Genetic engineering is a reality that’s time has come, and it offers incredible benefits for all of us. Instead of stonewalling with questions of morals and ethics, science needs to be allowed to continue the march of progress forward. The only way to do this is with more testing on plants and animals.

Earlier this year, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization held a conference on bio-technology.

It was reported that even though the world population growth rate is decreasing, it is still positive and the number of people may tax the ability of current agricultural methods.

The U.N. concluded that the genetic engineering of plants would allow poor and impoverished nations to grow crops on marginal lands, as well as increasing their yield.

It was also pointed out that this would reduce the need for pesticides.

In this instance, advances on the cutting edge can benefit the people who need it the most, and that alone should convince the most ardent techno phobes that genetic engineering is a good thing.

Only last week, Princeton scientists reported they had genetically engineered mice to possess increased intelligence and learning capacity. Their findings, reported in Nature, revealed that by inserting a gene into the mice they were able to increase production of neurotransmitters responsible for learning.

Though the scientists have found a corresponding gene in humans, they cautioned that research might not be viewed as ethical. This is hardly new.

Critics of genetic engineering believe manipulation of the human genome is wrong, and that we don’t have the right to “play God” with ourselves. Yet there is little difference between genetically engineering a person and allowing nature to take its course.

On the one hand, you intentionally alter something to produce a desired trait, whereas on the other you rely on chance or “divine intervention.” One way is no more wrong than the other, and the ethics question that genetic engineering faces is a fictitious argument.

Since we know most physical attributes that people possess are inherited from their parents, genetically engineering someone is no more different than intentionally marrying someone tall in the hopes that your children will be tall.

Even if you do not pick a spouse solely by their physical characteristics, you are mindful of them. Who is naive enough to ignore a family history of heart disease or Alzheimer’s?

Genetic engineering allows you to weed out negative traits and replace them with better ones. People seem unified in using advances in genetics to try and stop multiple sclerosis or other genetic defects, but waffle at the notion of actually improving humanity.

I must say I am excited at the prospect of using gene therapy to improve memory. Tweaking the genes of people would allow us to leapfrog thousands of years of evolution with minimal risks, and the benefits are far greater than standardized test scores or the ability to recite every line from “Spaceballs.”.

Recent experiments involving genetic engineering have allowed scientists at Harvard to grow artificial bladders for dogs. Although a small step, the scientists believe they can use the research to treat the 400 million people who suffer from bladder disease.

Also of importance is the prospect that those methods can be used to grow new organs for people.

Though only 4,000 people die annually in the United States while waiting for an organ transplant, new organs could extend our lifespans.

I am an ardent believer in science, and I hold hope that advances in it will benefit the rest of us. Apparently, I am not the only person with that belief. Last year the Swiss people overwhelmingly rejected (67 percent) a ban on the research and production of genetically modified plants, animals, and produce.

The move, which would have shackled company research, was driven by fears that “tampering with genes posed incalculable risks for the environment (CNN, June 7, 1998).”

Critics of genetic research warned that we know too little about the consequences of letting genetically modified organisms into the food chain. Apparently, the environmentalists and technophobes feel that the best way to learn anything is to do as little research as possible and then guess at the outcome.

The truth is that for us to get anywhere, research and testing must be done so that we can understand why things work.

While all testing should meet ethical standards in that no creature is treated inhumanely, we should not sit on our hands and allow the opportunity of the century to pass us by. Genetic engineering can solve a number of critical problems facing us today.

But if used wisely, it can provide us with undreamed of opportunity to advance us as a species.

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Aaron Woell is a senior in political science from Bolingbrook, Ill.