Science continues to evolve at a much higher rate than the beings that gave it birth. The transformation time from ape, to human far exceeds the time from an abbacus, to a computer. However, science, in the past, has always remained distant, it has allowed for advances in production, transportation, and even entertainment, but never in history has science be able to so deeply affect our lives as genetic engineering will undoubtedly do. With the birth of this new technology, scientific extremists and anti-technologists have risen in arms to block its future by spreading fear by misinterpretation of facts; However, genetic engineering is a safe and powerful tool that will yield unprecedented results, specifically in the field of medicine; by which it will usher in a world where gene defects, bacterial disease, and even aging are a thing of the past! .
Understanding genetic engineering and its possibilities for society, is to obtain a rough knowledge of its history and method. The basis for altering the evolutionary process is dependant on the understanding of how individuals pass on characteristics to their offspring. Genetics first discoverey of the secrets of nature's evolutionary process is when an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel developed the first "laws of heredity." These early laws concluded that each organism has two sets of character determinants, or genes. Genes are transmitted through chromosomes which reside in the nucleus of every living organism's cells. Each chromosome is made up of fine strands of deoxyribonucleic acids, or DNA. The information carried on the DNA determines the cells function within the organism. DNA discovery is attributed to the research of three scientists, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and James Dewey Watson in 1951. They were all later accredited with the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1962.
Thank's to the these scientists discovery, the new science of genetic engineering aims to take a dramatic short cut in the slow process of evolution.
