Coming from the sciences, the very idea that we understand enough of the biological world to start real world irreparable changes to the code of organisms is hilariously terrible and reeks of unfathomable levels of hubris that will invariably backfire before failing to deliver the goal.
The example I keep coming back to is the wife spread evolution of plastic digestion in the last thirty years. Failed spectacularly in the lab, but we're seeing it happen real time because of the selective pressure and prevalence of plastics.
Paragraph 1: totally understood. Couldn’t agree with you more.
Paragraph 2: can you expand on that? New info to me.
They've been trying to develop organisms that can digest plastic, to help clean up all the landfills and other tiny bits of plastic everywhere in the environment. Apparently those haven't been very successful. But, apparently such organisms have developed via natural selection in the environment, without our help, simply because there is so much plastic in everything now, and any organism that "figures" out how to digest it will have an evolutionary benefit. Evolution > human engineering.
Yes plus I believe they also found or engineered a mushroom that can break down plastic as well.
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