Designer Fish

[Allmost]

ok, they are very different.

your comparing oranges with apples.

look your comparing genetic medicine and genetic cloning with geneticly modified pets.
remove genetics and your comparing medice and cloning with modified pets.

yes science has resulted in many wonderful medical advancements, what more does that have to do with me buying a glowing fish than i will live longer to view it?

okay, I'm confused now :S

you are saying the scientist that made glowing fish should not have done so right ?

I have 2 questions for u,

1. how about me who likes glowing fish or the new clowns lol (I will get back to this)

2. who is there to draw the line, to say u can experiment with this but not that ? look at our history, look at history of science, advancements have been made by ppl who tried different thing, ppl who had a dream, who knows maybe the glowing fish scientist had a dream of a glowing fish and made his dreams come true, I say good job to him !! he scientifically modified a fish, beautiful, now that he has so much knowledge, lets do more usefull changes, lets make SPS corals grow faster, lets make SPS corals not care about temp ! lets save our oceans


OF COURSE, in order to get ther, many other experiemtns will be dine like glowing fish and they will be offered in market to fund those studies.


medication, lets see, some pills save ure life, some like viagra do other stuff ! did you tell the person who made Viagra the same thing ? some ppl find it discusting to use viagra, some live for it ! who are we to say which one is wrong ?


u gotta apply my examples to this situation

 

[ctenophors rule]

okay, I'm confused now :S

you are saying the scientist that made glowing fish should not have done so right ?

NO! lol i thought my previous posts suggested my stance on GMP's.

im saying that genetics for medicine, agriculture, eugenics, GMO's, GMP's, cloning, making super soldiers, and viral warfare, and perfect workers, whatever else are all seperate issues.

all because it uses genetic engineering desn't mean it is the same.

geneticaly modifying pets has absolutely nuthing to do with geneticaly modifying super weaponry.

please we are realy off topic now, lets try and bring this back on course.

 

[Allmost]

NO! lol i thought my previous posts suggested my stance on GMP's.

im saying that genetics for medicine, agriculture, eugenics, GMO's, GMP's, cloning, making super soldiers, and viral warfare, and perfect workers, whatever else are all seperate issues.

all because it uses genetic engineering desn't mean it is the same.

geneticaly modifying pets has absolutely nuthing to do with geneticaly modifying super weaponry.

please we are realy off topic now, lets try and bring this back on course.

you fail to see that a pet is also an animal

that's the ISsue lol


no fish was named PET and its brothers animals at birth

 

[ctenophors rule]

you fail to see that a pet is also an animal

that's the ISsue lol


no fish was named PET and its brothers animals at birth

pet animal doesn't matter call it a flibityflobity floo for all i care. nm

ackee,

our aquariums are nothing like nature, that is one of the few things inherent to our hobby

chimeras are animals with human like inteligent, far from glowing fish.

also, genetic variance is what allows for some fish to look and act different than others of the same species. in the wild, meaning fish that you buy allready have a very high chance of having mutated genes.

in order for a built in kill switch to malfunction highly unlikely mutations would have to occur first. oh and these mutations would have to occur in an area where the fishes counterpart lives naturaly in order for them to breed, unless you want to go the even more proposterous route that it is able to mate with another of the same species that an aquarist released. oh and without these built in kill switched every fish released has the chance to reproduce, not just the rare (and i mean so rare as to possibly never happen) mutated ones.

 

[ackee]

Cten, look up chimera in a real (not on-line) dictionary. The word is not from a videogame; it is ancient, and has two meanings: a frightening and horrific Frankenstinian blend of more than one species, and, most commonly, an hallucination, as in "you are pursuing a chimera when you seek absolute truth".

Almost, spend some time in old cemeteries. Many people lived to well past 80 in past centuries. In any case, I have no objections whatever to medical advances, including cloning to produce body parts, and, for that matter, every other type of scientific advance. My statement was that genetically manipulated fish are grotesque, and dangerous in the hands of the general population because of the inevitable intermixing with wild populations. The ugliness is a personal opinion. The hazards are not, and have absolutely nothing to do with the restriction of scientific research, any more than restricting the ornamental use of radioactive substances does.

 

[ctenophors rule]

Cten, look up chimera in a real (not on-line) dictionary. The word is not from a videogame

what, i dont even play video games lol i wish i had that kind of time (or lack of will)

it is ancient

many words of anctient time develope different meanings later on. and when i heard that definition it was on an online lecture from either ucla, yale, or mit.

but alright to each his own.

 

[ackee]

Touchy! I'm glad you don't play video games. I never have, but I've seen 'chimera' misused often (English professor), and traced the misunderstanding to some video games that have, I'm told, a character by that name. The definition I gave is correct. Check it out. It is also a current definition. The word is derived from classical Greek, hence ancient: its meaning is not.

I'm not sure how you came up with a definition from hearing the word used in a lecture, unless the lecturer defined it for the audience, suggesting that the audience was not especially sophisticated. If that is what happened, the lecturer may not have fully understood the meaning of the word, and been aware only of its hybrid species implication without knowing that the original idea behind the word was that the result of such mixing of species is a monster. It's from the frightening monster concept, the stuff of nightmares, that the hallucinatory usage evolved. It's most commonly used these days to describe an unreal, or unrealizable dream.

The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language gives a fascinating history of the word, if you're interested and have the time. I have to confess that I sometimes use it to flush out those who think they know the meaning, but really do not. A quixotic occupational hazard of mine, I suppose.

 

[solastsummer]

i hope when somone sees my english bulldog they dont think "what a hedious creature, it cant even reproduce, it should not exist"

 

[WTyson]

Ackee, do you own any other pets?

Also, one must realize that we (marine enthusiasts) are currently (and possibly unknowingly) genetically modifying our pets (fish, and most certainly coral) simply by the fact that only specimens that survive in our tank have any possibly chance of reproducing (assuming captive breeding). The fact that fish who do not adapt well to our aquarium environments do not reproduce, means that the genes that prevent them from adapting are selected against (natural selection).

now, lets say one of our many captivly raised species (clownfish) were to be reintroduced into the wild after lets say 50 generations of captive breeding, and lets further state that this fish mates with the general population. Would that not cause a shift in the genotype of the population towards the genotype most favored by man. (see this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy–Weinberg_principle)

Is captive breeding wrong (i know this is not your exact argument, and that you most likely do not have a problem with captive breeding), however there is not fundamental difference between this and isolating certain genes from a particular specimen - the snowflake gene in clown fish - and integrating it into the genome of an egg cell, fertilizing that egg cell and then cloning that egg to produce a large number of snowflake clown fish.

While the later method is a much more direct route to getting the specimen we (humanity) wants, its is in no way different than the more subtle former method.

Lastly, mother nature has "created" many chimeras before as well.

 

[ludnix]

I don't understand why it would be an ethical issue. Releasing genetically modified or selectively bred fish into the wild would present pragmatic issues, but that is not inherent in genetically modified fish existing.

 

[ackee]

Mother Nature has not created very many mixed species, and certainly almost no mixed genera. Mixed species include 'Townsend' angelfish and a number of other animals that are really intergrades between closely related species. Mules, of course, are the result of human intervention, and sterile. I think English Bulldogs are handsome animals. My remarks were limited to genetically engineered fish. Still, it's frequently harmful to release offspring into the wild from animals of the same species that have originated from different habitats. Some conspecific reptiles, for example, have many inherited traits, including diet and brumation cycles, that reflect local conditions.

In addition to fish, most of which I have collected, I have a parrot, three cats, and two turtles that live in my garden. I once had a very rare Caribbean island Boa that I eventually donated to a captive breeding program. The species is nearly extinct in its home island, and was extremely valuable to the project because it was genetically unmixed. Reptile fanciers have interbred this commercially unobtainable species with related snakes from other areas. The project is dedicated to preserving species threatned with extinction, and hybrids are of no value in this kind of endeavor.

 

[lostanime]

I've heard quite a few practical reasons for concern with this practice (mainly, how it will affect the wild if captive bred/selectively bred/genetically modified specimens get loose, which time has proven again and again, will eventually happen) The flipside in my mind being, we are using the ocean as a huge CO2 sink, and are steadily making it more acidic... destroying the reefs, and changing the dynamic and balance of life regardless.

I've also heard quite a few ethical reasons as to why we shouldn't subject animals to this. This is a reef forum though. These creatures did not originally come from tiny glass cages. The hobby in general is not pursued out of the best interest of animals. It's pursued for our own selfish, personal reasons (enjoyment, research, pride, etc) I'm not saying we should stop keeping tanks, but capturing fish to stick in glass boxes by and large isn't done out of best interests for the fish.

I haven't heard much on religious reasons why we shouldn't do this. [Edit] - removed to avoid going in a direction I shouldn't

 

[billsreef]

I haven't heard much on religious reasons why we shouldn't do this.

The [ua] makes that area of discussion one in which we can't go. So you get to consider this the first warning

 

[lostanime]

Oops... thanks Bill! Just edited original post

 

[billsreef]

Glowing cichlids are next, expected to hit the market in 2012. Anyone who doesn't think these fish getting out into the environment is a problem should take a good hard look at areas like south Florida where non native cichlids run rampant. History has shown we have a very good and long track record of having any captive species we keep getting out into the wild. No reason to believe these transgenic fish won't be any different.

 

[GreshamH]

They'll be banned from Cali before they hit the market

One thing I thought about when they banned GloFish in Cali is, wouldn't it be easier for nighttime prey to capture Glofish? Oh oops, GloFish™

 

[billsreef]

Don't you mean nighttime predator's having an easier time catching glowing prey?

 

[GreshamH]

Sure do :lol:

 

[ctenophors rule]

Glowing cichlids are next, expected to hit the market in 2012. Anyone who doesn't think these fish getting out into the environment is a problem should take a good hard look at areas like south Florida where non native cichlids run rampant. History has shown we have a very good and long track record of having any captive species we keep getting out into the wild. No reason to believe these transgenic fish won't be any different.

if a kill switch were to be put in, wouldn't that make them safer than normal fish?

 

[WTyson]

But they will be easy to find in the wild.... they do glow under black light


imagine if all of the unwanted transplant species glowed.