Joke Collection Website - Joke collection - Are there monsters in this world?

Are there monsters in this world?

Maybe after reading the following, you will find that there are more terrible things in the world than monsters. I hope it works for you.

The most dangerous and terrible thing in the world is not human cloning, genetically modified organisms, stem cells, artificial intelligence or nuclear weapons.

The story happened in a seminar. Someone talks about the "horror" of genetically modified crops on the stage, but I'm really not interested in arguing with him. As a person who deals with science news all day, there is nothing better than using cliches to describe those sensational statements about genetically modified crops.

After the seminar, everyone had dinner together and a dish was placed on the table. That's a suckling pig leg. I have always thought that eating pigs is a very uneconomical thing. Look, a pig has only four legs. In order to make such a dish, several pigs are needed as raw materials. It would be great if a transgenic pig could be bred and made to have more legs. I know that there are some genes that can control the number of animal feet. Immersed in this fantasy, I blurted out at the dinner table: I think genetically modified pigs should be used

But this sentence is like a fork hitting the person next to it. "genetically modified? Can you still eat? " Someone turned to ask me. This sentence also brought me back from thinking: although I have refuted the anti-GM cliché on the Internet or in newspapers, this is the first time in my life. I picked up a suckling pig leg with chopsticks and turned to ask him: Why do you think transgenic is terrible?

Every era has all kinds of terrible things circulating: solar and lunar eclipses thousands of years ago; Hundreds of years ago, vampires and werewolves, then steam engines and cameras. But now these "terrible" things have changed their taste-solar and lunar eclipses are festivals for astronomy lovers; Vampires and werewolves appear in movies and TV just for fun; People no longer regard the steam engine as an ominous thing. In fact, people seldom see such backward machinery. As for cameras, in an era when you can buy stupid cameras for tens of dollars, the saying that "taking pictures will be taken away" can only be a very cold joke.

But the terrible legend itself will not die. If we want to establish a ranking list and select the most terrible legends of this era, then I can guarantee that cloning and transgenic will rank first, and robots and artificial intelligence can also be selected if you like.

Obviously, some remarks about genetic modification, from a scientific point of view, are as absurd as the werewolf legend. But these statements are still popular. Searching for "genetically modified" on the Internet, it is easy to find such statements as "rejecting genetically modified", "a product does not contain genetically modified" and "choosing health without genetically modified". Obviously, the "transgenic" here has become a real substance, just like dioxin or DDT. Do you want to eat DDT? Of course not! What about genetic modification?

Golden rice: genetically modified rice rich in carotene

The answer may be simple and clear: in fact, genetic modification does not belong to DDT. Strictly speaking, it is not even a noun. "Transgenic" (literally "genetically modified") organisms are biologically modified organisms, which usually introduce genes into the genome of an organism, but such genes do not exist originally. For example, a famous transgenic crop-often called "golden rice"-introduced genes that promote carotene production into rice genome. Because carotene is the "raw material" for human body to synthesize vitamin A, and in many developing countries, children often die because of lack of vitamin A, this transgenic rice acts like iodized salt in iodine-deficient areas. In other words, eating this "genetically modified" is actually eating more carotene. Do you panic about carotene? I don't think so, but what if you add "genetically modified" before its name?

Of course, not all genetically modified organisms are beneficial, but the word "genetically modified" is certainly not another way of saying "toxic". If something about transgenic is really dangerous, it should be ignorance of transgenic technology. Ignorance is the most dangerous.

There is no credible evidence that a clone has been born. Another famous example is cloning. 1996 When Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep, was born, the word "cloning" suddenly became a common word, which was associated with all kinds of terrible legends: cloning Hitler's terror, cloning terrorists and even cloning ordinary people. The popular picture is that many identical babies are crowded together-obviously it is not a cloned product, but a masterpiece of image processing software Photoshop.

But if we carefully observe the cloning technology, these terrible legends are actually not terrible: it is almost impossible to clone Hitler, because no one deliberately preserved his DNA. Even if his DNA is intact, his memory cannot be inherited, so even if Hitler is cloned, he can't make waves. As for whether cloning ordinary people will cause any panic, it is unlikely, because cloned individuals still need time to grow and develop. Of course, opposition from religion is another matter, but religion, as a belief, cannot interfere with science.

To put it simply, although today's cloning technology is not perfect, it is not a technology to destroy the world. If you understand what cloning technology is all about, it is just as hard for you to believe the terrible story about cloning as it is for you to believe that the camera will take your soul away. Of course, once I discussed the issue of human cloning with others, when I explained the meaning of cloning by excluding religious factors, the other party still denied human cloning on the grounds of "unnatural". I gave up further argument and thought, "Then why don't you also reject' unnatural' penicillin?" )

Headlines are a very unique part of newspapers and magazines. For example, the title of a pun can add color to an article. But headlines can also become boring gimmicks. For example, last month (165438+ 10), a newspaper published a news article "American scientists secretly created mixed-race animals", describing that some American scientists "secretly" created many "Hermanas" (monsters in Greek mythology), which made people feel that a new generation of werewolves or vampires were born in the laboratory.

"What is the essential difference between today's American scientists and the medical madman who concocts half-man, half-beast monsters in the Welsh science fiction Dr. Muru Island?" The news finally questioned. Of course there is a difference. The difference is that the author himself wrote a very serious topic at sixes and sevens. In fact, the experiments mentioned in this news are all normal experiments about stem cell research. For example, transplanting human brain cells into the brains of experimental mice can study nervous system diseases such as Parkinson's disease; Transplanting hematopoietic stem cells into pigs can test the safety of transplanting pig hearts into human bodies. It is not a new idea to use pigs as donors for human organ transplantation. Through the transformation of pigs, organs can be more suitable for human body.

Even an ordinary fact, if described in different ways, may have a shocking effect. Consider the following title: "Scientists have bred pigs that are 90% identical to the human genome". Maybe someone will immediately think of "pig man" (or "human pig", whatever you say) mixed blood. This sounds a bit scary, but the fact is that the similarity between the pig genome and the human genome is about 90%. Some species are closer to people than pigs, and it may be better to use them as titles to attract people's attention.

If you know that people and other animals are not so black and white, then the topic of transplanting human stem cells into animals is not so terrible. Of course, experimental mice with human brain cells are not monsters because they have too few neurons. Otherwise, why not homo erectus with a small brain capacity, but we have established civilization?

Another newspaper commented on the news, "This is absolutely a chilling thing ... When the development of science transcends the boundaries of human ethics and becomes unstoppable, how will we face the orcs in the Welsh science fiction Dr. Moro Island who are vicious in nature but have been innocently transformed? ..... In addition to waiting for the arrival of the legendary hero Belle Luofeng who killed Chmela, what can human beings wait for? "

Such a comment is as irrelevant as the news it comments on. If there is anything to wait for except the arrival of Bellerophon, I hope that simple biological knowledge (high school seems to be enough) can come to most people. The main purpose of writing this article is not to explain transgenic or human cloning, let alone to explain the progress of stem cell research. There is something more dangerous than them, and it is called ignorance. Of course, I respect the public's participation in discussing scientific issues-this in itself is the progress of the times. But any discussion should be based on a clear understanding of the facts and essence of the problem: if you don't know something, how can you draw a correct conclusion about it? Cloning technology, transgene and stem cells are all interesting topics, but ignorance and some people's pride in ignorance are destroying the basis of discussion.

Let me go back to the thing at the beginning of the article. When I explained to others what genetically modified means, at least a few people eased their hostility towards genetically modified, and even one person said to me, "I don't think genetically modified is that terrible." This is an interesting example. I can't convince everyone at once, but it shows the importance of facts to the discussion.