacher thing! I can’t stop myself! 😆

I think this is self-evident, but just to clarify—evolution is not a force that moves in one direction. It has no goal, and it has no intentions. It’s just a set of things that happens.

There’s variation among members of a species. Not all members of a species get to reproduce. (Many die, or don’t find a mate, etc). The ones that do get to reproduce pass on their genes. The babies inherit the traits that made their parents successful. The cycle repeats. Sometimes a lucky mutation is thrown in there and a new trait appears.

To say that evolution has always made changes for the “betterment” or that it never “hurt” the species doesn’t mean a whole lot without us attaching our idea of “good” and “bad” to the results of natural selection.

For example, take the bean weevil. The male genitalia of bean weevils is sharp and destructive. When a male mates with a female, he ends up physically destroying her reproductive tract, making it impossible for other males to mate with her. Is that “beneficial” to the species? It benefits that male, but certainly not the female. It’s a result of natural selection, but it’s hard for me to categorize that as something objectively good.

Unlike many birds who have lovely rituals and colors to attract mates, ducks have evolved to be rapists. They have some mating dances too, but rape is extremely common—so much so that the female reproductive tract is twisted in an attempt to keep the male out (because she’s more likely to pass on her genes with fewer partners and more focus on raising ducklings). The male genitalia have evolved a twisted shape in an attempt to keep up with this change—but the female tract then evolved to twist in the opposite direction. Some duck species developed a fork in the female track so the female can control which side the male ends up in—the dead-end side or the reproductive side. It’s a constant natural selection battle. And it would be a stretch to say it’s benefiting the species. It certainly doesn’t seem “good” in the usual way we use the term.

When a lion defeats another lion in a fight and takes over his pride, the new lion will kill any cubs. This sends their mothers into heat so they can have his cubs. A stallion will sometimes murder a newborn foal if he thinks the foal is weak, because the mare’s instinct would be to stay with the foal at all costs (to protect her genetic investment), and the stallion doesn’t want to lose her and her reproductive potential. Mother ducks will sometimes peck at their weak ducklings to try to drown them or drive them away because they don’t have enough energy to care for their entire brood. In some species of birds, nest mates will literally peck each other to death because a single baby bird that gets all the food is more likely to survive than one that has to share food with its sibling. Nature is rife with these examples of animals doing what we would normally consider terrible things because that behavior helps them pass on their genes.

And despite our moral compasses, humans are not immune. Studies of human females have shown some disturbing trends. Mothers of twins tend to give more attention to the healthier twin versus the sickly one, presumably because women with this instinct were more likely to raise one healthy baby as opposed to splitting their energy and possibly losing both. Pregnant women tend to be more xenophobic than women who aren’t pregnant, perhaps because it helps them avoid novel diseases that could put their baby at risk.

Nature is not kind. Evolution is not kind. I believe Darwin actually lost his faith in God because of the disturbing things he discovered while developing his theory. To label nature and evolution as “good” is not only mistaken, but dangerous. That’s where the eugenics movement came from. We might be able to say that strength, skill, and natural adaptations are good. But I’m not sure anyone who’s really studied nature can say that being “evolutionarily fit” is objectively good.

Nature just is what it is. There’s a lot of beauty in it, and there’s also a whole lot of suffering.

Edited by Hobbit
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That was an absolutely wonderful essay with examples very much on point, @Hobbit.  Nicely written!  Although to be perfectly honest, this is the sort of eloquence I've come to expect from you.  😃

On 6/24/2021 at 1:45 AM, Hobbit said:

And despite our moral compasses, humans are not immune.

It's been said a few times here, and perhaps this is more philosophical than folks want to go, but "morals" or "values" or whatever you'd like to call them are not absolute.  A brief look at history would offer up loads of evidence for that.  We like to treat them as though they are immutable, and claim a "moral high ground".  But it's all opinion.  Perhaps in a few hundred years people will look back at the GMO controversy of today in the same way we view the suspension hunter gathers likely had of that immoral farming thing.  Or we might come to regret the unfortunate results of a gene edited organism gone wrong the way the promise of DDT didn't pan out as anticipated.  My point is just that it is nearly impossibly to know how future generations will feel about anything, except that whatever values they hold, they will likely assume theirs to be in the absolute right. 

Further down the garden path, I love the Mac & Cheese thread that @Streetwisestarted because it is a wonderful example of people sharing their, often differing, opinions in a civil manner.  In my youth, I would get very worked up over internet or political arguments.  But once I recognized that these were little more than arguments over which opinion is "best", I was able to take a step back and ask myself "what is it people are really arguing for?".  It allowed me to realize there is a lot more middle ground than is apparent when I was allowing myself to get enraged.  Sure the stakes can be higher.  But whenever things get heated or look like they will, I now tend to see it like arguing over the "one correct" mac & cheese recipe.  Or indeed GloFish... 

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I've kept Glofish™️ for almost 10 years, exclusively the Glo danios and tetras. In a very real sense they're the fish that got me into the hobby as an adult. While I'm starting to branch out into other fish now, there's probably always going to be a school of GloTetras in one of my tanks. 

My frustrations with these fish have more to do with the corporate greed that surrounds them than anything to do with their nature. The blue LED that makes these fish look their best also makes it impossible to grow plants other than anubias. This leads sterile looking tanks full of artificial Glofish™️ branded decorations, maintained by water treatments and carbon filtration. While Glofish™️ got me into the hobby they also burnt me out because of how creatively unfulfilling I found them.

Part of me will always appreciate how much color they can add to a tank, part of me will always get a kick out of their garish and artificial nature, but it felt so good to get rid of that blue LED and get some plants going.

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On 6/23/2021 at 6:16 PM, ARMYVET said:

I can see the good side of that absolutely...but what if by eradicating that beetle causes the extinction of something else like some bird that eats it.  That would be bad.  Unless that bird is eating my Koi....then all bets are off!! 

 

Yeah, see -- that's what I worry about with GMO, that it happens so quickly (as opposed to basic animal husbandry / breeding, which can take many generations) that we cannot really know what the long-term ramifications will be. Is it possible that mosquitoes serve some vital function of which we are unaware (probably not)?

Also, the law needs to catch up to the realities of genetic engineering. Does a person have the exclusive rights to their own DNA? Are all extant species DNA essentially public domain? It seems to me that some of these corporations are aware of how wary the public is and so they introduce these developments in clever way, PR positive ways -- glowfish helping us find toxic waste, etc.

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I don't like them mainly because they are a closed-source fish. I prefer open source software and definitely want to be legally allowed to breed a fish. I'm not a fan of GMO in general. The idea that one day a single company will be able to tell you that you can't grow tomatoes is ludicrous not to mention dangerous.

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On 6/24/2021 at 11:42 AM, sudofish said:

definitely want to be legally allowed to breed a fish.

Point of clarification...

You are free to breed, just not free to distribute or profit from this activity.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is ludicrous too.

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