Posted by Brad
on May 21, 2009, 2:51 pm, in reply to "Re: playing genitic roulette"
When it comes to breeding animals of any species guidelines are like many other things that are complicated, very controversial, opinionated, influenced by science, religion, culture, experience, as well as stupidity and lack of knowledge. I do not agree that you can not create a breed if you know what you are trying to create. Breeds of dogs are mans creation and like baking cookies you add your ingredients to produce a specific taste. My chocolate chip cookies may not taste exactly like yours but people will still accept them as chocolate chip cookies. If there is good record of the way a breed was created and a person knows the breed well enough it could be recreated from "scratch". Although making a designer dog is not as easy as making cookies and obviously takes much longer and more extensive knowledge. Unlike cookies breeding dogs is dealing with a life form and if you screw up you can not (although many will) toss them out and start over. It may only take 50 years to make a breed but it may take 100 or longer to recreate it. Producing a designer dog is simply selective breading and humans have been doing it with plants and animals for thousands of years, it is nothing new. It is unfortunate that careless people destroy in a short time what took much longer to carefully create.
Today's genetics technology is far more advanced than most people realize. Not only can we recreate lost dog breeds but we can recreate lost species. At this point in our technology it is not about what we can do but should we do it. If you do not believe me I understand as many people are still in the dark about the possibilities of today's science. I still get people that argue with me that we can produce lab created diamonds. If you would like to stay in the group that feels ignorance is bliss than go ahead. For those that find this interesting, than open your eyes and do some research. Sorry if this has offended anyone.
We can make plants that glow when they need watering. We can genetically engineer bacteria to produce medicine for us that they normally would not produce. We are on the edge of being able to grow organs in a lab for people in need of transplants with the patients own tissue and DNA so there is no organ rejection. This is all reality, not science fiction anymore. Creating a dog breed is in a way, old technology and unfortunately many people that are breeding dogs now a days probably could not name the 4 nucleotides that make up deoxyribonuleic acid (DNA) let alone know any advanced information about the process they are man handling.
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